A Good Person

by Kirsten King

Genres: General Fiction; Black Humor; Literary Fiction; Thrillers; Psychological Thrillers; Humorous Fiction

Synopsis

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 BY FORBES, THE MILLIONS, GOODREADS, CRIMEREADS, AND BOOKSTR

"A zillennial Gone Girl." —New York Times Book Review

"If Ottessa Moshfegh dabbled in murder." —Seattle Times

"Part Fleabag, part Gone Girl." —theSkimm

An electric binge-of-a-debut about an antihero who seeks revenge on her ex-situationship with a hex, only for him to actually, literally die.

Lillian and Henry have been enjoying each other’s company, particularly in bed. Even though Lillian’s best (and only) friend calls it a “situationship,” Lillian knows better. And she has a plan to lock Henry down. She’ll be the best, most accommodating version of herself until he falls in love with her. But when Henry blindsides Lillian with a breakup instead of a love declaration, Lillian is left with no choice but to exact revenge with a hex.

Lillian expects Henry to grovel and come crawling back to her. What she doesn’t anticipate is becoming a prime suspect in his murder case when he’s found dead.

Desperate to control the narrative, clear her name, and assume her rightful place as Henry’s mourning girlfriend, Lillian’s pursuit of the truth will throw her into a dangerous tailspin, which may just upend her life for good.

A deliciously addictive novel that explores our darkest, most human impulses, A Good Person heralds Kirsten King as a striking new voice in fiction.

Release date: March 31, 2026

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Print pages: 304

Sample

Chapter One

My name was misspelled on the cake. That was the first thing I noticed. Instead of "Happy birthday, Lillian!" it said "Happy birthday, Lilian." It felt like a bad omen for the year to come-like that missing l might derail everything. I stared at the pastel store-bought cake while my colleagues sang an off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday." The loudest voice in the room by a landslide was my coworker Jessica, who had the vigor of a theater kid who'd been begrudgingly cast in the chorus and was fighting for her life to change her fate. Jessica was the company's latest hire, and she was constantly asking people to go to coffee so she could "pick their brain," as if that were a normal turn of phrase and not a deranged way of asking to harvest intel. She was fresh out of college, with more collagen and optimism than I had ever had in my life. I hated her.

I didn't really have friends at work. Sometimes I traded GIFs with people on Slack, but I found it difficult to connect with the other women in the office. They all did reformer Pilates, drank matcha, and were invited to weddings every other weekend. How they knew so many people, I wasn't sure. They were also all excellent at pretending to be passionate about our company, which was a small marketing firm called Fizzle that advertised themselves as progressive, as if having a white woman as our CEO meant we weren't participating in capitalism the same way everyone else was.

My boss, Candice, who was second-in-command to our CEO, stood next to Jessica. Candice was dressed head to toe in red, with cherry Crocs to match. She seemingly had Crocs for every season, even ones that had been insulated for Boston's harsh winters. The other girls at work often complimented her style, but I personally thought she looked like an emotionally stunted clown.

"Happy birthday to youuuuuu!" Candice sang.

Candice was mostly an okay boss. She had the kind of millennial guilt that meant she was generous with time off, and she once let a colleague stay home because she was "emotionally hungover" from watching Squid Game. I assumed her bright outfits and kindness would dull over time, but in my three years at the company, she had maintained her cheer. I wanted to like her, but she made me feel like a dark cloud waiting to rain on a corporate culture that was built on the back of a kombucha scoby.

"Blow out the candles!" Candice said, pushing the cake toward my face.

I smiled to the best of my ability and blew out the candles. I decided against making a real wish on a defective cake. I didn't want to risk any cosmic wires getting crossed and making whatever I (Lillian with two l's) wanted come true for Lilian with one l instead.

Normally, I liked attention, but today's birthday was an exception. Against my will, I was turning twenty-nine. By now, I was supposed to have a skincare routine that didn't make me break out. I was supposed to have a job where I made six figures and people didn't talk over me in meetings. I was supposed to have enough underwear to make it through a month without dipping into garments I had owned since college. I was supposed to throw out my underwear from college. I was supposed to have a committed partner who loved me.

That part, at least, I could say I was working on.

"Who wants a slice?" Candice said, chipper, beginning to cut the cake.

The women in my office broke out into overlapping chatter of "Maybe just a tiny piece" and "A little sliver for me" and "I had a big lunch."

