Sorry for Your Loss
- Judith D Collins
- Mar 28
- 6 min read
By: Georgia McVeigh
Narrator: Billie Fulford-Brown
ISBN: 9798217047727
Publisher: Dutton
Publication Date: 03/31/2026
Format: Other
My Rating: 4.5 Stars (ARC)
The story of two people, both as magnetic as they are dangerous, who get caught in an electric game of cat and mouse
The question is, Who is the predator and who is the prey?
Meet Iris: a dark soul with a propensity for obsession, still reeling from a recent loss, who relies on a local grief group to keep her grounded and out of trouble. And now meet Jack: a cagey widower who shows up at a meeting one night and jolts both of them back to life.
From the moment Jack first takes a shabby plastic chair in the circle, he is positively dashing. And Iris can’t help but feel that fate has brought them together.
But their chance encounter sends them racing through a series of hairpin twists where nothing is as it seems and no one plays by the rules. As Iris is drawn deeper into Jack’s world, she begins to realize that her own deceptions may be no match—or maybe they're the perfect match?—for all the dirty secrets Jack has been hiding.
Edgy, intricately plotted, and totally chilling, Sorry for Your Loss is a blistering psychological thriller for fans of Ashley Elston, Ana Reyes, and Ashley Audrain.
My Review
Georgia McVeigh's addictive and gripping psychological thriller debut, SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS, centers around a dark and twisty "cat-and-mouse" game between two damaged individuals who meet in a grief support group, highlighting the pitfalls of manipulation, constantly shifting the roles of "predator and prey".
A dark, cautionary tale that subverts the typical healing narrative of grief. Rather than finding light in the darkness, the story explores what happens when you let the darkness WIN.
Highlights...
The premise is as simple as it is unsettling: Iris, a woman with a propensity for obsession, meets Jack, whose wife died on the same day she lost her own partner. Convinced they are 'perfect for each other,' Iris begins a calculated pursuit. However, as the narrative weaves through dual timelines—exposing Iris’s traumatic childhood and her current deceptions—the story shifts from a dark romance into a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game where every reveal is a hairpin twist.
My thoughts...
From the moment Iris and Jack lock eyes across a circle of chairs at a grief support group, you know you’re in for something dangerously electric.
Georgia McVeigh’s debut is a blistering, razor-sharp psychological thriller that takes the 'unreliable narrator' trope to a dazzling, unhinged new level. It’s a story where fate and coincidence blur, and 'sorry for your loss' is less a sympathy and more a chilling warning.
The author cleverly uses dual timelines, alternating between the present-day escalation of their relationship and past chapters about Iris's childhood. These flashbacks reveal the trauma that molded her into the "unhinged" person she is today in this dangerous game of cat and mouse.
Who is in control?
Electrifying! With unreliable narrators, the novel explores themes of stalking, grief, obsession, and how past trauma dictates current behavior. Exploring how grief is not a straightforward path and can fundamentally change a person's identity, delving into romantic obsession and the extreme, sometimes "unhinged" lengths individuals go to for attention and connection.
Characters...
~Iris is a masterpiece of self-invention and mimicry, a protagonist you’ll love to hate as her 'dark soul' slowly slips through her carefully constructed mask.
~Jack is her perfect foil— positively dashing and charming, yet possessing a cagey darkness that suggests he is hiding just as many 'dirty secrets' as she is. Their chemistry isn't just romantic; it’s predatory, making it impossible to tell who is the hunter and who is the prey until the very end.
Themes...
McVeigh cleverly explores the non-linearity of grief with a sharp, precise voice that avoids sentimentality. The book delves deep into the pitfalls of manipulation, using the shared trauma of bereavement as a backdrop for a battle of wits. While the beginning is slower— building the characters— the tension eventually tightens into an addictive, fast-paced game that keeps you teetering on your toes.
Both main characters harbor "dirty secrets," using a grief support group as a backdrop for a game of hidden motives. The narrative toys with the idea of being "bound by fate" versus simple, dark coincidences.
A cautionary tale, SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS serves as a chilling reminder that vulnerability is a double-edged sword. While we often look for healing in shared trauma, McVeigh shows us that predators are just as likely to find us in our darkest moments as healers are.
The 'moral' here isn't about recovery; it’s a dark warning against projecting our own fantasies onto strangers. Iris and Jack are a haunting example of what happens when two people with 'dirty secrets' collide, proving that sometimes, the person who says 'I understand your pain' is actually just measuring your weaknesses. It's a viscerally gripping look at the masks we wear and the high price of letting a stranger behind them.
