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Club Calvi needs a new book and it's asking you to vote on which Top 3 FicPick should be the Readers' Choice.
"Didn't You Used To Be Queenie B?" by Terri-Lynne DeFino is a story of second chances for a disgraced celebrity chef and a young cook who meet in a soup kitchen.
"Zeal" by Morgan Jerkins explores how the power of love unites star-crossed lovers during slavery in the south to a young couple in modern-day New York.
"The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits" by Jennifer Weiner is about pop-star sisters, the secret that drove them apart, and how the separation affects their family decades later.
You can read excerpts and buy the books below. Voting closes Sunday, April 20th at 6 p.m.
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The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes.
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From the publisher: Regina Benuzzi is Queenie B—a culinary goddess with Michelin Star restaurants, a bestselling cookbook empire, and multimillion-dollar TV deals. It doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous and curvaceous, with cascading black hair and signature red lips.
She had it all. Until she didn't.
After an epic fall from grace, Queenie B vanishes from the public eye, giving up everything: her husband, her son, and the fame that she'd fought to achieve. Her shows are in rerun, her restaurants still popular, but her disappearance remains a mystery to her legions of fans.
Local line cook Gale Carmichael also knows a thing or two about disaster. Newly sober and struggling, Gale's future dreams don't hold space for culinary stardom; only earning enough to get by. Broke at the end of the week, he finds himself at a local soup kitchen in one of the roughest parts of New Haven, Connecticut. But Gale quickly realizes that the food coming out of the kitchen is not your standard free meal—it is delicious and prepared with gourmet flair.
Gale doesn't recognize Regina, the soup kitchen's cranky proprietor, whose famous black mane is now streaked with gray. It's been more than ten years since Queenie B vanished into her careful new existence. But she sees Gale's talent and recognizes a brokenness in him that she knows all too well. The culinary genius in hiding takes him under her wing.
Teaching Gale, Regina's passion to create is reignited, and they both glimpse a shot at the redemption that had always seemed out of reach. When Gale is chosen to compete on the hit cooking show,
Cut!, i
t's a turning point for them both.
It's Gale's time to shine. And that means Queenie B might just have to come out of hiding…
Terri-Lynne DeFino lives in Connecticut.
"Didn't You Used To Be Queenie B?" by Terri-Lynne DeFino (ThriftBooks) $23
From the publisher: Harlem, 2019. Ardelia and Oliver are hosting their engagement party. As the guests get ready to leave, he hands her a love letter on a yellowing, crumbling piece of paper . . .
Natchez, 1865. Discharged from the Union Army as a free man after the war's end, Harrison returns to Mississippi to reunite with the woman he loves, Tirzah. Upon his arrival at the Freedmen's Bureau, though, he catches the eye of a woman working there, who's determined to thwart his efforts to find his beloved. After tragedy strikes, Harrison resigns himself to a life with her.
Meanwhile in Louisiana, the newly free Tirzah is teaching at a freedmen's school, and discovers an advertisement in the local paper looking for her. Though she knows Harrison must have placed it, and longs to find him, the risks of fleeing are too great, and Tirzah chooses the life of seeming security right in front of her.
Spanning over a hundred and fifty years, Morgan Jerkins's extraordinary novel intertwines the stories of these star-crossed lovers and their descendants. As Tirzah's family moves across the country during the Great Migration, they challenge authority with devastating consequences, while of the legacy of heartbreak and loss continues on in the lives of Harrison's progeny.
When Ardelia meets Oliver, she finds his family's history is as full of secrets and omissions as her own. Could their connection be a cosmic reconciliation satisfying the unfulfilled desires of their ancestors, or will the weight of the past, present and future tear them apart?
Morgan Jerkins lives in Brooklyn.
CLICK HERE to read an excerpt
"Zeal" By Morgan Jerkins (ThriftBooks) $23
From the publisher: Cassie and Zoe Grossberg were thrust into the spotlight as The Griffin Sisters, a pop duo that defined the aughts. Together, they skyrocketed to the top, gracing MTV, SNL, and the cover of
Rolling Stone
. Cassie, a musical genius who never felt at ease in her own skin, preferred to stay in the shadows. Zoe, full of confidence and craving fame, lived for the stage. But fame has a price, and after one turbulent year, the band abruptly broke up.
Now, two decades later, the sisters couldn't be further apart. Zoe is a suburban mom warning her daughter Cherry to avoid the spotlight, while Cassie has disappeared from public life entirely. But when Cherry begins unearthing the truth behind their breathtaking rise and infamous breakup, long-buried secrets surface, forcing all three women to confront their choices, their desires, and their complicated bonds.
Jennifer Weiner lives in Philadelphia.
"The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits" by Jennifer Weiner (ThriftBooks) $23
Osvaldo is an a******. She's done as he asked; not a drink or a snort or a pill all week. This week, of all weeks! Just so he and Julian would be at her side in her triumph. Didn't that count for anything? It was only three shots. Maybe four. If he can't cut her a small break, then f*** him. How the hell is she supposed to cope when every moment, from opening ceremony to the awards, rides on her shoulders. She has to be witty and sage and beautiful, all at the same time. Everyone wants a piece of her, and she has to give it to them or fade away like every other has-been in this business. This festival is everything. Everything! A new, more dignified stage of her career. The great Queenie B is back on her game. With the success of the festival, after last year's horror, she can slow down, maybe even let go of one of her shows. PBS has been trying to make changes she is unhappy with, anyway. Co-host? No way.
Osvaldo doesn't have to take Julian and go, her beautiful boy crying, arms outstretched, right there in front of everyone. But he does, just to spite her. To punish her. Their friends, colleagues, all those wannabees pretending to be thrilled at seeing the two of them together again are now snickering as she stands on the steps of the stage. Waiting for her cue. No Oz. No Julian. Just Queenie B.