"First piece goes to the birthday girl!" Candice exclaimed, handing me a slice that was so big it felt like sabotage.

"Thanks," I replied flatly.

My coworkers wished me happy birthday and walked back to their respective desks with their paper-thin slices of cake in hand. I wondered if any of them would suggest post-work drinks in celebration, but the invitations didn't come.

My performative birthday ritual was over.

I checked my phone to see if Henry-the guy I had been dating for the last four months-had texted me, but all I had were six texts from my mother:

Happy birthday!! Call me later.

Did you hear about the E. coli outbreak?

Don't buy celery.

Killed one person already.

Some mail came for you.

Looks like junk.

Engaging with my mother was like opening a door during a snowstorm-any comfort you had could be quickly disrupted by the cold gust of air she carried with her. She was an extremely dramatic person who treated life like a telenovela, shrieking if a car cut her off in traffic or if she forgot her coffee inside the house. Every time she picked up the phone to talk to a friend, she let out a sharp gasp that left me waiting to hear if my grandma, a friend, or David Schwimmer was dead (my mom really liked David Schwimmer). Usually, these reactions only meant that someone had gotten a bad haircut or won four dollars on a scratcher. I didn't have the energy to engage with her antics today.

When I got back to my desk, I opened up an incognito tab and navigated to Henry's LinkedIn profile. In his headshot, his brown hair was gelled back, and he wore horn-rimmed glasses that looked like the kind you might buy at a drugstore in an effort to get a new personality. Henry worked at State Street Bank as a risk analyst, a job he had explained to me at least twelve times but one I couldn't fully absorb. When he spoke about work, I raised my eyebrows and reacted appropriately at the right moments, but, in truth, I had no clue what his position entailed. LinkedIn was the only social media Henry used and my only virtual connection to him. I had found his private Instagram account a while ago, but when I asked him about it, he said that it was old and deactivated. He insisted platforms like Instagram and Facebook created a dangerous political chasm between mostly like-minded people. He claimed he could not-in good conscience-participate in social media because of it. In theory, I agreed with him, but not enough to exert any restraint over my own habits. Plus, I liked watching people I went to high school with get progressively uglier online.

Henry and I first met while I was out for drinks with my colleagues at a pub near Fenway Park. At work functions, you were supposed to drink a maximum of two drinks and be the most normal version of yourself possible. However, my coworkers were insufferable, so I was three drinks deep when I spotted him. He was at the bar sipping a whiskey soda and working on his laptop. He was handsome, but not so attractive that he felt out of my league. He looked a little bit like Bill Hader, whom I had always wanted to fuck. I approached him as I ordered my fourth glass of wine.

"Who brings a laptop to a bar?" I teased, resting my elbow on the counter and quickly recovering when it slid off the bar.

Henry seemed taken aback but smiled when he registered that I was joking.

"I'm just finishing some work," he explained.

The bartender placed my glass of wine in front of me.

"Do you want to buy this for me?" I nodded to the glass.

Henry looked surprised but recovered. "Uh, yeah. Sure."

I scooped up my wine and clinked my glass against his, nearly knocking it over. Henry grabbed his own cup, steadying it before it could spill onto his electronics.

"Cheers," I said.

I returned to my colleagues, who were talking about the latest prestigious television show that everyone had decided was Really Saying Something. I glanced over at Henry, who was still hunched over his MacBook Pro. As the night progressed, my coworkers trickled out of the bar one by one while Henry remained. When they all were gone, I tipsily strutted back to where he sat, plopping down next to him. His cell phone was resting on the counter. I grabbed it, and his arm shot up to block me, like a strictly programmed robot.

"Relax." I smirked. "I'm just putting my number in."

Henry's mouth fell open, but he didn't protest.

"Unless you don't want me to," I said, raising an eyebrow to challenge him.

He didn't answer. So I entered my number.

"Are you usually this forward?" Henry asked.

"No," I lied.

Men liked to think that you were breaking your normally chaste rules to pursue them. They wanted to feel like you were virginal to the rest of the world and a whore with them. It was why I always made sure to say "I never do this on a first date" whenever I slept with someone on a first date. Men wanted to feel like you were a new car that only had a few miles on it. I understood all the ways in which this was a retrograde way of thinking, but it was the reality, so I embraced it.

"There. You're welcome." I smiled, handing him his phone back.

"Oh. Okay. Thanks," Henry replied.

