Helpless
'Addictive' (Lisa Jewell) The SCORCHING new thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and Bright Young Women
Will be published approx. on 7. July 2026
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-1-3985-5872-4 (ISBN)
Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and Bright Young Women comes the highly anticipated, heart-pounding thriller with twists you'll never see coming...
'Dark, twisty, and wildly addictive. Helpless is Jessica Knoll at her boldest and most unsettling' JENEVA ROSE
'A dark, twisty and addictive read that you will struggle to put down' LISA JEWELL
'A daring, sexy tension-fest with head-spinning twists' CATHERINE RYAN HOWARD
'Inimitable, propulsive, and utterly addictive' LOUISE O'NEILL
'A razor-sharp thriller with a riveting cast of characters' KIA ABDULLAH
Faye Heron has it all: beauty, a glittering Hollywood career and a powerhouse marriage to her producer husband. Her life is the kind most people can only dream of.
When a beloved former college professor suddenly passes away, Faye is drawn back to campus, and back to Henry Spalding, the man she's spent twelve years trying to forget.
Henry was her first love, her most intense love. Their love was the kind that consumed... and that Faye chose to walk away from. Their reunion should be nothing more than a polite nod to the past. Instead, it awakens something dangerous.
Henry is full of apologies for how they ended. But as Faye is pulled deeper into his orbit, she begins to wonder if she's walking into something that she won't be able to escape from this time.
What starts as an innocent chance to reconnect unravels into a sinister game of obsession and control, one that forces Faye to confront the truth about their past and uncover a sprawling, years-old mystery.
Because Henry isn't just one of a kind. He's the kind who doesn't let go.
Readers can't stop talking about Helpless... (5 star reader reviews *****)
'This is SO good. I am beside myself with joy that this book was great ... It is AMAZING'
'Very readable and I just had such a good time reading this'
'A raw, exposing and real book with a story built around some huge and important but hard themes'
'Jessica Knoll delivers another gripping and unsettling thriller that is both compulsively readable and emotionally confronting'
'Draws the reader in quickly, blending psychological tension with sharp social observation'
'Dark, twisty, and wildly addictive. Helpless is Jessica Knoll at her boldest and most unsettling' JENEVA ROSE
'A dark, twisty and addictive read that you will struggle to put down' LISA JEWELL
'A daring, sexy tension-fest with head-spinning twists' CATHERINE RYAN HOWARD
'Inimitable, propulsive, and utterly addictive' LOUISE O'NEILL
'A razor-sharp thriller with a riveting cast of characters' KIA ABDULLAH
Faye Heron has it all: beauty, a glittering Hollywood career and a powerhouse marriage to her producer husband. Her life is the kind most people can only dream of.
When a beloved former college professor suddenly passes away, Faye is drawn back to campus, and back to Henry Spalding, the man she's spent twelve years trying to forget.
Henry was her first love, her most intense love. Their love was the kind that consumed... and that Faye chose to walk away from. Their reunion should be nothing more than a polite nod to the past. Instead, it awakens something dangerous.
Henry is full of apologies for how they ended. But as Faye is pulled deeper into his orbit, she begins to wonder if she's walking into something that she won't be able to escape from this time.
What starts as an innocent chance to reconnect unravels into a sinister game of obsession and control, one that forces Faye to confront the truth about their past and uncover a sprawling, years-old mystery.
Because Henry isn't just one of a kind. He's the kind who doesn't let go.
Readers can't stop talking about Helpless... (5 star reader reviews *****)
'This is SO good. I am beside myself with joy that this book was great ... It is AMAZING'
'Very readable and I just had such a good time reading this'
'A raw, exposing and real book with a story built around some huge and important but hard themes'
'Jessica Knoll delivers another gripping and unsettling thriller that is both compulsively readable and emotionally confronting'
'Draws the reader in quickly, blending psychological tension with sharp social observation'
Reviews / Votes
'Dark, twisty, and wildly addictive. Helpless is Jessica Knoll at her boldest and most unsettling' JENEVA ROSE, #1 New York Times bestselling author'A dark, twisty and addictive read that you will struggle to put down' LISA JEWELL, multi-million copy bestselling author 'If Jessica Knoll writes it, I'll read it. The pages of her books seem to crackle with electricity and she's an utterly fearless writer. Perhaps never more so than in HELPLESS, a dark, daring, sexy tension-fest with head-spinning twists, which roars Knoll's refusal to ever write the same book twice' CATHERINE RYAN HOWARD, no.1 bestselling thriller author of 56 Days
'I will read anything Jessica Knoll writes - her voice is inimitable, propulsive, and utterly addictive' LOUISE O'NEILL, bestselling author of Only Ever Yours and Asking For It 'Few writers are able to capture human nature as well as Jessica Knoll. In Helpless, she crafts a razor-sharp thriller with a riveting cast of characters. Dark, daring and deliciously sexy, it takes an unflinching look at power and privilege, and the ways in which we efface ourselves for those in control' KIA ABDULLAH, bestselling author of Those People Next Door
'Jessica Knoll is one of my favorite writers and Helpless is her at her best. A fearless, powerful and completely original thriller' LAURA DAVE, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me
'Slick, sexy and dripping in delicious suspense. This is Jessica Knoll at the very top of her game' KATY BRENT, bestselling author of How to Kill Men and Get Away With It
'Jessica Knoll is one of my favourite authors. Every new book is a treasure to be hoarded' LOUISE CANDLISH, Sunday Times bestselling author of A Neighbour's Guide to Murder and Our House 'True to form, [Knoll] absolutely goes there in this novel, offering a nuanced and unapologetic portrait of an unconventional relationship without judgment. Puts the "erotic" back in "erotic thriller"' KIRKUS
'A sexy new thriller' NEW YORK POST 'Jessica Knoll has made a specialty of dark, compulsively readable stories about women trapped in other people's narratives. Helpless sharpens that obsession into a relationship thriller with teeth' OPRAH DAILY, '31 Most Anticipated Books of 2026'
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 5944 mm
Width: 3886 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-3985-5872-4 (9781398558724)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jessica Knoll is the New York Times bestselling author of Bright Young Women, The Favorite Sister, and Luckiest Girl Alive-now a major motion picture from Netflix starring Mila Kunis. She has been a senior editor at Cosmopolitan and the articles editor at Self. She lives in New York City with her family.