A former reporter gets a new spin on life in this gripping debut from author Jaime Parker Stickle, whose psychological roller-coaster ride set in sunny Los Angeles tackles motherhood and murder.

New mother Corey Tracey-Lieberman wakes up to nightmarish news: two teenage girls found hanged in a nearby park. Even more unsettling is how the news casually casts the tragedy as the result of increasing street crime, as if the victims’ lives didn’t really matter.

Corey knows better. In the six years she’s lived in Highland Park, she’s seen gentrification but no uptick in criminal activity. A former broadcast journalist, she knows all about spin—and not just the media kind. She now teaches spin classes in the neighborhood, between caring for her nine-month-old son and battling postpartum anxiety.

When police efforts fall short, Corey launches her own investigation into the hangings, flexing her idle sleuthing skills with baby in tow. And after a third murder strikes too close to home, she knows she’s onto something big.

An emotional gut punch tempered by belly laughs, Vicious Cycle is a tour de force certain to thrill all readers.

Jaime Parker Stickle is a writer, actor, podcaster, and professor of film and television at Montclair State University. She’s also the creator and host of the true crime investigative podcast The Girl with the Same Name, as well as the hilarious podcast about side hustles, Make That Paper. Jaime lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, and fur babies.