The Author Weekend
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
The Devil Wears Prada meets The White Lotus in a story of colliding egos and shocking betrayal, as intoxicatingly ice cold as the pink prosecco that flows all weekend.
Everything needs to be just right for bestselling mystery writer Faye Wader’s first-ever fan weekend. Her sales might be slipping—only a little!—but her readers still love her enough to pony up for three days and two nights on Great Misery Island. The retreat is precisely planned, from the small-batch artisanal doughnuts to the perimenopausal Mermaid Meditation, by Faye and her beleaguered assistant, Jade—an aspiring author who can’t seem to finish her own novel.
Faye’s longtime agent and editor will be there, as well as Faye’s number one fan, Peggy Mercer, who has been first in line at every one of Faye’s events. When news comes that the weekend will be crashed by glamorous, charismatic rival novelist Abby Schuss, Faye thinks things can’t get worse … until one of the attendees is found dead in her room, setting off an unexpectedly murderous chain of events that makes prepub anxiety seem like a day at the beach. How far is Faye willing to go to get exactly what she wants from her Author Weekend?
The Author Weekend is a thrilling and hilarious dive into the dark heart of envy, and a glorious exploration of a woman of a certain age desperate to survive the dog-eat-dog world of publishing and control her own narrative.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Zigman (Small World) skewers the publishing industry in this sly closed-circle whodunit. Faye Wader is the bestselling author of a mystery series featuring a math teacher-turned-gumshoe. Despite her success, she's desperately jealous of Abby Schuss, a romantasy author with a larger fanbase. To narrow the gap between them, Faye plans a fan weekend on Massachusetts's Great Misery Island. Fifty of her admirers sign up, including superfan Peggy Mercer. The ensuing events are recounted from the perspectives of Faye; her long-suffering assistant, Jade Smythe, who's secretly invited Abby to the event for a panel; her agent, Hal Tinder, who fears he can't sell Faye's 15th novel given its emphasis on the protagonist's menopausal anxieties; and her editor, Merry Golden. The weekend takes a turn when one of the guests dies, possibly by poisoning, and the remaining crew of mystery experts is left to unravel the case. The satire can be a bit heavy-handed: waiters describe the doughnuts available on Great Misery Island as "locally sourced," and Faye's publisher is called Hatchet House. Still, Zigman delivers a fizzy combination of send-up and murder mystery. It's good fun.
