2025 did not shape up to be the year I thought it would. It’s kind of hard not to focus on the downers: cancer diagnosis. Being released from the contract with my agent. So, because I need something to look forward to, this is my official announcement that I’ll be posting my new novel, Pending, to my blog here, one chapter a day, starting January 1.
I originally had this idea a couple decades ago: what if you picked up a bestselling novel and realized it was actually written about you? Then, because I’m me, and because I’ve had twenty-odd years to think about it, it morphed a bit.
Nell’s just getting her feet back under her after the terror of five years ago. She’s been in hiding since the serial killer the police dubbed “The Fairy Godfather” came into her life and started taking people out of it. She’s adopted a new identity and moved far away from home, working as a barista and flying under the radar. That is, until her boss hands her an advance copy of a highly-anticipated novel and she starts recognizing the plot.
Since You Went Away is advertised as a romantic literary experience, but Nell realizes what it really is: a serial killer’s confession not only to murder, but to his obsession. The hype around the book means everyone’s talking about it and unwittingly trying to find her, the killer’s own choice of final girl. She needs to uncover the real name behind the author’s pseudonym and learn the identity of the man who murdered her friends before he can come for her, too.
Honestly the most fun part for me is how the cover hasn’t changed since I first thought of the idea, even if so many other parts have. I sent my friend Amara the description and they designed the cover, icons, and headers for me. Don’t they look awesome? And yes, there will totally be a knitting pattern inspired by the cover. Stay tuned!
Pending will be posted here, one chapter a day, from January 1 through February 10, 2026. It’ll be free. Options will be coming to purchase the entire thing, definitely as an eBook and hopefully as a hard copy, because I know some of you will ask about that. For now, let it be known that I’ve decided to make 2026 something I can look forward to, in a way that’s entirely under my own control.
I hope you all have a happy holiday season and I look forward to seeing what the new year brings!
This ARC landed in my inbox at either the absolute best or absolute worst time: just as I was wrapping up my annual reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby with my juniors for the third year in a row. The thing is, high school English teachers pick things they don’t mind reading multiple times a year, and don’t mind dissecting over and over again. I love Gatsby, and–possibly because of the 2013 movie–it was even last year’s prom theme. (Yes, I chaperoned in my best 1920s costume.)
So a murder mystery set in in the world of one of my favorite novels? Let’s take a look at The Gatsby Gambit by Claire Anderson Wheeler.
America’s most beloved literary characters. A page-turning mystery. The gilded opulence of the Roaring Twenties. And a clever young woman of unusual persistence.
Be ready to re-think the world of Gatsby.
Freshly twenty-one and sporting a daring new bob, Greta Gatsby–younger sister to the infamous Jay—is finally free of her dull finishing school, and looking forward to an idyllic summer at the Gatsby Mansion, the jewel of West Egg. From its breathtaking views to its eccentric denizens, Greta is eager to inhale it all–even to the predictable disapproval of Mrs Dantry, Jay’s exacting housekeeper. Indeed, nothing could disrupt the blissful time Greta has planned… except finding out that Jay’s cadre of dubious friends—Daisy and Tom Buchanan, along with Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker—will be summering there, too.
It’s hard to be noticed when the luminous Daisy Buchanan is in the room, and Jordan keeps rather too close tabs on handsome Nick Carraway for Greta’s liking. But by far the worst is Daisy’s boorish husband, Tom, whose explosive temper seems always balanced on a knife-edge. But soon, bad blood is the least of their problems, as a shocking event sets the Gatsby household reeling.
Death has come to West Egg, and with it, a web of scandal, betrayal, and secrets. Turning sleuth isn’t how Greta meant to spend her summer—but what choice does she have, when everyone else seems intent on living in a world of make-believe?
Deftly subverting romantic notions about money, power, and freedom that still stand today, THE GATSBY GAMBIT is a sparkling homage to, and reinvention of, a world American readers have lionized for generations.
So my brief review:
This is a book best suited to people who are not intimately familiar with Fitzgerald’s version. I received my advance copy at the same time I was once again finishing The Great Gatsby with my students, so the details of the original were too fresh for me to sink fully into this new world and Wheeler’s versions of the characters.
The story starts slowly, inserting the new character of Greta Gatsby as she finally comes home from all her years of being sent off to school. She begins to interact with alternate versions of Fitzgerald’s characters as Wheeler navigates what’s the same (not much) and what’s different in her version. There are some Easter egg references to the original, but also a lot of changes, and not all of those changes seem entirely necessary to the plot. My students, however, heartily applaud her choice of victim, although they always wish someone else had done the deed. Wheeler offers up various suspects as Greta takes off on her own to prove herself worthy (and independent) in a male-dominated world, annoying the detectives and her brother alike when she’s convinced that the apparent suicide isn’t all it appears to be.
