The Spin
By Faith Gardner
Mirror House Press, June 2026, 326pp.

The Short of It:

Hysteria or something darker?

The Rest of It:

The Crawfords live in a beautiful suburban home in Los Angeles. Leo, a marketing executive, loves the life he has built with his beautiful, pregnant wife, Rose, and their older daughter, Melinda. Then, while on vacation, Rose goes missing. When she returns, she is different.

Once they get her home, Rose seems to settle back into the life she knows, but certain things begin triggering psychotic episodes that eventually land her in a mental institution. Leo cannot figure it out. How can his once beautiful, confident wife be completely checked out one minute, then manic enough to require hospitalization the next? Was it the pregnancy? Or was it something else?

The hysterical housewife of the 1950s was a very real thing. Women were deemed hysterical, and let’s face it, that still happens today. It does not matter if there is an underlying cause. People are not going to look for it. They are going to medicate her and send her to a hospital. This is exactly what happens to Rose.

As Leo and Melinda try to hold down the fort, Leo continues investigating the timeline of events and stumbles across something he was never supposed to find. When his own mother comes to help, having another person in the house brings certain details to light and points out things Leo has missed.

I really enjoyed this one. As the story ramped up to its conclusion, there were a few story threads I wanted to see fleshed out a little more. Overall, though, it was a page-turner that kept me guessing.

Recommend.

Source: Borrowed
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