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  • Published: 15 July 2025
  • ISBN: 9781728294049
  • Imprint: Sourcebooks Landmark
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $29.99

Desperate Deadly Widows




Being the devil's advocate pays great but could cost you everything—just ask the young rich widows, who are back and better than ever.

The widows are back! Big hair and bigger lies collide in the highly anticipated follow-up to Young Rich Widows, where nothing's more dangerous than a widow with nothing left to lose.

Set in neon-drenched Providence, Rhode Island, circa 1987, just two years after a plane carrying four mafia-affiliated law-firm partners exploded over the Atlantic along with the cushy lives of their once wealthy wives. Now, Krystle fights to keep their fallen law firm afloat. Justine hustles as a lawyer-in-training. Meredith owns and operates the strip club where she once danced. And Camille orchestrates honey-pot schemes for scorned women–until one of her arrangements goes terribly wrong, and she becomes implicated in the debauched Mayor Tom's mysterious murder in the champagne room. With everything on the line, the widows must join forces once more. But as the conspiracy unravels beyond the mayor's demise, their search for justice pits first wife against second wife and widow against widow. With the widows' fragile bond now tested, will the women cement their friendships, or is loyalty a luxury they just can't afford?

In this thrilling expansion of the Widows universe, brimming with sloshed champagne, smeared lipstick, and lethal secrets, Desperate Deadly Widows unfolds as an edge-of-your-seat thriller where desperation wears stilettos, trust is a poker chip, and redemption comes at the cost of everything you thought you knew.

  • Published: 15 July 2025
  • ISBN: 9781728294049
  • Imprint: Sourcebooks Landmark
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $29.99

About the authors

Vanessa Lillie

VANESSA LILLIE is the author of Little Voices, For the Best, and Blood Sisters

Layne Fargo

Layne Fargo writes dark, dramatic stories that support women’s rights—and also women’s wrongs. She’s the author of psychological thrillers They Never Learn and Temper, co-author of the #1 bestselling Audible Original series Young Rich Widows (coming to paperback in spring 2024), and co-creator of the Unlikeable Female Characters podcast on Lit Hub Radio. Her first work of women’s fiction The Favorites is forthcoming from Chatto & Windus in January 2025.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Layne worked as a dramaturg, a librarian, and a corporate knowledge manager, and she still loves going down a good research rabbit hole. She lives in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood with a rescue pit bull and cat who are best friends, the only man she never wants to murder (well, almost never), and way too many books.

Cate Holahan

CATE HOLAHAN is the USA Today Bestselling author of novels such as Her Three Lives.

Kimberly Belle

KIMBERLY BELLE is the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of eight novels, including The Personal Assistant, The Marriage Lie, and The Paris Widow.

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