She doesn't make a scene. Queenie blows a kiss, as if Osvaldo is only taking their over-tired, special needs child out of a stressful situation. He'll go along with the story, once he hears it. He doesn't want the bad publicity any more than she does. But he won't let her see Julian again, damn him. As if he has the right to keep her from her child.
Which he does, according to the court orders.
"Queenie?"
She shakes herself out of it, shoulders back and chin up. Her heels are high, the steps are wobbly, and she's not exactly sober, but she nods to the kid wearing the headset and holding the clipboard. He points to the woman on the stage. Linda? No, Lydia. The woman PBS wants as her co-host. Lydia steps closer to the microphone.
"Few of us in the culinary world are recognized outside of it. We are big fish in small ponds, but!" She raises a finger. "Our pond is getting bigger." Laughter. A few whoops. Applause. Lydia waits. She knows how to work an audience, Queenie will give her that. "We all owe a huge debt to our keynote speaker. Not only a brilliant chef, but a charismatic woman who has been instrumental in elevating our art to celebrity status. The two-thousands will usher in amazing things for the culinary world, for all of us. And we owe it in great part to our own, our magnificent, Queenie B!"
The applause. It is dizzying. Queenie climbs the steps, the headset-kid giving her a hand. She looks amazing in her Zac Posen gown; her long hair drapes like an accessory. Her signature smile, the one made into a logo for both her shows, on cookbooks, menus, and personal stationary, sparkles in the spotlights more brilliantly than diamonds. It feeds her, this adulation. It proves them all wrong. Every relative and foster family who gave her back. Every smack and kick and curse aimed to break her. This moment validates everything. Almost everything.
Queenie takes her place center stage, waiting. Basking. A pair of attractive, young men approach from the left. Unfolding the crisp, black chef coat they carry between them, they wait on either side of her. To slip her arms into the sleeves. To cover the designer gown with the one item of clothing worn by every chef, from the prep cooks to Queenie B herself.
Arms raised over her head, she listens to the roar. Then she lowers her arms, lowers her head, and takes the bow they're all waiting for. The bow she has f****** earned.
From DIDN'T YOU USE TO BE QUEENIE B? by Terri-Lynne DeFino. Copyright © 2025 by Terri-Lynne DeFino. Reprinted by permission of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
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She was gone.
Harrison returned to Natchez after the war, and she was gone, breaking her promise. Tirzah, the love of his life and the ember in the dark nights of his soul.
Two years and twelve days before, Harrison and his beloved had stood within a grove of magnolia trees on the grounds of the Phoenician Estate to say their goodbyes. She was crying so hard that Harrison had to hold her waist so she wouldn't collapse. And he, sweaty with a dirt-caked face, had asked her to wait for him until the war was over. No matter if they were free people or still slaves, he would be coming back for her. She shook her head until her curls flopped over her face and wondered aloud why he wanted to fight a battle they would never win. Before he could answer, one of the Union officers called for him to get moving and Harrison had to let her go. He had never felt a pain so deeply wedged in his chest as in the moment he left the Phoenician. But he had to get away. He hated being who he was now that he was in love. He hated how he could not defend his beloved from the danger of being in the main house under the lustful eye of their owner's son, Spencer. Going off to war, he resolved, he would defend her, himself, and all slaves, and come back to Natchez with pride.
But the Natchez he left, with all its stunning wealth, was not the same one to which he returned. As he and his fellow soldiers rode their horses on a trail alongside the Mississippi approaching the city, they saw that all the levees had been destroyed. With each step closer to their destination, the smell of festering animal carcasses became stronger. Weeds and swampland had swallowed up fields upon fields of cotton.
When his regiment arrived at the area underneath the bluffs, they found it eerily still. They passed by a well-known wood mill and a large plantation and garden—the only one of its kind below the hill. Before he'd left, at least a half dozen negroes would be tending to the property at a given time, and now there were none. Hardly anyone was mixing in the street, besides a few negroes here and there. There were no steamboats. No sound of foghorns or carriage wheels bumping along the principal street. The relative quietness bothered him. Harrison had to fight to smother the thoughts of the absences of many people being a bad omen.
"You still thinkin' 'bout dat lady, ain't ya?" a fellow soldier asked, catching Harrison's line of sight to a trail where one could ascend the hill to the city proper.
"Still thinkin'," Harrison replied. "I finna take my horse up dere right nah so dat I don' waste anotha second."
"You needa give dat horse a rest first. 'N by de way, what makes you think dat she gon' even be dere? Look around you."
Harrison made a soft noise of disapproval and steered his horse away from the rest of the group, embarking on his own path.
"You needa go 'n get you a nice one to lay up wit for all dat hard work you put in!" another soldier yelled out.
Harrison squeezed his thighs around his horse until he couldn't hear his comrades any longer. The horse's trot widened into a full-speed gallop as they scaled the bluffs and made their way to Natchez proper, where all the most spectacular plantations sat high. Cows and pigs decomposed along the trodden path, but Harrison was undeterred by the carnage. He knew his way. The Phoenician was only about three miles west of the town cemetery and a hospital, two structures that were still intact when he passed, but what Harrison saw next made him instruct his horse to slow. The plantation next to the Phoenician had been desecrated. Weeds grew like outstretched hands over columns and window panels. Acres of azaleas, wildflowers, crape myrtles, and roses had wilted, been trampled upon, or shriveled up and died.
