For her May 2026 Read With Jenna pick, Jenna Bush Hager picked a thriller that “will keep you reading late into the evening,” she says.
“We rarely choose mysteries and thrillers in the book club, although I love them. Gillian McAllister’s newest hit just right,” Jenna tells TODAY.com.
The prolific British writer’s latest novel unfolds in a remote Texas landscape, where a mother visits her teenage daughter after she completes a summer acting program, only to realize things have gone drastically off-course.
“Yes, it is a book set in Texas, where I’m from, but also it’s a book that is about motherhood,” Jenna says when describing what drew her to the book. “What lengths we’ll go to to protect those we love.”
Speaking to TODAY.com, McAllister says she was interested in exploring how Simone, the protagonist, and her husband, Damian, have drastically different reactions to the disappearance of their daughter.
“I’ve seen some debate about how in romantic relationships, often there is more of a risk-taker and there is more of a safe pair of hands. Is Damian risk-averse, or does he just have to counterbalance being married to somebody kind of reckless?” she says.
McAllister says there are points in the book where Simone makes divisive decisions that are definitely fodder for book club debates.
“I have some reviewers who are like, right, I would do everything she does, and other reviewers who are definitely more cautious,” she says.
McAllister, who is the author of other thrillers like “Famous Last Words” and the Reese’s Book Club pick “Wrong Place Wrong Time,” says that she’s always drawn to writing books with premises that make you think about what you would do in the main character’s position.
“I can’t help but be provocative. Maybe because I think a lot of what reading a thriller is for me is putting myself in the shoes of the protagonist. I do find it really interesting to think about what I would do when faced with a moral dilemma,” she says.
She’s always marinating on the idea for her next book and sometimes turns to movies or TV for inspiration.
“Normally when I’m in the very final kind of throes of one book, something kind of sparks my attention. It’s usually a subplot that’s unexplored. I’ll be like, Oh, that’s interesting. Like, I’ve never really seen that done,” she says.
Essentially, her mind’s always working on her current book and the next one. Fittingly, she has another title coming out later this year. “It’s the plight of a writer,” she says, laughing.
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