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The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey

A Novel

About The Book

A propulsive page-turning thriller following the hit reality TV show Garden State Goddesses where secrets are uncovered, intense rivalries surface, and a startling murder propels a producer on a riveting quest for the truth.

Meet the Garden State Goddesses, the cast of Huzzah’s third most popular show:

“I may play for both teams, but when it comes to being real, I always bring my A game.” —Renee Ricci

“When life gives me lemons, I make citron presse´ on my yacht in Saint- Tropez.” —Birdie St. Clair

“I don’t bite, but I do scratch, and these talons are 100 percent Italian.” —Carmela Fontana

When Hope Bennett marries Carmela’s brother Leo she not only becomes a Fontana, but a Garden State Goddess—and not everyone is happy.

Secrets will be revealed, decades-long rivalries will surface, and a sudden murder will lead to a reality reckoning no one is prepared for, least of all the show’s producer Eden who must race to catch a killer and save the most dramatic season of all time.

“Secrets, gallows humor, campy reality TV stars, and an Instagram gossip account called ‘Shady Di’—Astrid Dahl's?The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey?is the kind of book I wanted to live inside. LOLing and gasping my way through, I nearly wished I'd written it myself!” —Anna Dorn, author of Perfume & Pain

About The Author

Astrid Dahl is an author, fangirl, and law school dropout. She lives in Los Angeles, where she plans to die.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (February 13, 2025)
  • Length: 288 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781668064887

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Raves and Reviews

“[A] breezy whodunit…mystery fans with a taste for the absurd will have a frothy good time.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"Astrid Dahl's The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey is just as deliciously soapy as the shows that inspired it. This book is catty, sexy, and may be fatally addictive."
—ZAN ROMANOFF, author of Look and Grace & the Fever

"Like the best, most addictive reality TV, The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey is about people behaving badly— lying, cheating, back-stabbing and worse. I started reading for all the juicy drama but it was the murder mystery that had me racing through pages at the end."
—ANA REYES, New York Times bestselling author of The House in the Pines

"Juicy, gossipy, and deliciously vicious, The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey is my platonic ideal of a novel. Whether this all-star cast of wives is throwing shade in their confessionals or literally killing to get more screen time, one thing is certain, this New Jersey neighborhood has enough secrets to guarantee renewal. Readers will be clamoring for Season Two of this funny, dark guilty pleasure."
—KATY HAYS, New York Times bestselling author of The Cloisters

"Secrets, gallows humor, campy reality TV stars, and an Instagram gossip account called 'Shady Di'—Astrid Dahl's The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey is the kind of book I wanted to live inside. LOLing and gasping my way through, I nearly wished I'd written it myself!"
—ANNA DORN, author of Perfume & Pain

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