When he finally arrived at the Phoenician's entrance gates, which appeared to have been broken, he slowly dismounted from his horse and took off his hat when his boots touched soil. He stood in front of the grand expanse of his former home and closed his eyes. A cacophony of noise overtook his mind—overseers barking orders, mournful cries, music, laughter, exhausted panting. He allowed his lids to flutter open, expecting to see what he'd dreamt more than once, tossing in his disease-ridden barracks: Spencer Ambrose kneeling in agony over his lost labor, slaves dropping their cotton to dance, Tirzah running out of the main house and into his arms. But there was no one in sight. Unconvinced that he was truly alone, Harrison walked farther into the property. Flowers that slaves had maintained so beautifully lay limp on the brown patches of grass. The roof that Harrison had worked in the blistering heat to maintain was showing signs of rot, which also explained the faint smells of animal droppings and urine; the Phoenician must be overrun with pests. Everyone really was gone, Harrison thought, because there could be no other reason why the grand estate, once home to more than a hundred slaves at a time, had reached this level of devastation.
He stood underneath the main house's now-cracked pillars and inhaled deeply, hoping to detect a whiff of Tirzah's cooking, only to have the smell of gunpowder and blood irritate his nose. He circled around to the slave cabins, where a single chair rocked mysteriously on one of the small porches. Thinking that one of his old friends must still be around, Harrison put his fingers in his mouth and blew a whistle.
"Hey! C'mon out dere! Did ya hear de news? We free!"
Not a single door swung open. No quick pacing of feet racing to see what was going on. No jubilant cries out to the Lord for finally bringing them out of their Egypt.
He made his way back around to the main house, planning another circle. While he was reminding himself that the possibility of seeing Tirzah again was worth returning to the place he had dreamt so often of leaving, he felt something small and smooth underneath his right foot. He lifted his heel to see an oxblood-colored wallet with the letter T emblazoned upon it, and dropped to his knees. Seven and a half by three and a half inches with a bunch of pockets to stow whatever her heart desired. A guttural wail climbed out from the depths of his belly and shook the birds clean from their nests in the trees. The wallet was a gift he had given to Tirzah one Christmas Eve. That T, in a golden garland motif, was the first letter he had learned to write, the first letter he requested that she teach him in their secret nightly meetings. Had he taken too long, or had she given up too soon? Either way, she really was gone.
From ZEAL by Morgan Jerkins. Copyright © 2025 by Morgan Jerkins. Excerpted by permission of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
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Prologue
DETROIT, 2004
I never should have touched you," Russell D'Angelo says to the empty room.
He twists the lock, toes off his cowboy boots, and leans his fore- head against the hotel-room door, against the framed placard. He's too close to read the emergency evacuation routes it details, even if his eyes weren't blurry with tears. He pinches the bridge of his nose, hard. This is an emergency, the worst he's ever been in, and knowing how to exit the building safely won't help.
He is thinking about how she looked, about what he'd said.
I never meant for this to happen
, he'd told her as she'd glared at him from the hallway, her face shocked and pale and heartbroken. He'd kept talking, hating the pleading sound of his voice.
I'm sorry.
Russell shakes his head to stop the thoughts. Three paces bring him to the bar cart. He unscrews the cap of the whiskey bottle and lifts it to his mouth, welcoming the burn of the liquor. His eyes are closed, but he can still see them both. Two sets of eyes, two faces, turned toward his. Different faces, but with the same shape to their lips, the same slope of their cheeks. Two women, waiting for an answer Russell didn't have.
"I'm an idiot," he tells the room. And it's true. He hadn't even no- ticed what was happening until it was too late. It wasn't until he was standing in front of an officiant, thirty of their closest friends, three hundred fellow celebrities, and a photographer from
People
magazine that he'd looked over his bride's shoulder and caught her sister's eyes, and the knowledge of the mistake that he was making hit him like a punch to the breastbone, rattling his heart. "I do," he'd said.
I'm fucked
, he'd thought. And from that moment on, a part of him has been wait- ing, counting down toward this place and this night.
You have to choose
, she'd told him
.
Except there isn't a choice here.
Not really. Not at all.
Twenty minutes later, half the whiskey is gone, and Russell's lean- ing heavily against the wall, looking blearily around the room. His eyes move from object to object without seeing. There's the bed, still made. His suitcase, open on the luggage stand, clothes spilling out from its unzipped top—his jeans and tee shirt, the silly leather pants the stylist insists on because he's the lead guitar player in what is, currently, one of the most successful bands in the country, and leather pants are what cute boys in hot bands are required to wear. There might even be a law about it.
"I never should have touched you," Russell says again. He hums a handful of notes in a minor key and decides to write the words down. Moving carefully, deliberately in his inebriation, he locates the tiny pad of hotel stationery and a pen, and writes with care, imagining piano chords, a mournful twangy guitar. Maybe the words will be the backbone of a chorus, the way into a song, he thinks. And then remembers what he's done, and how that door is closed. There will be no more songs for him.
He bends to collect his boots, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull them on before walking out into the hall. It's the middle of the night. It's quiet, and all the doors are closed. Nobody sees him as he walks through the lobby, bootheels clicking. Nobody sees as he pushes the heavy glass doors open and steps out into the cold and the dark.
Excerpted from the book THE GRIFFIN SISTERS GREATEST HITS by Jennifer Weiner. Copyright © 2025 by Jennifer Weiner. From William Morrow books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.
