Sidetracked
S.T. Abby, 2016
Romance Mystery, thriller & crime
A killer narrates her own manhunt while falling for the profiler on her trail: a revenge thriller told in a voice that is funny, tender and entirely unrepentant. The voice is witty and unrepentant, with a gothic sense of dread underneath the tenderness and the chase.
Feels like dread, tenderness and serenity. About identity and love.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy crime stories told from the killer's side, with romance and dark humor mixed into the hunt. The first-person voice keeps you inside her rationalizations, which can feel unsettling rather than comfortable.
Why read it
It offers a revenge thriller with a funny, tender, unrepentant narrator, letting you see a manhunt from the wrong side and feel the pull of her voice.
A page from the book
The particular pleasure of being underestimated.
There’s a certain high you get from fooling the world into thinking you’re the lamb instead of the rabid wolf. S.T. Abby.The series stays inside the killer's first person throughout, keeping the profiler's point of view at arm's length — a choice that makes the reader complicit from the first page.
Books that feel like this
More by S.T. Abby
Scarlet Angel
S.T. Abby, 2016
A dark-romance revenge thriller about a woman who has planned her homecoming for years—and the man who might unravel it.
Paint It All Red
S.T. Abby, 2016
A dark romance about a woman who hunts the monsters who hurt her and the FBI profiler drawn to her, told in a voice that makes revenge intimate.
All the Lies
S.T. Abby, 2016
A revenge thriller with a love story at its cold center, for readers who like their heroines dangerous and their romance complicated.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Sidetracked for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy crime stories told from the killer's side, with romance and dark humor mixed into the hunt. The first-person voice keeps you inside her rationalizations, which can feel unsettling rather than comfortable.
- What is Sidetracked like?
- The voice is witty and unrepentant, with a gothic sense of dread underneath the tenderness and the chase. Feels like dread, tenderness and serenity. About identity and love.
- What should I read after Sidetracked?
- If you liked Sidetracked, try The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (Gabrielle Zevin), Leather & Lark (Brynne Weaver) and It Happened One Summer (Tessa Bailey).
A taste of the feed
How to say your life is in books without saying it.
The words you can’t find, you borrow. We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone. My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart. We are not quite novels. The analogy he is looking for is almost there. We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that. In the end, we are collected works.
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry · Gabrielle Zevin
The strange tenderness of being called someone’s catastrophe.
My feckin’ catastrophe,” he says as his thumb coasts across my cheek. “You fucking destroyed me. And now I can’t imagine being anything but the man that I am with you.
Leather & Lark · Brynne Weaver
The moment you stop waiting for sunshine and start hoping for a storm.
Granted, she didn’t want to become evil, but when you spend most of your life trying to see the sun, you begin to wish for rain.
Assistant to the Villain · Hannah Nicole Maehrer
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