Alix, meanwhile, has hit a creative roadblock with her popular podcast and, amid frustrations with her husband's drinking, decides to take a chance on Josie's tale.

The story is told through a combination of present-tense prose, interview transcripts, and scenes from a fictional Netflix documentary about the book's events.

Erin, their elder daughter, is now in her twenties and stays at home, refusing to leave her room or eat anything except baby food.

Josie compares Walter to Alix's husband, Nathan Summer, who is outwardly loving and charismatic but shows signs of alcoholism.

Her story becomes even darker, with details about Walter grooming and having sex with Brooke Ripley, one of Roxy's high school friends, and sexually abusing his own daughter Erin.

In the early morning of the same day, she appears back at Alix's house with blood on her clothes after a fight with Walter, who reacted angrily when she called him a pedophile and threatened to unveil his secrets.

Desperate to find Nathan, Alix goes to Josie's house, where she discovers Walter's decomposing remains and a barely alive Erin trapped in her room.

A heartbroken Alix uses the hours of audio interviews at her disposal to create the podcast, earning money for her family after Nathan's death and attempting to break through Josie's psychopathy.

A review from Publishers Weekly stated that fans of Jewell's work "will be satisfied by this pitch-black outing and its shocking climax, but readers with a lower tolerance for nastiness should turn elsewhere.