Weiner follows up Big Summer with another emotionally charged drama, this one centered on a #MeToo reckoning. Diana Shoemaker has been known as Daisy ever since marrying her husband, Hal. But when she begins receiving emails intended for another "Diana S." with a similar address--and when the two Dianas strike up a correspondence--she starts to wonder what her life might have been like had she not fallen into Main Line Philadelphia motherhood and a modest culinary education business. A parallel narrative follows the other Diana, whom it turns out is intent on contacting Daisy to confront her about her sexual assault when she was 15 by a group of boys on Cape Cod, including some with connections to Daisy, whose family spent summers there along with Hal's. After Daisy and Diana become friends, Daisy learns their seemingly accidental online encounter was anything but. Weiner's writing is infused with evocative depictions of place, particularly year-round scenes on the Cape. Some villains are painted with overly broad strokes, and while the plot hinges on more than one coincidence, the account of a woman on a deferred quest, nearly three decades after an assault, feels emotionally honest. Weiner's legions of fans will applaud this emotionally affecting and often surprising story. Agent: Joanna Pulcini, Joanna Pulcini Literary Management. (May)

Daisy Shoemaker spends her life catering to her husband, Hal, 12 years her senior, and their 15-year-old daughter, Beatrice, who just got kicked out of Hal's tony boarding-school alma mater and is overflowing with teenage disdain for her ineffectual mother. Daisy teaches ad hoc cooking lessons, but her life mostly revolves around her family. So when an email mix-up puts her in touch with Diana Starling and the two hit it off, she is thrilled at the prospect of making an actual adult friend. But Diana isn't who she says she is, and she has deliberately thrown herself into Daisy's orbit to attempt to reconcile her past. Spurred on by the #MeToo movement, the characters explore the weight that victims of sexual assault carry, and the damage left in the wake of unchecked privilege. But there is also a warmth to the novel, fueled by the Cape Cod setting and deft characterization. Daisy is a classic Weiner heroine, an underappreciated and unconfident woman who grows wings; Beatrice is endearingly strong-willed; and Diana is heartbreakingly sympathetic. Weiner's storytelling skill is such that she paints an uncompromising, complicated portrait of the insidious dangers of the patriarchy that is also a lot of fun to read.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Weiner's latest is a summer banger with a ripped-from-the-headlines plot, which is sure to garner lots of attention.

Revenge for a long-ago assault takes the form of an elaborate long con. "She is fifteen years old that summer, a thoughtful, book-struck girl...." Weiner's new novel opens with a prologue set during Diana's idyllic summer on Cape Cod, babysitting for a lovely family, hanging out with the other nannies, and meeting a cute boy named Poe who hands her a red Solo cup on what she is certain will be the best night of her life. The reader is not so sure. In the next chapter, we meet an unhappy housewife named Daisy Shoemaker, nee Diana, who receives an invitation to a fancy birthday party in wine country that is meant for a different Diana, one whose email address is one character different than hers. When her reply to that email is answered immediately by the other Diana, rather than the party giver, she doesn't suspect there's some kind of phishing going on. Again, the wily reader is not fooled. But there's a whole lot of book left, and we still don't know exactly what happened in Cape Cod, or which Diana is which, and whatever happened to that ominously named Poe? The strongest character in this book has little to do with the main plot--it's Daisy's rebel daughter, Beatrice, who creates some comic relief with her irritated thoughts and dead-mouse taxidermy projects. "Maybe I'm dead and this is hell: my mom quoting John Mayer songs and talking about orgasms." Fans will enjoy references to the murder plot of Weiner's previous novel, Big Summer (2020), and sprinklings of Weiner's signature descriptions of food and cooking. But the stereotyped characters, the contrived morality-tale plot, and the amount of preaching are not worthy of this author. Socialist realism for the #MeToo era. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.