COMING APRIL 21, 2026 from HarperCollins / Park Row

“This is the smart, sexy, scandalous read of the season.” —Town & Country

“Acclaimed playwright Raicek’s debut novel is a twisty, tense psychological thriller, tantalizingly sexy and explosively unnerving.”
—Booklist

Read the full KIRKUS REVIEWS

I had become good at hiding things, and most of all from myself.

In the wake of her fiancé’s shocking death, Liv flees to New York where she seeks refuge in the apartment of an old mentor. Broken and lonely, she ventures to a party one night and sees him: Damon, her magnetic former neighbor. At his side is Isabel, a beguiling older widow whose presence intrigues and unsettles her. Desperate for escape, Liv is drawn into their charged dynamic and becomes entangled in their dazzling lives.

But when an investigative journalist invades their circle, threatening to expose a shattering secret from her past, Liv begins to unravel. She embarks on an all-consuming affair with Damon, complicated by her deepening bond with Isabel. Over the course of one scorching summer – moving from Manhattan to the North Fork to Lake Como – their lives collide in a dangerous game of desire and betrayal that pushes them to an explosive edge.

Searing, taut, and propulsive, The Plunge plumbs the depths of obsession and the ravages of grief. Told with razor-sharp prose and emotional precision, it offers an unflinching examination of the deceptions that undo us, and marks the arrival of a resonant and provocative new voice in fiction.

Advance praise:

“Raicek polishes her prose to a fine gloss… a wildly sensational experience. Full of artifice, it pays tribute to ‘the razor’s edge between desire and doom.’ A tantalizing romantic triangle with more than a hint of menace.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Playwright Raicek debuts a seductive literary thriller… The plot is propulsive, and Raicek keeps the reader guessing at the characters’ true intentions. A diverting tale.”
—Publishers Weekly

“The Plunge has a villa full of the most scintillating and malevolently eroticized characters since the cunning aristocrats of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Raicek’s literary debut is thrilling, hypnotic, and whip-smart.” — Griffin Dunne, author of The Friday Afternoon Club

“The Plunge is a tremendous debut novel—gripping, enthralling and sneakily profound—written with great brio and assuredness.”
—William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart

“A tantalizing thriller written in nuanced and luminous prose, The Plunge is a deep dive into loss, longing, and the price of passion. Lila writes with a singular power that comes from her understanding of the twists and turns of the complexities of female desire. I was immersed from the first to the last page.”
—Daphne Merkin, author of 22 Minutes of Unconditional Love

“The Plunge is a sophisticated thriller that envelops the reader in secrets—secrets that stimulate and alleviate the narrator’s fear and inertia. But the strain of pretenses and the constant adaptation they require lead to dangerous entanglements here. The narrator, adept at transforming suffering into pleasure, reminds us that the past is a kind of prophecy.”
—Susanna Moore, author of In the Cut

“The it girl novel of the summer. Like a cult euro-chic thriller, The Plunge is seductive, disquieting, and reveals the dark undercurrents roiling beneath its gleaming surfaces. Raicek writes with a playwright’s propulsive sense of dramatic tension that can make you laugh one page and cry the next—a stunning new voice.”
—Marisa Meltzer, author of It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin

“A startling and smoldering debut that thrums with suspense. The Plunge is a brilliantly crafted study of desire, deception, and the traumatic edges of womanhood that pulls you into its emotional undertow. Raicek will leave you gasping for air long after the final sentence.”
—Christina McDowell, author of The Cave Dwellers