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We may receive commissions from some links to products on this page. Promotions are subject to availability and retailer terms. Please consider joining our Facebook group by CLICKING HERE. Find out more about the books below. Club Calvi has a bonus book by an author familiar to readers. Liv Constantine's book "The Next Mrs. Parrish" was a Club Calvi "Readers' Choice" in 2024 and a New York Times Bestseller. Now she's back with a new thriller out this week called "Don't Open Your Eyes." The book is told from the points of view of mother Annabelle and her daughter Scarlett. "Annabelle is living what appears to be a picture-perfect life," Constantine told Mary Calvi. "Two beautiful daughters, a great husband, a career she loves. She starts having these terrible dreams where she hates her husband. She thinks it's just stress. But soon, some details from her dreams begin to actually materialize, things that no way she could have known ahead of time. She begins to realize that that these are not dreams, but premonitions." Annabelle's daughter, Scarlett, is 15 years old. "She was a lot of fun to write," Constantine says. "I had to go back and try to channel my inner teen." Scarlett is keeping secrets from her parents. "She's chatting with a new boy online who she hasn't met, and, of course, we are worried. Is he really who he says he is?" says Constantine. Annabelle starts dreaming about her daughter. "In Annabelle's dreams, Scarlett's in danger. Annabelle's husband keeps telling her it's her own anxiety as a mother," Constantine explains. Constantine says that while she wants readers to enjoy "Don't Open Your Eyes" and love the characters, beyond that, the book is an exploration of society's expectations for women. "We don't always listen to our own voices and our own instincts when we should," Constantine says. "It's very easy to allow outside influences to tell us what we should be believing, when I think often we know in our heart what's really the truth." You can read an excerpt, and purchase the "Don't Open Your Eyes," below. The CBS New York Book Club focuses on books connected to the Tri-State Area in their plots and/or authors. The books may contain adult themes. Bantam ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "Don't Open Your Eyes" by Liv Constantine From the publisher: Annabelle Reynolds has everything she's ever wanted. A devoted husband, two wonderful daughters, and a career she loves. She couldn't be happier. So why is she suddenly plagued by disturbing dreams of a future where she hates her husband and her daughters' lives are at risk? At first, she chalks the dreams up to an overactive imagination. 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His eyes bulge, his face flushes red, and he looks like he wants to kill me. I back away as he closes the space between us. I'm wedged be­tween his body and the kitchen counter. I hate him right now with every fiber of my being. I shove at him with all my strength, but he doesn't budge. I watch, helpless, as his hands reach up and circle my neck. He begins to squeeze. I can't get a breath. I claw at his arms to no avail. My vision blurs. Blindly, I reach my arm behind, my fingers fumbling until they close around the handle of a butcher knife. With every ounce of strength I have left I pull it from the block. I swing my arm around and aim the knife at his chest. He releases his grip and drops his arms, back­ing away. I cough and rub my sore neck. He nonchalantly walks toward the door to the garage, his hand lingering on the handle a moment, then opens it. "Oh, I forgot to tell you, I just got news I won best doc. It'll be in next month's Connecticut Magazine. Thanks for voting." He winks and walks out the door. Annabelle Reynolds's eyes flew open, and she sprang to a sitting position. Her face was wet with perspiration, and a feeling of utter terror flooded her senses. She drew a deep breath, and her eyes darted to the figure sleeping next to her. She slipped from under­neath the covers and grabbed her robe from the bench at the end of the bed, covering her naked body. Shaking her head, she went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, glancing at herself in the mirror. She splashed cold water on her face. You're being silly. It was just a dream. Yet the image of the two of them fighting, her husband's face red and contorted with rage, had seemed so real. It was espe­cially jarring because they hardly ever argued. Today was their wedding anniversary. Two children, one dog, two guinea pigs, and too many goldfish to count later, and she was happy. As happy as she could be, despite everything that had happened before—when she had still believed in happy endings. After she'd married James, she'd promised herself that she'd put it all behind her. Over the years, Annabelle had tried to forget about the loss—to appreciate all she had gained. And even though there would always be a part of her that missed him, a part of her that couldn't let him go, she had to keep reminding herself that there was no point in missing something that was never meant to be. So, she did her best to think of him less often, every year trying harder to force herself to forget, to be happy. But maybe being happy was asking too much. Enough, she thought. Shake it off. She brushed her teeth, mentally reviewing everything on today's agenda. After she dropped the girls at school, she had to swing by the drugstore to pick up an anniversary card for James. Then she had a full day at work. As she stepped into the shower, she spoke her daily gratitude affirmations aloud. "I'm thankful for my husband, my chil­dren, our good health, our beautiful home. I'm thankful for a job I love, and good friends." She felt a little foolish doing this, but her last client, a successful author of self-help books, had told her how benefi­cial a gratitude practice was, not only to mental health, but physical as well. Annabelle tried to be open-minded, so she'd committed to trying it for sixty days to see if it made any difference. She was on day ten now. "Mind if I join you?" James's voice cut through her thoughts as he entered the bathroom. "Please do." He opened the door to the large shower and stepped inside. "Happy anniversary," he said as he wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck. "Happy anniversary." Annabelle turned and kissed him, trying to dismiss the earlier feelings of terror from her dream. "Why don't we do this more often?" A banging on the door made her pull back. "Mooom, Parker's throwing up! I think he ate another sock." She adored their golden retriever, but at times like this, not so much. Annabelle looked at James and rolled her eyes. "And that's why . . ." "I'll go. Finish your shower." He stepped out. "Olivia, I'll be right there," he called through the door. Half an hour later, Annabelle was dressed and downstairs. She walked into the kitchen, the smell of bacon filling the air. It was her favorite room of the house, featuring a built-in fireplace with a cozy sitting area, a custom-made