This was an interesting book for me. Evie is a young woman who has coasted on her intelligence for years and currently employed as a SAT tutor for rich kids. One day, she goes to the house of a client and finds the parents dead. Stunned, she also stumbles upon a woman locked in a closet and bound. After that, all hell breaks loose.

Evie and the captive (who we later learn is named Jae) go on the run and many things happen as they evade the law. The book was entertaining for the most part, but I felt the end could’ve been better.

Thanks as always to NetGalley for the ARC.

Evie Gordon, a scholarship student with big dreams, finds herself drowning in debt after graduating from an elite university. One day, she stumbles upon a murder at a wealthy family's estate and becomes a fugitive, trying to clear her name and find the real killer. Along the way, she forms a deep connection with a mysterious woman who helps her navigate the chaos. As she is hunted by the authorities and labeled a killer in the media, Evie questions society's beliefs about social mobility and the stories we are told about our potential.

This book takes readers on a thrilling journey filled with dark humor and provocative twists. The story follows two unlikely fugitives - an SAT tutor who stumbles upon her wealthy employers brutally murdered, and the bound woman she rescues from their mansion.

Both main characters are incredibly likable, making it easy for readers to empathize with their situations. The unexpected twist of having a woman as the perpetrator of harm adds an intriguing layer to the story. The reveal towards the end of the book is expertly executed, leaving readers on the edge of their seats.

The constant twists and turns keep the reader engaged, creating a sense of suspense that is heightened by the road trip setting. The writing is captivating and well-crafted, making it impossible to put the book down.

For those who enjoy thought-provoking novels that blend humor with insightful social commentary, this book comes highly recommended. It is a gripping read that will keep you hooked until the very end.

Thank you, William Morrow for digital ARC copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Evie Gordon is scholarship kid with straight As and big dreams, But after graduating from an elite university, she finds herself drowning in debt and working as an SAT tutor for the super-rich of Los Angeles. Everything changes one Sunday, when she arrives for her weekly lesson at the Victors’ Beverly Hills estate and, in lieu of a bored teenager, finds the bloody remains of the parents strewn through their beautiful back garden, and a woman crying for help within a closet. What follows is a page turner with unexpected twists and turns.

An SAT tutor finds herself a fugitive for a murder she didn’t commit in Hannah Deitch’s Killer Potential.

Evie is an overachiever who has been underperforming in the real world, making ends meet by tutoring wealthy kids. This all falls apart when she shows up for a tutoring session to find the parents murdered and a woman tied up in a closet. When they are mistakenly identified as the murderers, Evie finds herself on the run with the woman and they end up on a life-altering journey.

This is a unique and well-written debut. Having the main character falsely accused and on the run is a great setup for the rest of the book, and the tension between the two characters is palpable. However, it is bizarre the way Evie just rushes into being on the run with a stranger when she didn’t commit the murder, and the truth behind the murder takes a backseat to the relationship between the two women. As neither are particularly likable characters, it is a challenge to feel invested in them, and I struggled to finish. While not for me, this book will have an audience, as seen in the reviews.

I have to say that the title of the book if what got my attention and I am glad it did. Killer Potential was a great book. I am such a fan of true crime and this read like a podcast. Also, much to my surprise, the setting of this story took place in my home town and the areas surrounding it. This for sure added that extra star in my book. This book had a nice twist at the end which is rare since most thrillers follow the same pattern now and take away from the fun. This book did not disappoint.

why is Evie just accepting of this fate?? Just being like “okay sure I’ll go on the run with this tattered, potentially kidnapped girl who I know nothing about”??
• Evie just lets Jae sit in silence??? For days??? You know nothing about her and you just keep going?

This started off so strong and so crazy, and kept getting crazier, but there were a couple of things about the way it wrapped up that didn’t work well for me and that dragged my rating down a bit. But if you’re looking for a story of an unlikely pair on the run and how unhinged that can quickly get - kind of a Thelma and Louise situation - this book is a great pick.

I really liked the characters in this one and thought it was a good story for the most part. I struggled too much at the beginning of this book with my suspension of disbelief. I can see why others love this one though.

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC!

