Where You End

August 1, 2023

From Kahler, who previously wrote as Karen Abbott, Where You End features a young woman whose twin sister helps her rebuild her identity post-coma--except maybe the sister isn't telling the truth (175,000-copy first printing). Prepub Alert.

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November 1, 2023
In 1983 Philadelphia, an amnesiac must rely on her twin for information regarding who she is and what she's forgotten. When 22-year-old Katherine Bird wakes in the hospital two weeks after dying for 93 seconds, all she remembers is the name and face of her twin sister, Jude. Per Jude, they were driving a rural road late one night when Kat swerved to avoid a deer and crashed. The girls were homeschooled, their father left when they were 10, and their mother is dead, so only Jude can fill in the blanks comprising Kat's past. Jude recounts a sheltered, largely happy childhood, but if her stories are authentic, why is Kat prone to sudden bouts of anger and violence? Further, why are there so few pictures of her and Jude, and who is the strange woman seemingly following Kat whenever she ventures from the siblings' apartment? Although Jude has answers for everything, Kat can't help but wonder whether all she thinks she knows about herself is a lie. Kahler's debut novel by turns thrills and devastates, interspersing Kat's first-person-present narrative with third-person flashbacks from Jude's perspective detailing the twins' actual adolescence spent living with a New Age cult co-founded by their mother. Jude's desperation to protect Kat intensifies in tandem with Kat's determination to uncover the truth, fostering tension and drive. Artful, evocative prose and realistically damaged characters contribute to the book's potency. At once a vertiginous paranoia tale and a melancholic meditation on identity.

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Starred review from November 27, 2023
Historian Kahler (The Ghosts of Eden Park, as Karen Abbott) makes a brilliant pivot to fiction with this spine-tingling psychological thriller set in the 1970s. Twenty-two-year-old Kat Bird wakes from a coma after a car accident, with her memory wiped clean. Luckily, Kat’s identical mirror twin, Jude, is there to fill her in on their shared past. Though Kat wants to believe Jude’s stories—and that Jude’s efforts to keep Kat inside their apartment are for her own safety—holes in her sister’s recollections, plus encounters with people Kat meets when she sneaks out of the apartment to explore the wider world, begin to undermine her trust. Flashbacks from Jude’s perspective slowly reveal details of the twins’ upbringing in their mother’s sinister self-empowerment cult, allowing readers to stay one step ahead of Kat in understanding her horrifying past, and in suspecting that it may come back to haunt the sisters—particularly if she keeps poking around. Kahler’s twin heroines feel familiar, but never trite: Kat and Jude make mistakes when trying to impersonate one another, and their quasi-telepathic twin language (which eventually serves as a key plot point) feels like a plausible evolution of a two-decade connection rather than an authorial contrivance. Despite working with themes that often slide into the absurd—family cults, creepy twins, amnesia—Kahler never puts a foot wrong. Readers will be rapt.

December 1, 2023
Twenty-two-year-old Kat Bird wakes up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there and no recollection of her life before her accident. In the aftermath of a head injury, the only link Kat has to her former life is her twin, Jude. Jude sets about reestablishing the details for Kat, including the loss of their parents. Kat has to rely on Jude completely as she slowly reconstructs herself and the world she and Jude had built for themselves. But as Kat learns more about her former life, she grows suspicious of Jude's stories of their background. Slowly, Kat learns the real stories of their past, including the disturbing truth that they are not alone in the world but are escapees of a cult that they had belonged to since childhood. As Jude desperately tries to keep Kat from learning their past, and Kat seeks out the full truth, characters and consequences from their past edge closer to the twins. Jude and Kat's relationship, set alongside the backdrop of a sinister cult, makes Where You End a well-paced and dynamic thriller.

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