From celebrated authors Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment writing as A.J. Rich, a smart, thrilling, sexy, and emotionally riveting novel of psychological suspense about an accomplished woman involved with a man who proves to be an imposter.

Morgan Prager, at age thirty, is completing her thesis on victim psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. She is newly engaged to Bennett, a seductive but possessive and secretive man. She returns from class one day to find Bennett mauled to death, and her dogs—a Great Pyrenees and two pit bulls she has rescued—covered in blood. Bewildered and devastated that her dogs could have committed such violence, she worries that she might suffer from one of the syndromes she studies: pathological altruism, when selfless acts do more damage than good.

When Morgan tries to locate Bennett’s parents to tell them about their son’s hideous death, she discovers he was not the man he said he was. Everything he has told her—where he was born, where he lives and works—was a lie. In fact, he has several fiancées, and fits the clinical definition of a sociopath. And then, one by one, these other women are murdered. Suddenly Morgan’s research into Bennett takes on the urgency of survival: to stay alive, she must find out who is killing the women Bennett was closest to.

Unsettling and highly suspenseful, this is a brilliant collaboration between two outstanding writers.

An Amazon Best Book of July 2015: Thirty-year-old Morgan Prager is working toward a degree in victim psychology, engaged to Bennett, a seductive but mysterious man she met online, and living with her three dogs, including two rescued pit bulls, in Brooklyn. One day Morgan returns home from class to find her dogs covered in what looks like blood. She follows them into the bedroom where she stumbles upon Bennett’s corpse torn limb from limb, presumably by the dogs themselves. Grief-stricken and traumatized, Morgan sets out to inform her fiancé’s family of his horrific death. No sooner than she peeks behind her lover’s veil of mystery does Morgan discover that everything he told her was a lie on top of a lie — from where he was born, to where he lives, to what he does for a living. Worse yet, Morgan learns that she wasn’t the only woman caught in Bennett’s demented web. But when the others turn up dead one by one, Morgan’s search for answers takes a startling turn: No longer is hers a quest for closure, but an every-second-counts struggle to stay alive. If not Bennett himself, then who is killing the women who love him? Is Morgan next? Urgent, shocking and impossible to put down, The Hand That Feeds You is a seductive, satisfying psychological thriller about attraction, deception, and the extent some people will go to get what they want. Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment (A.J. Rich) have crafted a novel that begs to be devoured but tastes even sweeter when consumed slowly, sentence by gripping sentence. – Andrew Eisenman

Recommended to book clubs by 1 of 1 members.