4.5 ⭐

This fast paced mystery/thriller was so much fun to read. I loved the crazy turn of events and how things just seemed to snowball.

Evie is an SAT tutor for wealthy teens, when she shows up to one of her appointments and the door is ajar she wonders what's going on. When she discovers the parents dead she freaks out and goes to run but then hears someone begging for help. The last thing she expects to find is a woman tied up in the house. Things get crazy from there and Evie ends up on the run as a wanted suspected murderer.

Who is this mystery woman and what happened to her? Why was she tied up? Where did she come from? This quick witted book keeps you turning the paging and trying to guess what they could possibly do next. I really enjoyed this one!

Thanks to netgalley for a copy to enjoy.

I almost gave up on this book right after I started. It involves two young women on the run across the United States. They are suspected of murder. I can tell you how this ends, Bonnie & Louise…in a hail of FBI gunfire outside a cheap motel in Kansas started off by an agent who swears he thought that burner phone was a gun (and it will always be a “he.”). But this doesn’t go that way.

While I’m torn between disbelief that they could stay on the road and my firm certainty that most people don’t notice/don’t care about the world around them (and I’m not excluding myself. If anyone from the FBI’s Ten, make that One Hundred Most Wanted List knocked on my door right now….well, Inprobably wouldn’t answer, but it’s because I’m lazy, I hate people and I’m wearing a nightgown, not because I would recognize them.).

Anyway, the story becomes much more interesting, and, though I had a few raised eyebrows about the end (I’m a lawyer), I actually enjoyed it. Evie is a strong main character with totally understandable angst, for once. There’s a lot to like here.

“An entire country was chasing us - and isn’t this what so many women say they want? Men persuing them, courting them, waiting up late next to the telephone for news of their whereabouts, twirling their hair…a funny thing, how the language of courtship mirrors the language of hunting. Chase. Pursue. Stalk. We had become the object of it all. Objects of lust, objects of fear. What was the difference, really?”

This was my first Hannah Deitich novel. I was pleasantly surprised with this cat and mouse like thriller. I loved the suspense and wanting to know what was around every corner of this book!
Evie was a fun and relatable character, a tutor of rich kids. One of her appointments goes wrong when she walks into the site of a killing. Some details seemed a bit repetitive but overall I enjoyed it and couldn’t wait to see how it turned out.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I thought the writing and plot were great. But I just couldn’t get into it. I felt there was too much unnecessary backstory and I wound up getting bored at times. Although I will say this book had me on a rollercoaster ride towards the end, it did end up being a fun read. I just wish I found it more captivating.

Wow, this book blew me away! It’s been a while since I’ve read a thriller book that genuinely had me on the edge of my seat reading so fast to find out what would happen next. This book gave me Thelma and Louise vibes, which was amazing.

I struggled to get through this book, but I give it 3 stars because I think it was written well, the writing is just not for me.

Evie's internal monologue could be rambly. It was wordy and boring to read at times because nothing was happening to further the story.

The dialogue with Jae was often lackluster. And sometimes Jae would respond to what was written as Evie's internal monologue which was confusing.

Despite being wordy, I felt like words and details were missing. (Jae was described in great detail but like, not enough. I can't picture her at all.)

This didn't feel like much of a thriller as this book was more about them being on the run than it was a murder mystery. I didn't really guess who committed the murders, but I didn’t really care, and wasn't all that shocked at the twist. Then, after there were some huge time jumps, the book abruptly ends, with no real indication of what became of Evie and Jae. It was unsatsifying, but I prefer my books tied up in a bow.

🌶 for a couple short scenes between the the two FMCs

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this ARC 🤍 All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC!

I gave this 3.75 stars, rounding up.

For me, all of the small critiques I had (some parts dragging on or feeling repetitive, a couple instances of what felt like info dumping, certain choices characters made) were very easy to overlook because the story itself made it so hard to put this down. Evie and Jae were both such compelling characters. Evie's wit and dark humor as well as the connection between her and Jae were the high points for me. A part of me saw the twist/reveal coming but it still managed to make me gasp. I couldn't stop reading once I got there, I had to see what happened immediately.

I was surprised this was a debut novel with how well-written and captivating it was. Only the ending felt just a little rushed, but I can fully understand why it was written that way.

