Cover

Praise for

Who Did You Tell?

“Instantly immersive, then intriguing, then insanely suspenseful, then…the truth. Believe me, Lesley Kara knows what she’s doing.”

—Lee Child

“Lesley Kara does an excellent job of making readers’ heads spin as we are forced constantly to change our minds about who is ally and who enemy.”

—Sunday Express

“I couldn’t put it down! If you loved The Rumor, you’ll love this one too.”

—Lauren North, author of The Perfect Son

Praise for

The Rumor

“In this chilling tale of paranoia, suspicion, and accusation, Lesley Kara keeps you guessing until the final page.”

—Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train

“A great debut with a slyly clever premise and a roller-coaster ride to the very last sentence.”

—Fiona Barton, New York Times bestselling author of The Widow and The Child

“An intriguing premise, a creeping sense of dread, and a twist you won’t see coming…Everyone is going to be talking about The Rumor.”

—Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door

“A brilliant premise with a killer twist, The Rumor depicts the prejudices and secrets that simmer in a small seaside town to devastating effect.”

—Colette McBeth, author of An Act of Silence

“Lesley Kara’s gripping debut offers a series of red herrings and twists….The evocation of the way in which idle chatter can spiral into something potentially deadly is beautifully done and fans of page-turning suspense novels should lap it up.”

—The Guardian

“Well-developed characters and a twisty plot will keep readers turning the pages. Those who stay to the very last sentence will be doubly surprised. Kara is off to a promising start.”

—Publishers Weekly

“This mystery has an unusual and resonant theme—how a single rumor can morph into a completely unmanageable, deadly force. [There’s] psychological acuity throughout and [an] astonishing ending.”

—Booklist

PART ONE

Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned.

—James Joyce

She’d created a little altar on the chest of drawers in her bedroom. A solitary white tulip in a fluted glass vase. An illustrated children’s Bible and a bowl of water with blood-red rose petals floating on the surface.

She lit first a candle and then a stick of incense. We watched as the thin plume of blue-gray smoke writhed into the air, filling the room with its cloying scent. My nostrils flared.

“Now we must join hands over the Bible,” she said. My heart thumped. “We must swear not to breathe a word of this to a living soul.” Her eyes flashed wide. “Not now. Not ever.”

I didn’t dare tell her what my mother told me once, that Jesus says it’s wrong to swear oaths.