When Emily encounters Adam in a crowded London bar, she is immediately attracted to his good looks and boisterous personality. Their relationship is fairy-tale perfect, until Emily is introduced to the other woman in Adam's life—his mother, Pammie, who takes an instant dislike to her. As the relationship with Adam progresses, Pammie's focus on criticizing, belittling, and undermining Emily rapidly intensifies. She craftily delivers her barbs with Adam out of earshot, which causes him to dismiss and resent her repeated claims against his mother. Emily seems to be fighting a losing battle as the woman's antics threaten to derail the romance. When the schemes turn more serious, Emily fears that her antagonist might be dangerous and decides to take matters into her own hands. VERDICT Pammie is every young woman's worst nightmare: a mean mother-in-law (on steroids) in this addictive debut thriller. Readers' pulses will race as they anticipate how she might strike next and be completely knocked off balance by the shocking ending.—Mary Todd Chesnut, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

To smitten Emily Havistock, the narrator of British author Jones's engrossing-if-flawed first novel, sexy London IT recruiter Adam Banks seems like the perfect catch—until she discovers Adam has a pretty big catch himself: Pammie, his meddlesome widowed mum with whom he seems hopelessly enmeshed. As Emily becomes painfully aware, her sexagenarian adversary will stop at nothing to split up the couple (including faking a breast cancer diagnosis), and, Emily starts to suspect, might even have had a hand in the death of Adam's previous girlfriend. Far from having the desired effect, however, Pammie's machinations make feisty Emily all the more determined to land her guy, a single-minded focus that leads her to ignore glaring warning signs that the volatile Adam might not really be the one for her—or indeed the man she thinks he is. The startling if unbelievable 180 at the end of the road will spin readers' heads, but not enough to compensate for all the contrivance to engineer it. Still, fans of plot-driven psychological thrillers will enjoy the ride. 200,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Tanera Simons, Darley Anderson (U.K.). (Aug.)