Takeaway message...
The core takeaway of Sorry for Your Loss is a chilling exploration of the masks we wear during grief and the danger of seeking salvation in a stranger.
When two individuals, both carrying their own wounds and scars, come together, the encounter doesn’t always lead to healing. Instead, it can become a competitive struggle, where each person tries to outmaneuver the other in a game of emotional resilience.
In essence, the narrative cautions that the phrase "sorry for your loss" can serve dual purposes; it may offer solace and compassion, but it can also veer into a predatory tactic, concealed behind the guise of empathy, ready to exploit vulnerability.
Be careful who you let into your life when you are at your most vulnerable, because predators recognize brokenness just as easily as healers do
Recs...
If you enjoyed the chilling obsessions of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, Alice Feeney's His and Hers, Beautiful Ugly, or Sometimes I Lie, You by Caroline Kepnes, or the dark wit of My Sister, The Serial Killer, this is a must-read.
The conclusion is a visceral, jaw-dropping payoff that proves Georgia McVeigh is a dazzling new talent in the genre.
Special thanks to Dutton and NetGalley for providing an advanced reading copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.
@JudithDColins | #JDCMustReadBooks
Pub Date: Mar 31, 2026
My Rating: 4.5 Stars
Praise
"McVeigh's narrative voice is sharp and precise...Fans of Gone Girl and My Sister, the Serial Killer will find themselves captivated by McVeigh's take on romantic obsession and the pitfalls of manipulation."
—Booklist
"Georgia McVeigh explodes onto the thriller scene with her twisty, tense and utterly addictive debut Sorry for Your Loss. Iris is a mimic, a master of self-invention with a dark streak and a dangerous past. Jack is a charming, grieving widower with deeply buried secrets. When the two collide in a grief support group, obsession ignites and the game begins. But who’s the predator and who’s the prey? This is a psychological thriller with teeth that will keep you guessing until the final page."
—Karma Brown, #1 international bestselling author of Recipe for a Perfect Wife
“Georgia McVeigh delivers a masterful psychological thriller rife with unexpected twists, emotional chaos, and chills aplenty. Absolutely delicious reading!”
—Linda Castillo, New York Times bestselling author
“Stop whatever you’re doing and READ this book. The thriller of the year has just arrived! This is unreliable narrator perfection from a dazzling new writing talent. Beg, borrow or steal a copy. Or, trust me, you’ll be sorry for your loss.”
—Matthew Blake, #1 International Bestselling author of Anna O
“Deliciously devious and wildly entertaining, Sorry for Your Loss had me gasping at every twist.”
—Kelsey Cox, bestselling author of Party of Liars
“Georgia McVeigh’s debut follows obsessive and complex, Iris, recently grieving a loss, as she meets the oh-so-charming, Jack, when he steps into her grief group. They have a lot in common, maybe more than meets the eye. Sorry for Your Loss, is a masterfully constructed, viscerally gripping, sharp psychological thriller, that will have you racing from twist to twist with the most delicious and dynamic sense of foreboding.”
—Ashley Tate, international bestselling author of Twenty-Seven Minutes
“Sorry for Your Loss is a twisty, gripping thriller with a wonderfully original premise and a fabulously unhinged narrator—I loved it!”
—Katherine Faulkner, author of Greenwich Park
"Sorry For Your Loss is a sharp, addictive, and wonderfully dark cat-and-mouse tangle of attraction and danger. With layers of nested tension and a narrator who keeps you guessing, I was swept up in the intrigue. I know readers are going to love it!"
—Rosemary Henningan, author of The Favourite
"The most fucked up support group since Fight Club! McVeigh’s twisty thriller follows two damaged souls who meet in a bereavement and cautiously form a new romance. Both are not who they seem, and both pose more threat to the other than either could have imagined. Sorry For Your Loss feels like the platonic ideal of psychological suspense: you can’t get truer to the spirit of the genre than this book."
—CrimeReads
About the Author
Georgia McVeigh grew up in the southwest of England and studied English literature at Newcastle University. She started her career as part of the editorial team at a luxury lifestyle magazine, before realizing that her passion lay in books. She joined a leading literary agency in 2018 and became the in-house editor just over a year later. She now splits her time between the agency and freelance editorial work. In 2022, she completed the Faber Academy Writing a Novel course, where she developed the concept for Sorry for Your Loss. She currently lives in London. READ MORE
