THE LAST ILLUSION OF PAIGE WHITE

In this compelling, gothic-tinged novel, an Australian influencer is found dead, drawing her childhood friend home to investigate her death.

Paige White’s body is found shortly after she posts a haunting photo on social media showing herself lying in shallow water. Jane Masters, who went to high school with Paige nearly 20 years ago, is now a successful Sydney journalist. She’s pulled back to her rural hometown on a lake to mourn her friend but also to write a story about social media darling Paige. Perhaps inspired by Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones (2002), McCausland imagines Paige ruminating from a limbolike place about the picture-perfect but inauthentic life she experienced through her social media feeds. The author expertly portrays influencers’ obsession with beauty and perfect photos and the way many social media users depend on their feeds for affirmation of self-worth. For Paige, all the pretense becomes exhausting. How, she wonders, “did it all come down to a little love heart or a thumbs-up or a smiley face?” There’s more to this story, though, because details surrounding Paige’s death unearth long-kept secrets from the past. Alternating among chapters narrated by Paige, Jane, and another high school friend, Audrey, who struggled more than most with self-esteem, McCausland examines with a fresh eye the complicated and competitive relationships among teenage girls and their messy relationships with their parents. Murder suspects include Paige’s husband and an online poet who may not be who he says he is. It’s an emotional mystery that McCausland fires up with forbidden romance, the heartbreak of a motherless child, and a surprising denouement.

Social media takes a dark turn in this intriguing tale of regret.