I’m Not Done with You Yet

Jesse Q. Sutanto. Berkley, $27 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593546-91-8

Mina delivers a truly surprising plot. Noir fans will hope Mina returns to the mean streets of L.A. again soon. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary. (Aug.)

Sutanto (Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers) keeps readers off-balance in this entertaining thriller. When halfwhite, half–Chinese American Jane Morgan—who happily self-identifies as a sociopath—enters Oxford’s creative writing program, she feels out of place, unsure of her talent and how to fit in with the school’s insular, lily-white student body. Her transition is eased by Thalia Ashcroft, a gifted and popular peer who takes Jane under her wing. Jane, however, is jealous of anyone else interested in Thalia, and their time together ends with an unspecified act of violence. Nine years later, Jane is unhappily married in San Francisco, with two published but unsuccessful novels. The past comes knocking when she reads one morning that Thalia, whom she hasn’t heard from in years, has made the New York Times bestseller list with her debut novel—the plot of which suggests it was inspired by the pair’s relationship. After some social media sleuthing, Jane flies cross-country to reconnect with Thalia at a genre convention in New York City, opening old wounds and inflicting new ones in the process. Even readers anticipating some of the twists Sutanto lines up will be entertained by Jane’s ice-cold narration (“Californians just can’t help themselves. If I stayed there any longer I was bound to kill someone. Just kidding. Sort of”). It adds up to a wickedly enjoyable treatise on the dark sides of female friendship. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary. (Aug.)