Mad Honey

Picoult’s (Wish You Were Here) latest, cowritten with essayist and fiction writer Boylan, is a heart-wrenching tale of a teen accused of murdering his girlfriend. The story is told from the point of view of Olivia and Lily and jumps back and forth in time. Olivia is the mother of Asher, a high school senior and captain of the hockey team who falls in love with Lily. When Lily is found dead, the evidence points to Asher as the murderer. It is revealed that Olivia divorced Asher’s father many years ago because he was violent, and she starts to fear that Asher may have inherited more of his father’s character than she wants to admit. As the story unfolds, listeners discover that Lily had many secrets of her own. Narrator Carrie Coon gives voice to Olivia and does a fine job with making her believable and convincing, while Key Taw provides a sympathetic portrait of Lily. Both narrators effectively flesh out the characters as they describe their backstories.