Jessa Maxwell is the author of The Golden Spoon. Her second novel, I Need You to Read This, takes readers to the heyday of newspapers and advice columnists. It introduces a lonely young woman whose lifestyle leaves her a perfect victim for gaslighting.

Alex Marks moved to Manhattan seven years earlier, looking for a refuge. She writes copy for a pharmaceutical company, wanders the streets, and finds a few acquaintances at the nearby Bluebird Diner. But, she locks herself securely in her apartment at night, hiding from her past.

After advice columnist Francis Keen, who writes the Dear Constance column for The New York Herald, is murdered, Alex is bereft. She followed the column religiously, and believed in Francis’ empathetic advice. But, she’s angry when the newspaper announces they’re looking for a replacement, someone to write the Dear Constance column. Who could take Francis’ place? After too much wine one night, Alex writes letters in response to the advertisement. Although only the editor-in-chief seems eager for her to have the job, Alex agrees to be the new advice columnist. It’s only when she sees her picture in the paper that she realizes she’s given up her anonymity in the city. Then, the threatening letters start.

Late at night in the old part of the Herald building, Alex doesn’t know who she can trust. She hears noises, and she suspects her boss, her assistant, Lucy, and Jonathan, who works as the editor’s gatekeeper. When she dates a man for the first time in years, she finds herself vulnerable, and fears her past will be exposed. Maybe she should investigate Francis’ murder, and the truth about that will expose the person who seems to be stalking her. Now, she only has her friends at the Bluebird Diner to turn to for help.

Maxwell incorporates letters to Dear Constance, and the advice columnists answers in this thriller. I’ll admit I saw the solution long before Alex did, and I guessed the secret of her past. But, it was a satisfying ending, and I liked Maxwell’s characters in I Need You to Read This. Other readers of suspense novels will undoubtedly see the ending coming.

I Need You to Read This by Jessa Maxwell. Atria Books, 2024. ISBN 9781668008034 (hardcover), 304p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I received a galley through NetGalley in order to review the book for a journal.