She Treads Softly: The Perfect Hosts

Saturday, October 18, 2025

The Perfect Hosts

The Perfect Hosts by Heather Gudenkauf
11/4/25; 320 pages
Park Row Books

The Perfect Hosts by Heather Gudenkauf is a highly recommended mystery/domestic thriller which begins with a gender reveal party turning deadly.

Madeline and Wes Drake in Nightjar Wyoming have invited two hundred guests to their sprawling horse ranch for a lavish, catered gender reveal party. The planned big reveal involves shooting at an old truck to ignite the explosion of pink or blue powder. Instead, the whole truck explodes violently and is closely followed by a second explosion of a barn. The explosion kills Joanna, Madeline’s best friend and midwife, and injures many others, including Madeline, Dix, Wes's brother, and Mellie, a waitress with the catering company.

Madeline's estranged sister Lucy, shows up right after the explosion which raises eyebrows. Dalton, Joanna's husband, is angry and blames Wes. Mellie says she is pregnant and gloms onto Madeline at the ranch. Into the heat of the aftermath, ATF Special Agent Jamie Saldano is sent to assist in the investigate the explosions. Jamie has a history in Nightjar. He lived there with his mom and sister Juneau for a brief time when he was a young teen. It was where he was nearly beaten to death the night his sister disappeared.

This atmospheric novel is well-plotted, the pace is fast, and it will hold your complete attention. The tension rises throughout the novel and several suspects and motives emerge. There is also an unsettled atmosphere and more than one mystery. Wes Drake has a whole lot of influence and contacts in the area, which makes the investigation into a motive complicated. It seems everyone has an angle to play and a different planned outcome. The narrative is told through four different points-of-view, Madeline, Lucy, Jamie, and Mellie.

The characters are multi dimensional and feel like unique, complicated individuals. You aren't sure who you can trust beyond Madeline and Jamie. Several characters are clearly untrustworthy. The reveal of whodunit and the final twist in the novel were both satisfying.

The Perfect Hosts is a great choice for anyone who likes a fast paced mystery/domestic thriller. Thanks to Harlequin/Park Row Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.