Megan Abbott meets Claire Messud (The Woman Upstairs).

The Blue Butterfly is a 75,000-word psychological suspense novel that builds on contemporary sexual dynamics. Playing with gender roles and expectations, The Blue Butterfly is a dark “he said/she said” that changes point of view at a critical point in the middle and ends in a tragedy that may have been inevitable from the start. As much a novel about toxic relationships as it is about suspense, the story unspools like a Megan Abbott take on The Girl on the Train, with a very complicated heroine and some Patricia Highsmith creepiness thrown in.

In light of the current political climate and, in particular, the Dobbs decision, we believe there is an appetite for stories about women who are desperate for agency.

Clea Simon is the Boston Globe-bestselling author of three nonfiction books and 29 mysteries. Her crime fiction is divided between cozy mysteries (most recently her “Witch Cats of Cambridge” series) and psychological suspense, including the recent Hold Me Down (a Massachusetts Center for the Book “must read” and currently on the longlist for their fiction prize). A graduate of Harvard University, she has contributed to publications ranging from Salon.com and Harvard Magazine to Rolling Stone, Yankee, and The New York Times.