Blood Sugar

enough to grab onto one of the boy's slick, thrashing ankles. My hand was too small to get a good hold. He was only seven years old, yes. But I was only five.

Using both my tiny hands, I had just enough grip to pull him down. And hold him down. A calmer boy might have held his breath and kicked free. He was only inches from oxygen. But he wasn't calm. He was sucking in more and more water. Until he wasn't.

When I felt his leg go slack, I held on for ten more seconds. Just to make sure. Counting slowly backward. Like I learned in school. Like I did when I couldn't fall asleep at night because my brain was swirling with too many high-voltage thoughts to power down for the day. When I reached the count of one, I let go of his ankle and swam away. Flipping my back legs together in unison, like a mermaid tail. I wasn't so different from other five-year-old girls; I too loved mermaids.

When my own need for air became unbearable, I finally popped my head up a good distance from him. I searched the water until I saw his lifeless form being pushed closer to the shore, gently swaying with the seaweed. The ocean delivered him onto the sand, not wanting to play with a dead toy.

I didn't even need to scream. His mother was already doing that. Adults raced to him, rushed and frantic, unwilling to accept that time was no longer a factor.

My mother started shrieking for me to come back in, worried that drowning was somehow contagious. As I splashed to shore, I thought about how primitive adults were sometimes. And predictable. All the swimming kids were plucked back to land, held tightly in oversized once-bright tropical-patterned towels, now faded from years of use in the sun. For a brief moment, parents and children alike were not taking anything for granted. We all noticed details like the scratchy, hard corner edges of the towels, the grace of a seagull gliding past the billowing clouds that hinted at the afternoon rain that w

murder. [A] provocative, unsettling psychological thriller. --Shelf Awareness

"It upends expectations about what this genre is supposed to be and do. It s an entertaining tale that grips you. --Paste

Blood Sugar by Sascha Rothchild has one of the best tag lines we've ever seen: She's accused of four murders. She's only guilty of three. --PopSugar

Brilliantly creative and morbidly witty. . . Filled with surprising turns, and told by a woman with indelible humor and knife-sharp observation (not that she d ever use a knife), Blood Sugar is not one to be missed. --BookTrib

Ruby Simon is the kind of character who lures readers into and then through a story, eliciting our amateur psychological diagnoses, stealing our breath with her cunning, and sparking serious guilt for having rooted for her even a little bit This whip-smart, well-constructed debut makes Rothchild a thriller writer to watch carefully. --Booklist

Rothchild gives readers an unreliable narrator who truly lives up to the moniker. . . A compelling and entertaining psychological thriller. --Kirkus Reviews

A unique and riveting ride. . . Brilliant and mesmerizing. . . Rothchild gives Ruby a confessional voice, an analytical mind, and a vigilante s heart. --Mystery and Suspense

Dark, seductive. . . [A] wickedly delicious story with a heroine who might just be a terrible person that readers will love. . . [A] thrilling ride that will leave readers wanting more. --Parkersburg News & Sentinel

Rothchild is a screenwriter, so perhaps it s no surprise that Blood Sugar propels forward at a pace worthy of any bingeworthy television show. Ruby s morally ambiguous justifications for her own behavior will haunt us well after we ve eagerly devoured this chilling but propulsive thriller. --Bookreporter.com

One of the best debuts I ve read in a while, with a fascinating story, wicked sharp writing, and an unforgettable narrator. Blood Sugar needs to be on your 2022 reading list. Samantha Downing, bestselling author of For Your Own Good

A chilling, twisty and exceptionally smart thriller that will convince you that not every cold-blooded killer is a villain. I adored this book from page one and didn t want it to end. Michele Campbell, bestselling author of It s Always the Husband

"It's rare that I read a book where I love everything about it! Ruby is a one-of-a-kind protagonist book smart and street smart, delightfully self-righteous with a healthy balance of Oops! and I Got This. She makes rules to live by, and breaks rules when other people fail her standards for acceptable human behavior. I had the feeling I was reading the world's best diary relatable, witty, unpredictable the prose flows merrily along, full of delicious details. Truly, Blood Sugar is one of the most entertaining novels I've ever read. I'll never forget Ruby, the ethical assassin." --Zoje Stage,  bestselling author of Baby Teeth

Unsettling from its outset and engrossing to its very end, Blood Sugar pulls the reader deep into the mind of its highly intelligent, obsessively organized protagonist an accomplished woman who just so happens to leave a trail of dead bodies in her wake. Never before have I cared so much for such an untrustworthy character. Kathleen Barber, author of Truth Be Told

"Inventive, engrossing, and wicked, BLOOD SUGAR is the tale of a woman who just can t seem to stop killing people. But she would never hurt her own husband right? Ruby Simon is perhaps the most relatable murderer since Dexter. I found her story disturbingly fun." Stephanie Wrobel, bestselling author of Darling Rose Gold