Seems Perfect

Driven by past traumas and present hardships, two women face off over home turf in this twisty psychological thriller from Rebecca Hanover, author of The Last Applicant.

Emily Hawthorne lives in the well-heeled Noe Valley of San Francisco but just barely. With less work than she would like at the yoga studio, a pile of debt, and a fraught past, she can no longer afford her tiny condo. When she meets the charming Penelope “Pip” Stone and her young daughter, also beset by financial woes, she agrees to take them in as roommates.

But Emily’s stroke of luck turns out to be another twist of the knife: Pip is a professional squatter who has no intention of paying rent. And Pip doesn’t want to share the condo.

She wants the whole thing.

Their domestic standoff only intensifies when a downstairs neighbor is murdered. Both women become suspects, not to mention each other’s mistrustful alibis.

Emily feels the walls closing in. Is she trapped with a vulnerable grifter—who, like her, may have good reasons for making bad decisions—or is Pip just a cold-blooded killer?