After 14 bestsellers, mystery author Faye Wader is worried she's losing her touch as well as her loyal following, so hosting an island getaway for 50 fans seems just the ticket to secure her status. In The Author Weekend by Laura Zigman (Separation Anxiety), the fretting Faye entreats her capable, exhausted assistant, Jade, to maximize the activities ("Books. Beach. Booze. Buzz.") for their weekend at Great Misery Island, Mass. Fueling Faye's hope is her obsession with besting her nemesis, romantasy-suspense author Abby Schuss and her legendary fan gatherings. Jade notes that Faye "wants what Abby has: the highest level of success and adulation." The anxious author's hopes are dashed, however, when Abby arrives on the ferry with Faye's agent, Hal, and editor, Merry. And in learning that her number-one fan has discovered her deepest secret, one that could end her career, Faye turns quietly desperate, with deadly results.
Zigman structures The Author Weekend to great suspense as it segues from famous-author rivalry and prosecco-fueled festivities to a darker theme. Faye, Jade, Hal, and Merry narrate alternating chapters, each revealing an angle that forecasts impending doom. Dishy references to the publishing world are fitting for a novel about highly ambitious writers. Hal and Merry debate rejecting Faye's latest manuscript, while Faye's cavalier approach to unexplained deaths mirrors how her novels' protagonist might react. Comedic subplots include a hilarious spoof of a publicist and her social-media-celebrity cat, giving The Author Weekend a balance of desperate envy and satire. --Cheryl McKeon, The Book House, Albany, N.Y.