I'll absolutely read whatever this author puts out next.

thank you to netgalley and William Morrow for the arc read.

sooooo, this was gripping and fast paced - to ME. i love when female characters are less than perfect. its sapphic and fun and the writing is amazing. do i understand half the choices either of the characters made?? absolutely not but lmao it work for what the story was telling and for who the characters were.

my only complaints are that some of the writing itself was long winded. evie's thoughts went on forever and into random tangents that circled back to the original thought. it was too much at times and made those moments in the book drag.

i do want to preface by saying this was fun, what i mean is that Evie is hilarious and there are moments of comedy but i found it a bit heavy, especially the more you get into it.

recommend to anyone that wants a sapphic crime thelma and louise type of vibe!

I really liked the way this began and it had great promise conceptually, but like a number of other reviewers I felt like that promise was never realized. The novel devolved so quickly into ridiculous decisions that made no sense at all that it became impossible to keep suspending disbelief enough to imagine things playing out this way... I get some suspension of disbelief. I get some bad choices made In the heat of the moment. But from start to finish nothing made sense here, and that made it next to Impossible for me to connect to the characters or storyline. This one was not at all a good fit for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for this advance reader’s copy, in exchange for an honest review. “Killer Potential” is scheduled for publication on March 13, 2025.
And check out all of my reviews at my Raised on Reading (www.raisedonreading.com) blog site.
I’ve always been a glass-is-half-full person, because if you’re thirsty, that half glass sure looks refreshing.
But when it comes to novels, that half-glass theory doesn’t hold water (pun intended). And that’s the case with Hannah Deitch’s debut novel, “Killer Potential.” It gets the reader half-way there, but not all the way home.
Evie Gordon works as an SAT tutor in Los Angeles. One day she shows up at the home of a wealthy family and finds both parents dead. She’s about to leave and phone 9-1-1 when she hears a voice from the closet under the stairs calling for help. There she finds a young woman, bound and unable to speak. Evie cuts her loose, but just then Serena, Evie’s student, shows up and all Hell breaks loose. Serena is injured (Evie thinks she’s dead) in the ensuing struggle, and then Serena’s boyfriend shows up. Knowing how guilty they look, Evie and the woman she rescued flee.
This begins an improbable journey that at times reads a bit like Thelma and Louise – two women on the run from the law. And to this point in the story that’s okay. I’ve been drawn in, and I’m wondering what’s going to happen to these two women.
But as their journey unfolds, it becomes increasingly unbelievable that they are not only able to elude law enforcement during a cross-country drive from L.A. to the Florida panhandle but do so again during a return trip to the far reaches of Washington state. All while their images have been broadcast and posted everywhere imaginable.
As you might imagine, the two women begin to open to each other. But more than open to each other. It doesn’t take long before they become sexually engaged. And perhaps to break up the monotony of the drive – for them as well as for the reader – Deitch feels it necessary to reveal their sexual exploits in finely detailed specifics. For me, it was a bit too graphic. I don’t need to be hit over the head with minutiae to know that a sexual encounter has taken place.
The latter portion of the book left me empty. The entire narrative is written first-person perspective in Evie’s voice. Then toward the end it alternates between Evie’s and Jae’s (the woman she rescued) voice. And Jae’s narrative comes across way too bland.
The book’s climax is also a letdown. I wasn’t sure what to make of the ending. It’s abrupt and left me hanging. Perhaps Deitch just got tired of writing.
Which was fine, because I was tired of reading.
Two-and-one-half out of five stars (rounded up to three) for “Killer Potential,” because the story never did live up to its full potential.

The story gripped me from the first page. The concept was intriguing and I devoured Deitch's words. A very impressive debut.

Evie isn't exactly a relatable character, she's far smarter than I could ever dream of being and that makes her kind of conceited and cold, but there was just something that made me root for her.

The writing in this is great, and I really appreciated the pacing. It made for an addictive read. I had a feeling where this was going and was a little disappointed when I ended up being right in regard to what happened to the Victors, and the ending was a bit underwhelming, but it was still very enjoyable.

A very tense, murder-y thriller. Suspension of disbelief is a must, and the end feels a bit rushed, but it kept me interested.