This is shift from my normal fare, but it sounded interesting enough I picked it up. Unfortunately, it was a bit of slog through read. It took me about 100 pages to get used to some of the odd phrasing the author used, but it never really bothered me, just felt choppy and too try-hard for my liking.

My other issue was the characters. Evie was a really dumb smart person. Regardless of how Jae reacted, if anyone was in the same situation they’d get away from the house and call the police or stop immediately and call the police. Not run off on a country-wide road trip with a woman you found tied up in a house. It just made no sense to me.

The twist was solid, but I’d figured it out within the first 100 pages. I was glad to be right, but the post-twist was just kind of middling. Not much happened, but a lot of time passed.

This had potential but ultimately fell very flat. What was the point? At the very beginning, had the character just left and called the cops. story over. This was not the least bit plausible. Also, how does the character fall in love with her partner in crime after two weeks when they don't speak for 13 of the 14 days?

Talk about wrong place wrong time! This was an exciting twisty story! I was captivated and stayed interested through the entire story. I’ve never heard of Hannah Deitch before now but I will be on the lookout for more!

Evie walks into the open front door of her SAT tutoring client’s home to find two dead bodies and one woman tied up in a closet. In the moments that follow, suspicion turns onto her, and a series of bad decisions sends her on the run with the woman she rescued from the closet.

What I liked most about this was the perspective - we have a protagonist who is also a villain, a hero who is also a victim. Evie starts out trying to do the right thing and ends up making a lot of bad decisions. We’re on the run with her, not back in California watching the fallout from the murders. We get that part of the story only when Evie sees it in the news.

At times the prose was meandering, often just sounding like it was trying to be quotable rather than actually saying anything. There was some suspension of disbelief required on the part of the reader, but that is always the case with these books and if you’re complaining about that you’re reading the wrong genre. I enjoyed seeing the story play out from a different perspective, so I would recommend this one to switch it up.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy, in exchange for an honest review.

This book was a wild ride following a woman in a serious case of alleged wrong place wrong time. I was immediately gripped by the story and even though it’s literary in writing it still felt very fast paced. It was a nice blend of mystery/crime plot and literary writing. Evie was an interesting MC that felt fully realized, flaws and all. The twist caught me by surprise as well, which is always appreciated in a mystery.

Okay this one had me hooked from the get-go!! Our FMC is an SAT tutor who finds herself on the run after she discovers the bodies of her student’s parents. 👀

While the big twist was a bit predictable, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book!! Highly recommend! 👏

Thank you to NetGalley, William Morrow, and Hannah Deitch for the opportunity to read the eARC in exchange for my honest review! ❤️

Thanks to netgalley and William Morrow for an eARC of this book. A thriller that follows two women as they try to get away from an unexpected situation. Evie Gordon is an SAT tutor for the elite of Los Angeles, she comes to her tutee's home one day to find the parents dead and a woman bound and crying for help in the closet. Her tutee shows up and forced to defend herself, Evie accidentally harms her and is forced to flee with this mysterious woman. To make matters more complicated, the bound woman who Evie rescued refuses to speak. As they trek across the US as fugitives, they slowly learn more about each other...

There were many things about this one, including several plot-relevant things, that you just have to completely suspend your disbelief for. I can't count the number of times when something absurd happened and I couldn't help but wonder why Evie made the initial choice she did (the first of many of her dumb and unexplainable decisions). While the work did start off decently, it quickly shifted from a mystery with an intriguing premise to a forced romance with a weak ending.

The romance...why? The characters weren't strong, and the time that should have been given to making them strong with depth was instead focused on forcing them to fall for each other. Having two bland characters that almost felt like placeholders be the focus of a romance is not engaging. And then the ending. We're given the reveal to the mystery, which wasn't a surprise because it was really the only direction it could have gone in, but then there are still about 50 pages of exposition-heavy writing left to get to the end of the book. And I'm not going to get too much into it, but the author's writing style ranged from metaphors that are supposed to sound poetic but make zero sense to feeling like word vomit that just never paused.

I'm an outlier on this one but there was just nothing that worked for me. My thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for allowing me to read this work, which will be published March 18, 2025. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this, but I liked what it was. I will say, some points were a little lacking. For example, I liked that Jae and Evie were on the run together, but it never made sense to me why Evie would run to begin with. Why run when you're innocent? Why not get the police involved? Why not attempt to contact your parents at all? Overall, I really liked the story, and I recommend this as a good read. I think it's a strong debut.

Thank you SO much to William Morrow for this eARC! This was a genre switch up for me, I've never really dived into a thriller/murder story at this level before and I was GRIPPED the whole entire time. From the second Evie stepped into that house I was pulled right along for the ride. The enigma that is Jae was fascinating. They are both killers, they are dangerous, they are made what they are afraid of being labeled and I was so so into it. And of course they fell into one another along the way. I am going to pass this book around to everyone that will listen to me it was A RIDE that I need some more people to take so we can scream about it together.

A girl on the run for fear of being blamed for being the first to find her employers brutally murdered. Not just that. She finds a woman in bad shape tied up under the stairs. If only her flight impulse kicked in instead of untying the woman she would have been able to call the police and put it all behind her. Instead the chain of events led to them fleeing the scene and driving cross country to hide. I almost gave up about halfway through after my feelings of disbelief over how they could continue to hide. Maybe there’s truth here that most people aren’t actually paying close attention to people’s faces on the news. Overall the ending wrapped up the loose ends and I’m giving it a 2.5 rounded up to 3.