I walked out of the bar in the straightest line I could manage, imagining myself as a Julia Roberts character in a '90s movie: hot, spontaneous, and with great undamaged hair that swayed in the wind behind me. I pictured Henry watching me walk away, shaking his head in disbelief at his luck. The next day, I realized I'd forgotten to close my tab and canceled my credit card out of laziness. A few days later, Henry texted:

You're forward. I'm equal parts scared and impressed.

Since that fateful meeting, we had been consistently hooking up, though our emotional progress was slower than I would have liked. Even though we had sex weekly, he worked so much that he didn't have time for dinners or much more. On weekends, he was usually busy working or volunteering. But after four months of seeing each other, I was ready to finally feel safe with Henry. I wanted to spend weeknights with him smoking weed, watching bad Netflix shows, and pretending to listen when we told each other about our days. I wanted to relax.

My reverie was interrupted as Candice approached my desk, her Crocs squeaking against the linoleum floors. I quickly navigated away from Henry's page to my work email and squinted at my computer, like I was lost in thought.

"Hey, girly," Candice said, hovering behind my desk. "Any fun birthday plans for tonight?" she asked. "You know we have puppy yoga this evening if you're free!"

Candice often arranged team-bonding activities that were thinly veiled Instagram photo opportunities. At these gatherings, she carefully placed the few women of color in the front row of every photo. In the pictures she shared online, we looked like an ad for a diverse college campus that had no fat people. Since I was white and not hot in an otherworldly way, I was usually put in the back, so I avoided any team-bonding events that didn't at least provide free alcohol. I especially wouldn't be attending one on my birthday.

"I have plans with friends," I lied.

Candice smiled. "Aw, of course you do. We'll miss you!"

"Same," I said, fixing my face in a way that I hoped looked genuine.

"I did actually want to chat with you about something else if you have a minute." She squatted down so she was at eye level with my desk.

Was I in trouble? I had looked at porn on my company laptop so many times that I got a bug that IT needed to fix last week, though I'd assumed they weren't able to source where the virus had come from. Was she going to scold me for that? On my birthday, of all days? If she did, I would say she was sex-shaming me; using buzzwords to claim wrongdoing usually worked on people like Candice.

"You know how the Wellness Witch is coming in next week?" Candice asked.

I relaxed, relieved that she just wanted to talk about work. The Wellness Witch was a client our company had been trying to court for months. She was an unvaccinated woman who'd built her brand convincing people that they could improve their lives through amateur witchcraft. On TikTok, she taught spells and potions, and talked about manifestation. She'd even sold supplements, juices, and placenta for a while until the FDA intervened. She had millions of followers, and every ad agency in Boston was trying to represent her for sponsorship deals. I personally found her nauseating, but she had dollar signs all over her, so it didn't matter what I thought.

I strained to smile. "Yeah. I'm excited for us to pitch her."

"I was actually thinking you could put together the presentation and co-lead the meeting with me. You've been here for a while now, and I would love to make sure I'm fostering your growth." Candice beamed.

"Co-lead?" I asked.

"I mean I don't mind doing most of the talking-I won't put that on you. But maybe you could put everything together?" she asked.

Candice was presenting me with a "learning opportunity," that thing bosses did when they needed to pawn off additional work onto their reports but couldn't afford to promote or pay them for it. I wouldn't receive a commission if we landed the contract, nor would I get credit, but if I didn't do it well enough-or if I wasn't grateful enough-it would be used against me.

"That sounds great," I said, silently seething.

Candice clapped her hands. "I knew you'd be down, birthday girl! I'll send you what I have so far in a brief later today, and you can start putting together the deck."

"Cool," I said, my mouth in a tight line.

Candice moved on to Jessica's desk next. "Hey, girly pop! I'm seeing you at puppy yoga later, I hope?"

Jessica spun around in her chair. "Hell yes! I'm, like, obsessed with dogs."

My phone pinged, interrupting any dark thoughts I had about Candice before they could fully form. It was Henry.

What ya up to tonight?

I hadn't told Henry it was my birthday. I didn't want him to know I didn't have plans on a day when I was supposed to be surrounded with gifts and a large group of friends whose entire goal was to make me happy. Plus, I did have some options: My mother had asked if I wanted to come home for dinner, and my college friend Jamie had asked me to drinks. I hadn't answered or acknowledged either of these invitations in the hopes that this exact moment would come to fruition: Henry would want to see me. I smiled. Fuck my defective cake. I didn't need a birthday wish to get what I wanted.