Kill Yours, Kill Mine

September 2, 2024
Grieving women sign up for Strangers on a Train–style revenge in this brisk spine-tingler from Kovacic (Just Murdered). Naomi has never gotten over the death of her sister, Jo, who was stabbed several years ago by her abusive rugby player husband. Encouraged by her therapist, Mia DeVries, to join a support group for traumatized women, Naomi soon learns that the five other members of the group also lost a sister to a violent partner. Mia offers the women a surprising solution to their anger and despair: murder. Each woman—including the soft-spoken Gabrielle, abrasive Amy, and no-nonsense Katy—will target the killer of another group member’s sibling, bringing along a second member for backup. Shocked but willing, Mia agrees, hoping the plan will bring her the closure no amount of therapy ever has. Kovacic’s dialogue sometimes clangs (multiple characters say they’d “do anything to make that bastard pay”), and the narrative structure grows repetitive by the end, but nauseating statistics about domestic abuse and a potent streak of righteous anger hold the proceedings together. Readers will take a grisly satisfaction in seeing these women mete out vengeance. Agent: Fiona Henderson, Bold Type.

October 1, 2024
Six women consumed by rage take justice into their own hands. Naomi's skeptical of the therapy that hasn't helped her come to terms with the murder of her sister and the fact that the killer walks free. She reluctantly goes to her therapist Mia's group meeting, where she meets Amy, Gabrielle, Katy, Brooke, and Olivia, all women whose sisters were killed by significant others who went unpunished. At first Naomi's shocked when Mia mentionsStrangers on a Train as providing a pattern for the women to arrange the deaths of their sisters' killers so that the suspect with a motive has an ironclad alibi. They'll work in groups of two and carry out each murder by different means so that no pattern is established. Agreeing to go ahead with the plan, the women pair up and meticulously plot each death to look like an accident. As a mining engineer, Naomi helps Katy plan how to take the first target, an opal miner, with Olivia as her backup. Well planned and well executed, the project goes off without a hitch, but it's too much to hope that none of the others will meet problems. Perhaps the most dangerous problem is Detective Senior Sergeant Fiona Ulbrick, who's not happy about victims of domestic abuse who died in so-called accidents while their abusers were acquitted. After several of the men die, Ulbrick begins to notice a pattern after all, but can she prove--does she even want to prove--that the men were murdered? A harrowing story of the moral ambiguities surrounding justice denied.

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November 1, 2024
Australian author Kovacic explores vigilante-style sisterhood in Kill Yours, Kill Mine (2024), previously released in Australia as Seven Sisters (2023). Six Melbourne women join a women's therapy group to deal with grief from the loss of their sisters due to domestic abuse. Pleiades, named after the seven companions to the Goddess of the Hunt in Greek mythology, is a group led by counselor Mia Devries. Together, the women embark on a Strangers on a Train-esque plot to kill the men who caused their sisters' deaths. Each woman sets out to kill one of the others' sister's abuser, leaving behind no apparent motive. Will Detective Sergeant Fiona Ulbrick solve the case, or will the women get away with murder? This fast-paced revenge thriller sensitively approaches the impact of domestic abuse on the family members left behind. Told through the perspectives of each woman, Kovacic's latest thrillingly expresses the tension of the characters' strength, empowerment, guilt, and need for retribution. Recommended for readers of Deanna Raybourn and Layne Fargo.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.