farm table, and double French doors opening to their deck overlooking their swimming pool. Her mother had always said that the kitchen was the heart of the home, and some of Annabelle's best memories were of the two of them sitting and talking in their tiny kitchen around their worn wooden table. How she wished her mother was here now. She felt a pang of regret that her mother would never see her settled and content in such a beautiful place. Annabelle had never imagined that one day she'd be living in a gorgeous house, walking distance to the beach, and close to downtown Bayport, one of Connecticut's most charming towns. Parker ran up to her and nudged her with his nose as if sensing her sudden melancholy. She reached out to pet his head. "I hear you ate another sock, buddy." "He's fine now. Someone must have left their socks out." James gave Olivia a meaningful look. "Wasn't me!" their eleven-year-old protested. "Well, I'm glad he's okay," Annabelle said, hoping to ward off a lecture from James. He had made a full breakfast for Olivia and Scarlett: omelets, turkey bacon, toast, and an array of fruit. Annabelle gazed at her girls. Scarlett was a carbon copy of Annabelle—light brown hair and green eyes. James often commented that they were both the typical wholesome and natural, girl-next-door types. Annabelle thought it was cute when people commented on how alike they looked, but lately Scarlett seemed annoyed by it. Olivia was all James: blond and blue-eyed, with his bow-shaped mouth. But her sunny personality came from Annabelle. James handed Annabelle a portable mug. "I made your coffee with oat milk and no sweetener. Consuming all those artificial sugars is bad for you." "Yes, Doc," she said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She'd add some sweetener after he left. A couple of Splendas were not going to kill her, but it was pointless to argue with him. "I'm looking forward to our anniversary dinner tonight." They had reservations at her fa­vorite restaurant in New York City, a little more than an hour's drive from their house. "Me too. Mom's coming over at six to stay with the girls." Scarlett made a face. "We don't need a babysitter. I'm fifteen. Gram doesn't need to come over." "It's nice for there to be an adult around with us being an hour away," James said. Scarlett rolled her eyes. "Come on, Dad. It's not like you're leav­ing the country. You'll just be in the city." Annabelle and James looked at each other. "Well," she began, "she does have a point. What do you think?" James scratched his beard and shifted his gaze to Scarlett. "I don't know. You and your sister tend to fight. Not sure you're the best person to be in charge." "Give me a chance. Aren't you the one so big on us learning re­sponsibility?" Scarlett asked. Annabelle suppressed a grin and said nothing, waiting to see his response. He moved his head back and forth as he considered it. "Okay, we'll give it a try." He glanced at his watch, then gave Annabelle a peck on the lips. "You'd better hit the road if you don't want to be late." He looked over at the girls. "Take your plates to the sink and grab your backpacks." "I got it. You should get going, or you're going to be late," Anna­belle said. "Right. Have a good day, everyone." A few minutes after he left, Annabelle cleared the table while the girls gathered their things. They filed out and got into Anna­belle's Volvo XC90. Once they were on the road, she gave Scarlett a quick look. "Make sure you're not on your phone all night. I don't want you to ignore your sister." "I won't. We'll watch a movie or something." "And no one coming over," Annabelle said. "Okay, Mom. Got it. Geez." "I'll tell you if she does anything wrong," Olivia piped up from the back seat. "I'm not going to do anything wrong. Ugh!" "And you call me right away if there's a problem," Annabelle said. "There won't be a problem! What did you get Dad for your an­niversary?" "Remember the photo of the four of us on the beach last summer at the Cape?" "Yeah, you made us all dress alike like a bunch of dweebs," Scar­lett said. Annabelle laughed. "It's a great photo of everyone! I had it done in oil paints for Dad." Scarlett didn't seem impressed. "Hmm. That sounds nice, I guess. Um, so, I was wondering—" "What?" "Did you have any other serious boyfriends before Dad?" Annabelle's hand tightened on the wheel as an image formed in her mind. For the second time that day, the old pain returned. All these years later, she still felt like a part of her was missing. "Why do you ask?" Annabelle made her voice light, buying time. "Just wondering, you know, if there was anyone really special before Dad. Like, did you know right away that Dad was the one?" "Do you mean, was it love at first sight?" "I guess." Annabelle was careful to measure her response. "I don't believe in love at first sight. Your dad and I were friends first, and I fell in love with him gradually. But it's better, I think, because he's not only my husband, he's my best friend." What she didn't tell her daughter was that once upon a time, she had very much believed in love at first sight. Back when she was young and naive and hadn't had her heart broken. She'd experienced that all-consuming, head-over-heels, mad love that poets and philosophers wrote about, and it had nearly destroyed her. Maybe her knees didn't buckle when James kissed her, but that kind of feeling didn't last anyway. What they had was better, more real. The kind of love that would sustain her, not obliterate her. Excerpted from DON'T OPEN YOUR EYES by Liv Constantine. Copyright © 2025 by Lynne Constantine. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Return to top of page

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50 Famous People Who Died In Messed Up Ways

We'd all like to die peacefully, maybe in our sleep, or surrounded by loved ones. But not everyone is that lucky. Death doesn't discriminate — not even when it comes to celebrities — and over the years, many famous people have met truly horrific ends. At BuzzFeed, we've covered a lot of these disturbing and tragic stories. So, here's a compilation of 50 famous people who were murdered, died during sex or in a freak accident, vanished without a trace, and more: On Dec. 8, 2004, "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott — formerly of the legendary heavy metal band Pantera and widely regarded as one of the best guitarists of all time — was doing a club show with his new band, Damageplan. Only 90 seconds into their first song, Nathan Gale, 25, a six-foot-three, 250+-pounds man with a shaved head, strode through the crowd and onto the stage. Fans watched in horror as Gale, at point-blank range, raised a pistol and shot Abbott in the forehead. Pandemonium broke out as Gale killed two more people and took a hostage, inching toward the exit with the gun at the hostage's temple. However, before he could escape, a police officer shot him dead. Adding to the horror of it all, this happened on the anniversary of John Lennon's murder, when he, too, was shot and killed by a troubled