It’s a slow burn until it breathlessly barrels down the last quarter of the book, and it’s at the end, freed from any premise of the inspiration text, that Wheeler really shines. I struggled with the characterization of Tom, Daisy, Nick, Jordan, and Jay because I wasn’t sure how much I was supposed to remember from Fitzgerald and how much they were supposed to be different (changed, perhaps, because it seems most of the events of Fitzgerald’s book happened the summer before this one starts). If you have faint memories of lavish parties and a green light from your own high school days, you’ll probably enjoy it.
Four stars out of five
The thing is, unless you routinely go through Prestwick House chapter questions about the book, you’re not going to notice a lot of Wheeler’s changes. Who remembers what religion the Buchanans are, anyway? (Everyone who has to answer the question about the elaborate lie that surprises Nick in Chapter II, at least if they have to correct it once a year.) I’m not sure why it ends up as one of the book’s great quotes, but in the original, they’re not Catholic. Wheeler, however, makes a point of stressing the fact that they are.
On the one hand, it seems like such a silly thing, but on the other … why use the Gatsby name at all? There have to be changes to keep Jay alive, of course (spoilers, sorry) and the fact that Wheeler gives him a younger sister to be at the center of the story makes for further changes, but the best parts of the book are the ones where Wheeler’s original characters take center stage and shove the well-known (and possibly hated) Fitzgerald characters to the side. I think that’s even a large part of what makes for a slow start: she has to spend so much time explaining who her Gatsby and Daisy and Tom and Nick and Jordan are, and separating them from the characters we might be expected to know.
Every so often there’s what seems to be an Easter egg–Daisy’s wedding necklace, for example, plays a part–but they’re at odds with the new backstories and new relationships Wheeler’s trying to forge. Why make these callbacks to specific parts of the original (like a gas station owner and his wife moving away for some mysterious reason) when so many other aspects of the characters’ histories and personalities have changed? Jay Gatsby is still a rich man with poor beginnings who throws parties, but those poor beginnings are vastly altered and Wheeler never quite explains how, if he isn’t a bootlegger, he went from poor to a soldier to his vast wealth.
Are these questions going to plague most readers? I doubt it. But I also think Wheeler’s story would have been stronger if she’d either more fully committed to Fitzgerald’s characters or been allowed to leave the Gatsby name behind entirely. As it stands, the title alone sets us up for a much deeper connection between the source text and her murder mystery than we find in the book.
I’m especially interested to see how readers who don’t have such a close connection to The Great Gatsby respond because, like I said, I was either going to be the best or the worst audience for this book.
She has his dead wife’s heart; the one she wants is his. The author of The Family Plot brings her signature prose to a twisty novel about a heart transplant patient who becomes romantically obsessed with her donor’s husband.
Rosie Lachlan wants nothing more than to find The One.
A year after she was dumped in her wedding dress, she’s working at her parents’ bridal salon, anxious for a happy ending that can’t come soon enough. After receiving a life-saving heart transplant, Rosie knows her health is precious and precarious. She suspects her heart donor is Daphne Thorne, the wife of local celebrity author Morgan Thorne, who she begins messaging via an anonymous service called DonorConnect, ostensibly to learn more about Daphne. But Rosie has a secret: She’s convinced that now that she has his wife’s heart, she and Morgan are meant to be together.
As she and Morgan correspond, the pretense of avoiding personal details soon disappears, even if Rosie’s keeping some cards close to her chest. But as she digs deeper into Morgan’s previous marriage, she discovers disturbing rumors about the man she’s falling for. Could Morgan have had something to do with his late wife’s death? And can Rosie’s heart sustain another break—or is she next?
And here’s my official, post-it-everywhere review:
Rosie just got a new heart, but she wants more than anything to give it away. If only she could be certain that the man in her sights isn’t a murderer …
This is a deliciously twisty book that will surprise even the most avid thriller fan. Maybe you want to be suspicious of Rosie and her soft new heart, and maybe you should be … but it turns out it’s not for the reasons you think. She’s trying to walk this line and ignore the fact that she’s playing a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse (and maybe confusing which one of them happens to be the cat) while ignoring the danger signs every step of the way. No man can be worth as much effort as Rosie puts into trying to uncover the reality of Morgan Thorne.
This book surprised me with its similarities to one of my absolute favorites, but I can’t reveal which one or else that gives a lot away. Let’s just say Rosie’s contemplations of mortality and identity play into far more than wondering if her new heart can’t help but love her husband’s donor. The absolutely twists and turns (yes, plural) this book takes kept me riveted right up until the end. Megan Collins crafts complex characters who have their own reasons not to reveal everything all at once, and the way she tells their story just adds to the suspense. Cross My Heart is a must-read.
Rebecca Frost 