How Can I Help You

The lives of two librarians become dangerously intertwined in this razor-sharp exploration of human nature and the lure of artistic obsession.

No one knows Margo's real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library know only her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality, and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges.

That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo's subtly sinister edge, and watches her carefully. When a tragic incident in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margo's mysterious past, Patricia can't resist digging deeper--even as her new fixation becomes all-consuming and sends both women hurtling toward disaster.

Chilling, incisive, and darkly humorous, How Can I Help You is a propulsive work of psychological suspense that asks how far we might go to justify our most monstrous desires.

Author: Laura Sims
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Published: 07/18/2023
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.51h x 5.89w x 1.04d
ISBN: 9780593543702

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 02/01/2023 pg. 5
Library Journal 05/01/2023 pg. 72
Publishers Weekly 05/08/2023
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2023
Booklist 06/01/2023 pg. 38
Shelf Awareness 07/21/2023
BookPage 08/01/2023

About the Author
Laura Sims is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Looker, now in development for television with Emily Mortimer's King Bee Productions, eOne, and HBO Max. An award-winning poet, Sims has published four poetry collections; her essays and poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, Conjunctions, Electric Lit, Gulf Coast, and more. She and her family live in New Jersey, where she works part-time as a reference librarian and hosts the library's lecture series.