The New Husband

Nina Garrity's husband Glen went fishing one morning and never came back, leaving her with two children, no explanation, and a slowly surfacing set of secrets about the man she thought she knew. The person who steadies her through it is Simon Fitch, her daughter's history teacher — patient, attentive, endlessly available.

When Nina marries him, her daughter Maggie refuses to accept it. Simon's kindness has an edge she can feel and cannot name, and the small details she starts collecting about him do not add up to the man he plays at home.

D.J. Palmer's domestic thriller alternates between Nina, Maggie, and Simon himself, so the reader knows early what Nina does not, and the tension comes from watching how far a controlled man will go to keep the family he has decided is his.