fan. So why did Gale murder Abbott? It later came out that Gale, a former Marine with mental health issues, held Abbott responsible for the breakup of his favorite band, Pantera. Isadora Duncan, often called the "Mother of Modern Dance," influenced countless generations of future dancers but also lived a life filled with tragedy — including the heartbreaking loss of her two young children in a drowning accident. But her death was just as shockingly tragic. On September 14, 1927, Duncan, known for her love of long, flowing scarves, was preparing to go for a drive in a convertible. As she excitedly waved goodbye to friends, she threw a scarf around her neck — a decision that would prove fatal. As the car sped off, her scarf got caught in the rear wheel axle, yanking her violently from the vehicle. She was dragged and instantly strangled, dying in a matter of seconds. Her friends could only watch in horror. Actor Anton Yelchin left Russia and came to the United States when he was just 6 months old. His parents — pair figure skaters — settled into Los Angeles, where Yelchin became a child star in high-profile movies like 2001's Along Came a Spider. He continued acting into adulthood, exuding likable intelligence and empathy. He was most famous, of course, for playing Chekov in the three most recent Star Trek films. Horrifically, on June 18, 2016, the 27-year-old Yelchin left his Jeep Cherokee parked on an incline and went to check his mailbox. The Jeep rolled down the incline, trapping him against a pillar and security gate. He died from blunt traumatic asphyxia. The model of Jeep Yelchin owned was in the process of being recalled at the time of his death due to a confusing gear selector design that made it easy to confuse "neutral" with "park." His family sued Fiat Chrysler and later reached an out-of-court settlement. Sir Billy Snedden was a significant figure in Australian politics, leading the Liberal Party from 1972 to 1975 and even earning a knighthood. His absolutely bonkers death, though, overshadowed everything else. Let's set the scene: It was 1987, and a 60-year-old Snedden checked into a motel in Sydney with a very young also happened to be his son's ex-girlfriend! That's already messy enough. But then Billy died during intercourse. The woman fled the scene and called emergency services, who discovered Snedden naked in bed and still wearing a condom. If you know anything about Australians, you know they weren't about to let this go without taking the piss. One newspaper ran the headline: "Snedden Died on the Job." Another said: "Snedden's Final Position." Charmayne Maxwell was a powerfully-voiced R&B singer and member of the '90s group Brownstone, who were probably best known for the hit "If You Love Me" (You know, with the lyrics: "If you love it!, If you trust it!"). On Feb. 28, 2015, Maxwell returned to her Los Angeles home after her son's soccer game, and she poured herself a glass of wine to unwind. The exact details of what happened next remain somewhat unclear, but reports indicate that she either fell while holding the wine glass or dropped it, causing it to break, and then accidentally fell onto the broken shards. Either way, it led to her suffering a deep cut to her neck. The injury was catastrophic, causing severe blood loss. Her husband discovered her and rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late. Maxwell was just 46 years old. In 1979, 70-year-old Nelson Rockefeller — both the former vice president of the United States and a member of the ridiculously rich Rockefeller dynasty — reportedly suffered a fatal heart attack at his desk in his Fifth Avenue townhouse. I say "reportedly" because it was soon pointed out that his desk was in a totally different house and that his 25-year-old assistant, Megan Marshack, had waited an hour before calling for an ambulance. Oh, and she called a friend first. Hmm. Eventually, the truth came out: Rockefeller had keeled over while vigorously cheating on his wife with his private apartment. The family tried to keep it hush-hush and immediately whisked Marshack away from the public eye. (She was also said to have signed a nondisclosure agreement to keep quiet.) It didn't work. Tabloids had a field day, and soon Johnny Carson was telling jokes along the lines of: "They say Rockefeller died in the saddle. Unfortunately, it wasn't a horse." Rockefeller's son Michael died under even more shocking circumstances. In 1961, the 23-year-old — an art collector, anthropologist, and heir to one of the richest families in U.S. history — on an expedition in Papua New Guinea to collect Indigenous art when his pontoon boat capsized, stranding him and a colleague miles from shore in a catamaran. After drifting a while, Michael tired of waiting to be rescued and reportedly said, "I think I can make it," then paddled off toward land using empty gas cans as flotation. His colleague watched him until he disappeared on the horizon. He was never seen again. Despite a two-week search for Rockefeller involving ships, airplanes, helicopters, and thousands of locals scouring the coasts and swamps, no trace of the heir was found. At first, it was assumed he drowned, was eaten by a shark or 15-foot crocodile, or died from exposure (after all, he was 14 miles from shore when he set out for it). But New Guinea's coastal tribes had a complex history with outsiders, including brutal colonial violence. Rumors quickly spread that Michael had made it to shore… only to be killed and cannibalized by members of the Asmat tribe, with his bones being turned into weapons and fishing gear. On June 10, 2016, 22-year-old Christina Grimmie — the talented young singer who'd placed third on Season 6 of The Voice — had just finished a performance in Orlando, Florida, and was holding a meet-and-greet inside the venue. She was in good spirits as she worked through the line of fans, signing autographs and taking selfies. The joyful night took a horrific turn, though, when it was 27-year-old Kevin James Loibl's turn to meet Grimmie. According to a fan behind Loibl: "The one guy in front of us was walking up to meet her. Her arms were open, waiting to greet him with a hug. Then there was a sound of three pops, like balloons. People had brought balloons to the show, and the security guards were popping them, so at first I thought it was that." The sounds weren't balloons — Loibl shot Grimmie three times at point-blank range. Grimmie's brother tackled the shooter, and the two fought before Loibl broke away and shot himself. Grimmie was rushed to the hospital but pronounced dead less than an hour after offering Loibi that learned that Loibl was obsessed with Grimmie, spending his free time watching videos of the singer and poring over her social media accounts. He believed they were soulmates, so to make himself more attractive to her, he underwent Lasik eye surgery, got hair plugs, and lost 50 pounds. When he was told it was unlikely they'd ever be together, Loibl became angry and defensive. Somewhere along the way, he decided on this new, horrible course of Mohandie — a clinical, police, and