Killer Potential is an ambitious debut that blends literary fiction with a queer thriller, tackling themes of privilege, societal expectations, and survival. While it has its strengths—sharp humor, an engaging premise, and some insightful commentary—it doesn’t fully deliver on its potential.

Evie, the protagonist, is a disillusioned former honors student grappling with a future that doesn’t match the promise of her past. When she finds herself entangled in a murder she didn’t commit, she goes on the run with Jae, a mysterious and undeniably charismatic woman. Their dynamic has all the makings of a compelling Bonnie-and-Clyde-style romance, but the execution feels rushed. The novel tells us the dynamic, but it rarely shows us why, making their relationship feel underdeveloped.

The thriller elements start strong, but the plot relies on some questionable decisions that make it hard to stay fully invested. Evie’s choices, in particular, sometimes feel frustratingly irrational—especially given her supposedly sharp intellect. Additionally, while the novel tries to weave in social commentary about academia, privilege, and economic struggles, these themes often feel surface-level rather than deeply explored.

Deitch’s prose is witty but occasionally leans too hard into overworked metaphors that sound poetic without actually meaning much. It just left me wishing there had been more time to develop the relationships and themes it set out to explore. Find this on shelves March 18!

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the complimentary eARC. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Thank you William Morrow and LibroFM for review copies
Hannah Deitch’s debut novel is an engaging, fast-paced read with a compelling "sapphic Thelma & Louise" energy, sharp writing, and a gripping twist. Evie’s flawed, self-aware character makes for an intriguing protagonist, and the road-trip atmosphere is well executed. However, the novel falters in its emotional depth, particularly in the relationship between Evie and Jae, which feels underdeveloped. The twist, while intriguing, leans on a trope that raises concerns about where the plot/goals of the story were going, and the ending feels rushed and unresolved. Despite these flaws, Deitch’s strong writing and thematic ambition suggest great potential, even if this wasn’t a full-fledged love-it read.

This book was so intriguing, Evie is wanted for murdering the people who hired her to tutor their daughter? She sees the murder scene a woman who is all tied up in this and they both RUN. WHAT????? I guess it does not matter how smart you are people are just not THAT bright. A woman in her shoes will call the police and let them handle everything, but the way this whole book unravels, and the mystery woman who comes along with her trying to evade the cops and the people who are coming after them. This book was crazy, I couldn’t put it down even though at times it was so ridiculous, I know I was not the only one who was annoyed at Evie. But I needed to know more about this woman she is with and then we get to 70% of the book to find out that the mystery woman is WAY more connected to what happened in that home, and not ONLY do these two have feelings for each other now, their relationship was never going to go far for sure, and both of their worlds are even more torn…. I think?? I don’t know it was one of those books you love/hate at the same time lol, confusing but still intriguing.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

This didn’t work for me. I couldn’t connect to the story or the characters. Just not for me. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this copy for read and review

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC digital copy. I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own.

I got really excited about this book because the action started immediately. It pulled you in you kept turning pages. Unfortunately that only lasted for about half of the book. My the middle we had completely left reality and the book seemed to go on about nothing. Unfortunately, this one just didn't do it for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC digital copy. I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own.

The description sounded quite interesting. Unfortunately, the writing style was such that I could not finish. I skimmed for a while and was still unable to continue.

Despite the DNF status, I extend my deepest respect to the author.

2.5⭐️ I really wanted to like this book more, the premise intrigued me and there was so much potential but it just didn’t do it for me! I had easily guessed the “big twist” but even before the reveal, everything just seemed a little too ridiculous to actually believe. I also didn’t like the sudden POV switch towards the end? It was a struggle to get through because I just didn’t want to ever pick it up. With all that said, I would still love to give whatever Deitch writes next a chance!

Thank you NetGalley and The William Morrow team for the ARC!

Gripping from the very first sentence -- I gobbled this one down in the span of a few short hours, unable to put it down until I reached the end. The plot twist behind the mystery was maybe not astounding to anyone who reads a lot of mystery/thriller stories, but what I found fascinating was the reason why the murders happened, as well as the relationship between our two lady fugitives. This one will stay on my mind for a long time.

Best book I've read in a long time! I took this book EVERYWHERE I knew I'd have a few minutes to read and immediately forwarded the Netgalley email to my best friend/fellow book nerd. I told her that it feels like a reader wrote a novel. And by that I mean, we have all read through patches in a book where you think, omg, you want us to pretend that you didn't just stitch this giant hole in your plot, but you just roll your eyes and continue reading. Not that this book did not require some suspension of disbelief, but to me it still worked so well that I wouldn't take back a single star.

Besides that, more importantly, it was a joy to read. It's a reader's book. The descriptions, her word choices, how she makes you care for these characters, the odd sense of a mystery, and so many genuine laugh out loud moments. I don't find a lot funny. Not because I'm a snob or I'm humorless, I just rarely laugh out loud, so this book felt like a little vacation for my mind. My bestie also loves a good bisexual narrator, as she feels minimized in literature and culture in general, so extra points for that.

I have not had time to come and file this review before today, but I am glad my fellow readers agree with me and gave it 5 stars. (Yes, 4 stars overall right now, but every great book/idea/life has its doubters).

I think this book is going to be huge. It's well written and wildly entertaining. When I received the email from Netgalley that referenced Thelma and Louise, being gifted and talented, that the original title was the hysterical, 'Be Gay Do Crimes', and maybe most importantly of all, loving My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, I could not get to Netgalley.com fast enough.