“A darkly clever thriller about women’s thwarted ambitions, celebrity, the Time’s Up movement and revenge.”
In INVISIBLE WOMAN, a dangerous secret held for too long between estranged best friends rises to the surface, and a long marriage comes apart with devastating consequences.
“Absolutely a novel of its time–and a novel of women’s stories across time.”
Joni Ackerman was once a pioneering filmmaker, one of the few women to break into the all-male Hollywood club of feature film directors. But after she and her husband Paul had a family, her career waned as his, at a premiere television network, ascended. Now they’ve recently transplanted to Brooklyn so that Paul can launch a major East Coast production studio, when a scandal rocks the film industry and forces Joni to revisit a secret from long ago involving her friend Val.
Joni is adamant that the time has come to tell the story, but Val and Paul are reluctant, for different reasons. As the marriage frays and the friends spar about whether to speak up, Joni struggles with isolation in a new city and old resentments start to boil over. She takes solace, of sorts, in the novels of Patricia Highsmith—particularly the masterpiece STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, which inspired her first film, with its duplicitous characters and their murderous impulses—until the lines between reality and fantasy become blurred.
INVISIBLE WOMAN is at once a literary thriller about the lies we tell each other (and ourselves), and a powerful psychological exploration of the complexities of marriage and friendship.
Coming June 3, 2025
WOMEN LIKE US is a sharply-rendered literary thriller that examines the complexities and responsibilities of female friendship—what brings women together, and what drives them apart
“Tantalizing, frightening, and loaded with palpable tension, Brooklyn’s own Katia Lief delivers once again in the psychological thriller genre.”
It’s been five years since Joni Ackerman tipped the antifreeze into her husband’s cocktail. Five years since he was found dead on the stairs. Five years since she got away with murder. At first, Joni feared the consequences of her transgression, but she’s learned to embrace the power of recklessness in a way she would have hated to see in anyone else. It was that recklessness, after all, that took her to this rewarding new life.
Joni now runs Sunny Day Productions alongside her daughter, Chris, and her best friend, Val. All is well in life and work until, one day, their balance is rocked when an unexpected, and unwelcome, visitor appears.
When Joni’s brother, Marc, resurfaces after a twenty-year estrangement, Joni braces for the sibling she knew—a cruel, vindictive conman who deftly switched between personas. But this Marc on her doorstep is different. He’s older, softer. And he seems to have overcome the self-inflicted traumas of his past.
But Val isn’t fooled. She knows exactly what sort of man Marc is, and she warns Joni to keep her guard up. When Mark inevitably betrays Joni’s trust, Joni is forced to look inward. As dark thoughts, and darker compulsions, take form, Joni can’t help but wonder: ‘Is psychopathy a family trait?’
MORE Praise for INVISIBLE WOMAN
“Katia Lief’s Invisible Woman is a stunning achievement: it’s not only a taut thriller with a jaw-dropping twist, but also a literary exploration of the complexities of marriage and friendship, and a timely tribute to women who were silenced for all too long. The novel will stay with you long after you finish the last page.”
“Part domestic thriller, part psychological mystery, this is a tight, well-paced novel, and it hangs on the complex and flawed character of Joni... Rediscovering Patricia Highsmith’s novels, Joni begins to lean into the darkness of her own soul . . . Caught in the nefarious web of the patriarchy at every turn, she finds in Highsmith a way to fight back and reclaim some of her own agency. . . Absolutely a novel of its time–and a novel of women’s stories across time.”
“From the first page to the last, Katia Lief’s Invisible Woman will seize you and never let go. Smart and spellbinding… and most certainly your next favorite thriller.”
“Lief tells Joni’s story with lyrical energy while slowly ratcheting up the suspense, blending shocking twists with literary nuances to create a compelling, introspective narrative.”
