Someone Had to Do It

Brandi Maxwell, the protagonist of Brown and Brown’s suspenseful debut, grew up on the mean streets of Newark, N.J., but has finally achieved the life she believes she deserves. She’s juggling studying at FIT in New York City with her dream internship at a high-end fashion house—an unpaid internship she could never afford if her boyfriend, Nate Robinson, the privileged son of a football star and himself a star college football player, didn’t support her financially as well as emotionally. But Brandi is still subjected to the microaggressions and outright discrimination facing a Black woman in fashion’s world of trust fund babies. After she overhears the owner’s daughter, Taylor Van Doren, plotting to kill her father, Simon, because he has threatened to disinherit her over her drug use, Brandi winds up framed for Simon’s murder and must fight to clear her name. Readers should be prepared for some over-the-top characterizations and unlikely plot twists, such as a villain who is too inept to fake a simple urine test being able to plot and pull off a near-perfect murder. Fans of Gossip Girl will have fun. Agent: Jessica Faust, Bookends Literary. (Dec.)