Inspired in part by her teenage devotion to the ’80s band Duran Duran, Sandie Jones’ new novel, I WOULD DIE FOR YOU, features a different boy band and a groupie who was even more obsessed with the band than she was. While Nicole Forbes is the main character, and her first-person narration tells the story of the "present" in Coronado, California, in 2011, the other thread is about her family in London in 1986 and revolves around her sick mother and her sister, Cassie.

Cassie is crazy about Secret Oktober and is especially "in love" with Ben Edwards, the band’s charismatic lead singer. At one appearance, she meets Amelia, who is just as wild a fan but also manages to get inside information. With that, the two become fast friends and ditch school to follow the band to drug-laden parties and press conferences. They also become part of the throngs of people at the airport seeing them off and welcoming them back from tours. Although Cassie's father and sister disapprove, her mother understands. However, her mother is dying of cancer, so she's not there to curb her wilder impulses and get her to see reality.

"Music lovers, mystery enthusiasts and fans of Sandie Jones will enjoy I WOULD DIE FOR YOU, with its deep dive into how far we will go to satisfy our fandom and how dangerous it can be."

When Ben is kind to Cassie, she envisions an epic romance. Ben just sees her as a star-struck 16-year-old. Another band member, Michael, is not as kind. He's a misogynist and an abuser. He's into drugs, women and the fast lane, and he takes advantage of others at every opportunity, including Cassie.

When a stranger shows up at her door in California 25 years after the events that culminated in a murder, which caused her to flee England, Nicole is terrified. She hasn't told her husband anything about her past, and she even dyed her red hair to change her looks. He doesn't know she's a redhead, so when their now-eight-year-old daughter, Hannah, had red hair, he wondered where it came from. There are so many secrets she has kept from him that she doesn't know how to finally tell him the truth about everything, including her part in the Secret Oktober scandal.

As Jones takes us back and forth in time, she slowly allows us to learn about what happened all those years ago. But it's a very measured reveal, and we don't know exactly what went down until almost the end. In the meantime, we are left trying to put the pieces together to understand who died, how they died, and the perpetrator of the violence.

While there are several red herrings and omissions that make it difficult to identify Zoe, the mystery woman who appears on Nicole's doorstep in 2011, at times the lack of information is a bit forced. Hannah is kidnapped by someone claiming to be Nicole's sister, but Nicole has told her husband she doesn't have a sister. So who was the woman who took Hannah from school? Was it Zoe? Nicole talks to Zoe about "her mother" without naming the woman, but we have no idea who Zoe's mother is, yet it's apparent that Nicole does. It feels like we should be privy to that information as well, but it would ruin the final reveal.

Music lovers, mystery enthusiasts and fans of Sandie Jones will enjoy I WOULD DIE FOR YOU, with its deep dive into how far we will go to satisfy our fandom and how dangerous it can be. It also takes a hard look at the secrets we keep and how corrosive they can be, as the secrets kept in 1986 and 2011 come back to haunt Nicole and threaten to destroy her life.