“Invisible Woman twists and turns, its escalating dangers alternating with fresh reveals, as momentum builds to a breaking point. . . Characters develop quickly from disagreeable but benign to chilling and dangerous; some readers will find this atmospheric novel engaging and disturbing enough to lose sleep. A literary psychological thriller, cultural study, and heartbreaking story of friendship and loss, Joni’s unforgettable story involves layers of lies and the dangers of self-sublimation. Lief chills, entertains, and challenges.”
“Attention, suspense readers: get ready to gasp. Attention, book clubs: get ready to argue. Invisible Woman is a wily, provocative literary thriller — classic but timely, retro yet right-this-minute — with brains in its head and ice in its veins. High-tension, high-class, and highly recommended.
”
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Pre-Order Women Like Us
The Searchers Series | Katia Lief writing as Karen Ellis
“The start of a riveting series…
Tight plotting will keep readers turning the pages.”
—Publishers Weekly
Book One
FBI agent Elsa Myers is pulled in two directions by the reemergence of a serial predator, and the rapidly approaching death of her father who alone holds a secret from her own dark adolescence. NYPD Detective Lex Cole joins Myers to solve the case as they build a friendship that guides her away from her worst instincts.
“Compelling…
A solid choice for readers who enjoy Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series."
—Booklist
Book Two
Two missing teenagers, one black, one white. Two detectives from opposite ends of Brooklyn. One hunt through the dangerous hours of a single night. Detective Lex Cole searches for answers as he faces the disintegration of his most cherished relationship. Elsa Myers returns, this time as a friend and trusted adviser.
The Karin Schaeffer Series
Book 1
Former detective Karin Schaeffer lost her husband and child to a serial killer, and now fights to overcome despair and save her remaining loved ones as the clock ticks on all their lives.
Book 2
Just when their new life together has settled in, Mac vanishes, unearthing secrets and dangers that force Karin into a face-off with a deadly Mexican queenpin whose son has an agenda of his own.
Book 3
Girls are vanishing off the streets of New York City, and young women are being murdered. When the violence descends on Karin Schaeffer and Mac MacLeary's comfortable Brooklyn neighborhood, and their best friend becomes the lead investigator, they are drawn into the bewildering series of crimes..
Book 4
A family vacation ends in an overseas manhunt for their children after Karin's and Mac's case investigating a Manhattan billionaire's infidelity collides with a murder investigation.
Standalone Crime Novels
Annie Milliken is a happily married mother when her life tailspins out of control. After discovering evidence of her husband's infidelity, she seeks refuge with her identical twin sister...but her losses continue to mount, and she learns that safety, for her, may be an illusion.
Detective Dave Strauss is haunted by the one case he couldn't solve: a schoolgirl vanished off the streets of Brooklyn, never to be seen again. Now the cold dark night has engulfed another young girl...but this time she is part of Dave's family.
Alice Halpern and her growing family live in Brownstone Brooklyn, where city life assumes the tenor of a small town community. But then her best friend Lauren vanishes, prompting a police investigation and a growing sense of menace as Alice realizes that she herself may be in danger.
Before the long drive home from Cape Cod, Emily Parker makes a quick run to the grocery store...and disappears. As family and police scour the Cape for her, Emily's thoughts are not on her own safety. Kept helpless in a madman's lair, she watches him prepare a five-day countdown that will bring him to his real victim—her seven-year-old son.
A family gathers for the holidays in rural Connecticut, bringing with them confessions, accusations, demands. But suddenly personal agendas become meaningless as the priority shifts to survival. Two burglars break in, believing the house to be empty. In their panic they take the family hostage—and the crime that follows spirals out of control.
Award-winning journalist Darcy Mayhew thinks she has faced her worst nightmare when her beloved husband dies in a car accident. But after moving to New York City with her teenage son to begin their lives anew, she discovers she has a stalker. Not only is the worst yet to come, but her husband's death may not have been an accident after all.
A Cold War spy’s deceits rise through time to haunt his American son, in a dual narrative split between postwar Berlin and early twentieth-century New York City. Past becomes prologue as a father’s secret life and untimely death begin to make treacherous sense before delivering one final surprise.