Poison Apples Book

R. seemed okay at first. She invited me and Dad over for dinner at her Upper West Side apartment, and we spent the first part of the evening just standing around and watching her cook. R. was mesmerizing; she swept around the kitchen in her silk robes and purple eye shadow, stirring bubbling pots of marinara sauce and bending down every few seconds to kiss Godot, her Yorkshire terrier. Dad was charmed by her, I could tell. She was beautiful and funny and she kept singing lines from different musicals. Dad would say, "The Pajama Game, right?" and she'd shriek, "YES! EXACTLY!" and then he'd sip his beer in this pleased-with-himself way. And it was nice she'd invited me. I guess it was like their first date, so it was a pretty cool move for her to say, "Why don't you bring your daughter?" It made her seem easygoing, sweet, kid-loving. Not at all like a crazy, jealous psychopath, right? Wrong.

Publishers Weekly

Archer makes a wickedly funny debut with this contemporary tale of three evil stepmothers and their banished daughters who cross paths at boarding school. Molly Miller is the only one of the girls who wants to be at Putnam Mount McKinsey, which offers her an escape from both her mundane small town and Candy Lamb, the former homecoming queen who broke up her parents' marriage and now reigns as queen of the household (Molly's mom, meanwhile, reels from the shock in a psychiatric hospital). Alice Bingley-Beckerman's father has moved into his Broadway-actress bride's tiny Manhattan apartment; there is no room for Alice. And Reena Paruchuri, along with her brother Pradeep, get sent east when their formerly dignified father marries a yoga instructor half his age. Drawn together by their common dysfunctional backgrounds and a keen desire to seek revenge, Molly, Alice and Reena form the Poison Apples Club. Alternating among their perspectives with considerable wit, the author traces the girls' adjustments to the new school, their search for friends, and their romantic trials and tribulations as they plot to destroy their parents' marriages. The teens' initial misjudgments of one another fuel much of the initial comedy, while Archer's knowing prose gives even the old-fashioned moral a hip ring. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)

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