All the Little Houses
A Novel
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3.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
"May Cobb’s most explosive book yet. And trust me, that’s saying a lot." —Jeneva Rose
"Nobody does explosive and twisted like May Cobb does it." —Lisa Jewell
Adults can behave badly too...
It's the mid-1980s in the tiny town of Longview, Texas. Nellie Anderson, the beautiful daughter of the Anderson family dynasty, has burst onto the scene. She always gets what she wants. What she can’t get for herself… well, that’s what her mother is for. Because Charleigh Andersen, blond, beautiful, and ruthlessly cunning, remembers all too well having to claw her way to the top. When she was coming of age on the poor side of East Texas, she was a loser, an outcast, humiliated, and shunned by the in-crowd, whose approval she’d so desperately thirsted for. When a prairie-kissed family moves to town, all trad wife, woodworking dad, wholesome daughter vibes, Charleigh’s entire self-made social empire threatens to crumble.
Who will be left standing when the dust settles?
From the author of The Hunting Wives comes a deliciously wicked new thriller about mean girls, mean moms, and the delicious secrets inside all the little houses.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
From the hair to the egos to the rivalries, this unputdownable read lives up to the adage that everything is bigger in Texas—especially ’80s Texas. Charleigh Andersen and her spoiled teen daughter, Nellie, rule over the small town of Longview through limitless wealth and mean-girl viciousness. But when the charismatic Swift family moves to town, the social hierarchy turns on its head, sending Charleigh and Nellie into a meltdown—the kind that leads to murder. We were hooked by this juicy setup. The Swifts don’t just steal the spotlight; with their earnest, live-off-the-land ethos and natural, sun-kissed beauty, they beguile Longview in ways the Andersens can’t upstage with money or stamp out through bullying. People actually like the Swifts for being hardworking and poor. But of course, nothing is simple in a May Cobb novel, and when the twists, revelations, and stabs in the back start coming, they don’t stop until the final shocking truth is revealed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A striving Texas mother gets mixed up in violent business in this juicy thriller from bestseller Cobb (The Hollywood Assistant). In the small East Texas town of Longview, Charleigh Andersen may be filthy rich, but it's all new money, and her daughter, Nellie, doesn't fit in with the children of the town's true queen bees. Then farm girl Jane Swift arrives in Longview, and rather than being ostracized for her homemade clothes or her agrarian lifestyle, she's embraced by Nellie's frenemies. Soon, Jane's entire family becomes popular, much to Charleigh's bafflement. When one of Longview's elite teens is seriously injured in an accident, Jane and Nellie both fall under suspicion, and Charleigh does everything she can to control the situation. Before long, though, her efforts go awry—with deadly consequences. Cobb toggles between the perspectives of Charleigh, Jane, and Nellie to unfold this intricate tale of secrets and lies, which gets a lot of mileage out of its soapy twists before arriving at a strangely abrupt conclusion. A sequel would be welcome.