forensic psychologist — told BuzzFeed News that social media can create an unnatural obsession for some fans. "There is all this social networking stuff that is happening right now and to an unstable person that can really complicate into them thinking they do have a relationship with this person. They read more into it because of their misperceptions." Adolf Frederick, the King of Sweden, was infamous for his over-the-top eating. On February 12, 1771, the king (who in another life would have been a famous Mukbang streamer) partook in an extravagant meal comprising lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring, and champagne. The feast culminated with 14 servings of his favored dessert, semla, a sweet roll served in hot milk. In case you sped over that last sentence, let me repeat: HE HAD 14 SERVINGS OF DESSERT!!! This pig-out session led to severe digestive complications (shocker), resulting in his death. He is now often referred to in history books as "The King Who Ate Himself to Death." Naya Rivera was a born entertainer already starring on a sitcom (CBS's The Royal Family) when she was just 4. It was as Santana Lopez on Glee, though, that she is best remembered. Unspeakably, on July 8, 2020, Rivera drowned while swimming in California's Lake Piru. Rivera's 4-year-old son Josey was later found alone in a rental boat on the lake. It is believed Rivera and her son were caught in a rip current, and she expended the last of her energy to lift her son to safety in the boat. Horribly, Josey's father, Ryan Dorsey, recently revealed that the boy feels guilty over his mother's death because he was too afraid to throw her a rope as she drowned because the rope had a "big spider" on it. Sharon Tate was a beauty queen in her home state of Texas before becoming an actor in Los Angeles, landing roles on TV shows like The Beverly Hillbillies and in films like Valley of the Dolls (for which she earned a Golden Globe Award nomination). By the end of the '60s, she was viewed as an up-and-coming star with a touch for both comedy and at the same time, Charles Manson and his followers were plotting unspeakable things. On Aug. 9, 1969, the 8-months-pregnant Tate and her friends — Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski — were at her Benedict Canyon house while her husband, director Roman Polanski, was away in Europe. Members of Manson's cult — known as the Manson family — broke into the home on Manson's orders and went on a killing spree. Tate, pleading for her unborn child's life, was stabbed 16 times by Susan Atkins and Tex Watson. Her friends were also brutally murdered. The killers then wrote "PIG" in blood on the front door, leaving behind a scene of unimaginable horror. The murders, along with the killings of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca the next night, sent shockwaves through Hollywood. Manson and his followers were later arrested and sentenced to life in prison. Owen Hart may have been born into a legendary wrestling dynasty (his dad was Stu Hart; his brother was Bret "Hitman" Hart), but he was a star in his own right and at the center of some of the biggest '90s storylines of the WWE (then known as WWF). However, on May 23, 1999, during the WWE's Over the Edge pay-per-view event in Kansas City, Missouri, his life (and those storylines) ended. Hart was set to make a dramatic entrance as his superhero persona, the Blue Blazer, by being lowered from the arena rafters into the ring. Tragically, a malfunction occurred, and Hart fell a long distance — approximately 78 feet — landing chest-first on the top rope. He was rushed to the hospital but pronounced dead not long after arriving; the cause of death was internal bleeding from blunt force trauma, resulting in a severed aorta. The incident was not broadcast live, as a pre-recorded segment was airing at the time. The audience in attendance witnessed the fall, though, and the frantic attempts to save his life afterward. Despite the tragedy, WWE owner Vince McMahon decided to continue the live broadcast after a 15-minute widow, Martha Hart, was horrified, writing in a book about her husband, "As he lay dying in the ring, he struggled to live for our children and me. After he lost his fight for life, they just scooped him up and ordered the next match out. Where's the humanity?" Martha Mansfield was a rising silent film star in the early 1920s, starring alongside Hollywood legends (like John Barrymore in 1920's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). She was poised for stardom — especially after she won the lead in Elmer Clifton's Civil War drama The Warrens of Virginia — but then her life was cut short in a shocking and bizarre on-set accident. On Nov. 29, 1923, Mansfield was filming The Warrens of Virginia in San Antonio, Texas. During a break from filming, she sat in a car to relax — still in costume, wearing a long, elaborate hoop-skirted gown. Of course, almost everyone smoked back then, and when a crew member lit up and tossed the match, it accidentally ended up in the car where, in seconds, the highly flammable fabric of Mansfield's costume turned into a fireball. Mansfield's costar, Wilfred Lytell, desperately tried to save her, throwing his coat over her to smother the flames, but the damage was done — she suffered horrific burns over her body. Mansfield was rushed to the hospital but died the next day. She was just 24 years old. When Cleveland Indians' shortstop Ray Chapman arrived at the Polo Grounds in New York on Aug. 17, 1920, he was having one hell of a season, batting .303 with 97 runs scored. It was rumored, though, that Chapman, who was newly married to a pregnant wife, planned to retire when the season ended to focus on his family. Tragically, while facing Yankees' submarine pitcher Carl Mays, he was hit in the head with a fastball. This was before batters wore helmets, and the ball met Chapman's head with a sickening thud. The impact was so strong that the ball bounced into play, and Mays threw it to first, believing it must have hit Chapman's bat. A dazed Chapman stood, asked someone to call his wife, and added: "I'm all right; tell Mays not to worry." He then collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, where he died the next day. Following the incident, many felt Mays had hit Chapman on purpose for crowding the plate, and Hall of Famer Ty Cobb even suggested someone should do the same to Mays. Chapman's death led to some changes in baseball. Beforehand, pitchers were allowed to dirty up the ball with soil, licorice, or tobacco juice. That was forbidden after Chapman's death, as it reduced the visibility of the baseball and made it harder to see (and thus evade).A minor leaguer died the next season in the same manner, but even so, batting helmets weren't used widely until the 1950s. David Carradine was a Hollywood icon best known for his role as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s TV series Kung Fu and later as the sinister Bill in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films. In June 2009, shocking news broke: He