Author: Kelsey Cox
Publication: Minotaur Books (July 7, 2026)
Description: Secrets emerge as a Texas beauty pageant turns dealy in this rich and addictive novel with a jaw-dropping twist from psychological suspense author Kelsey Cox.
2000: Isabelle Whitmore vanishes at Sherman Ranch in Anhalt, Texas, without a trace.
2025: The Lone Star Princess Pageant is about to begin, but this year it’s offering more than an annual dose of rhinestone heels and plunging necklines. Competition is stiffer than ever ―and long standing grudges are about to resurface. Ingrid fled Anhalt in the wake of her sister Isabelle’s disappearance and has now returned, just in time for a construction crew to start digging up Sherman Ranch; the pageant brings up past traumas that Melanie can't forget; Cat, newly sober, starts to feel threatened in ways that bring back old demons; and Sarah Lynn, who comes from a long line of pageant winners, knows that losing is not an option.
When old resentments and new confrontations reach their boiling point, temperatures drop to deadly degrees as a record-setting storm brings down the state’s power grid. With everyone trapped under one roof, scores will be settled, and more than one person will end up dead.
Beauty dies. Secrets never do.
My Thoughts: Secrets are revealed and rivalries rekindled at the 2025 Lone Star Princess Pageant in Anhalt, Texas.
Ingrid Whitmore is back home in Anhalt after many years in Colorado. Her mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and she wants to help her. Besides, her marriage has fallen apart, and she still has questions about her sister's disappearance when the twins were seventeen.
Her mother's nurse is Melanie who was also one of Ingrid and Isabelle's classmates. One Ingrid and Kennedy Claire and their social set bullied including the time they left her naked on the river as a prank.
There are four main viewpoint characters in this story. Their viewpoints alternate. The story also has flashbacks to 2000 and 2017 along with the main timeline of 2025. The 2025 timeline is centered around the latest Lone Star Princess Pageant.
Viewpoints include Ingrid's, Melanie's, Sarah Lynn's (Kennedy Claire's daughter and current Lone Star Princess contestant), and Cat's who was another of Ingrid, Isabelle, and Melanie's classmates and whose daughter Olivia is also a pageant contestant as is Melanie's daughter.
As each chapter unfolds, we learn more about the rivalries and we learn more about Isabelle's disappearance and what it meant to all the characters. At first, the story was a little confusing to me. It improved greatly once I had managed to build a mental timeline and family trees.
This was a twisty thriller with a number of twists and surprises.
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