Jessica Knoll’s latest follows Faye Heron and Henry Spalding, former college lovers who haven’t seen each other in twelve years. Faye is now half of a Hollywood power couple. Henry is a married father running the family business. When a beloved college professor dies and brings them both back to campus for the funeral, old feelings resurface fast and then Henry drugs and kidnaps her. Faye wakes up in a remote mountain cabin with no idea if Henry brought her there to punish her, rekindle something, or both. What follows is a week of captivity, escalating demands, and a sprawling mystery that promises to rewrite everything Faye thought she knew about their past.
I’m conflicted on this one.
The premise is fantastic. A psychological thriller built on a toxic love story, a kidnapping, and a mystery stretching back over a decade? I was immediately in. And the first half flew by. I was turning pages, I was invested, I wanted to know where this was all heading. Knoll knows how to set a hook and the early momentum had me convinced this was going to be a 4 or 5 star read.
Then it just… lagged. Somewhere around the middle, the pacing completely stalled and the book shifted from taut psychological thriller into deep, drawn-out introspection about Faye and Henry’s relationship. And look, I understand that their history is the backbone of the story. But we spent way too much time sitting in it. For a mystery thriller, I needed more mystery and less extended therapy session with two people I actively didn’t like. Faye and Henry are toxic together. They’re toxic apart. They’re just not people I wanted to spend that much unstructured time with.
I also really did not love the addition of the Campbell storyline — the new screenplay, the whole thing with the student. It felt so random and out of left field. The way it all played out gave me the ick and honestly just pulled me further out of a story I was already struggling to stay connected to. It felt like it belonged in a completely different book.
By the end, it almost felt like two different books stitched together. The first half is a propulsive mystery thriller and the second half is literary fiction about a dysfunctional relationship. Both of those could work on their own, but together they fight each other. I think this could have really benefited from tighter editing, or honestly from being split into two separate projects that each got the space to breathe on their own terms.
It’s not a bad book. I want to be clear about that. The writing is strong, the premise is genuinely great.. But I’ll be honest, I finished this because I needed to know what happened, not because I was having fun getting there. And that’s a very different kind of reading experience.
3 stars. If you love Knoll’s earlier work or don’t mind a slow burn that’s heavier on character study than plot momentum, you might enjoy this more than I did. But if you’re going in expecting a thriller that stays a thriller, temper those expectations.
AMAZON | GOODREADS | BOOKSHOP |★★★
Helpless comes out July 7, 2026. Huge thank you to Scibner for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion. If you liked this review, please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof.books.