was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room. At first, reports claimed it was a suicide, but things quickly took a bizarre turn. He was found naked, hanging in a closet, with a rope tied around his neck, wrists, and genitals. Soon, speculation spread — was this an accident, an intentional act, or something even more sinister? In the end, authorities ruled his death as accidental asphyxiation, likely due to autoerotic asphyxiation (a risky, reckless, and extremely dangerous sexual practice where a person strangles themselves while masturbating to increase arousal). In 2016, Irma Bule, 26, was an Indonesian pop singer specializing in Dangdut, a popular music genre in her country. A mother of three, she was not yet a nationally known singer but had a following in the Karawang area of West Java. For performers like Bule, who were still looking to go national, singing in rural areas wasn't especially lucrative, and net only $20 per concert (plus tips from the crowd). However, if they performed on stage with a snake, the pay jumped up to $25. Another Dangdut singer, Yeyen, told local media. "If there are snake dancers, there will be more audience. Therefore … we have snake dancers." Bule had performed with snakes onstage for three years, but the snakes were normally nonvenomous and/or had their mouths duct-taped closed. On the night of her death, the snake she was asked to perform with was neither nonvenomous nor duct-taped. Bule's show began as it always did, with her dancing and singing, until — in a flash — the snake bit her. Footage online shows Bule crouched at the side of the stage just after the bite, with the snake handler tending to her. Forty-five minutes later, she was dead. Back in the '80s, Jon-Erik Hexum was a rising TV star. After starring in the time-travel series Voyagers!, he landed a lead role in Cover Up, a CBS action-drama. With his model good looks and undeniable charisma, Hexum seemed destined for A-list stardom. But then, in October 1984, during a break on the Cover Up set, Hexum jokingly put a prop .44 Magnum to his temple and pulled the trigger, unaware that even blanks can be deadly at close range. The force of the gunpowder blast fractured his skull and sent bone fragments into his brain, causing massive hemorrhaging. He was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery, but the damage was irreversible. After six days in a coma, he was declared brain dead on Oct. 18, 1984, at just 26 years old. Barbara Newhall Follett wrote poetry at age 4 and in 1927, and at just 12, she published her first book, The House Without Windows, to critical acclaim (The Saturday Review of Literature called the book 'almost unbearably beautiful'). Her next novel came out two years later to more critical acclaim. But fame faded, her father (and champion) left the family, and her life slowly unraveled. In 1939, at age 25, after a fight with her husband (whom she suspected of an affair), Barbara walked out of their apartment with the equivalent of just under $700 in today's dollars. She left no note. No trace. Her husband didn't report her missing for two weeks. She was never seen again. Some believe Barbara died by suicide. Others think she was murdered — possibly by her husband, who acted strangely and avoided questioning. Of course, a pretty young woman walking alone at night with a decent chunk of change in her pocket was at risk from other threats, years, her mother tried to reopen the case but got nowhere. She also was very suspicious of Barbara's husband, and wrote to him, "All of this silence on your part looks as if you had something to hide concerning Barbara's disappearance ... You cannot believe that I shall sit idle during my last few years and not make whatever effort I can to find out whether Bar is alive or dead, whether, perhaps, she is in some institution suffering from amnesia or nervous breakdown."In 2019, writer Daniel Mills published his theory that police did find Barbara's body in 1946, but misidentified it as someone else. If he's right, and Barbara did indeed die by suicide, then a life that began with such incredible promise ended in a deeply sad way. Actor Brandon Lee had big shoes to fill — his father was legendary martial artist and actor Bruce Lee — but he was on his way to doing just that when his life was tragically cut as his father's had been 20 years earlier. The elder Lee died on July 20, 1973, at age 32, under mysterious circumstances in Hong Kong. Officially, his death was attributed to cerebral edema (brain swelling) caused by an allergic reaction to a painkiller. It wasn't so cut and dry, though, and people have speculated ever since there might be a different explanation, with theories ranging from heatstroke to even assassination. OK, back to Brandon. Like his father, Lee was an accomplished martial artist and actor and had already appeared in the minor action hit Rapid Fire when he was cast in The Crow, a comic book adaptation about a rock musician brought back from the dead to avenge his and his fiancée's murder. Tragically (and ironically), Lee was filming the scene where his character was to be shot and killed when — due to a series of mistakes by the production team — he was shot with the remnants of a real bullet instead of a dummy cartridge. Cameras were rolling when the actor fired the gun, fatally wounding Lee. He was pronounced dead on March 31, 1993. He was just some rewrites, Lee's remaining scenes were completed using a stunt double and early CGI effects. The film became a hit upon release, largely thanks to Lee's talent, and made him a posthumous star. Today, like his father, he is remembered as a star gone too soon. Randy Rhoads was Ozzy Osbourne's lead guitarist and responsible for some of rock's most iconic riffs — check out his brilliant playing on "I Don't Know" and "Crazy Train" from Ozzy's Blizzard of Ozz. But just as he was reaching legendary status, his life was cut short in one of the most bizarre rockstar tragedies ever. On March 19, 1982, Rhoads was on tour with Ozzy when they stopped in Leesburg, Florida. At a private airstrip, their bus driver, Andrew Aycock — also a licensed pilot — decided to take a small Beechcraft Bonanza plane for a joyride. With Rhoads and makeup artist Rachel Youngblood onboard, Aycock recklessly buzzed the tour bus, trying to startle the sleeping crew, including Ozzy. On the third low pass, the plane's wing clipped the bus, sending it spiraling out of control. It crashed into a garage and exploded into flames. All three passengers were killed — Rhoads was just 25. Legendary Australian cricketer Shane Warne died in March 2022 from a massive heart attack while on a lads' weekend in Thailand, and the circumstances surrounding his death sparked a whole lot of whispers. Paramedics reportedly discovered in his room three types of sex-enhancing drugs — including Viagra and Kamagra, a super-strength sex drug known as "Viagra jelly" — and CCTV footage revealed that two massage therapists ("massage therapists") had left his room shortly before he was found unresponsive. Whether or not the sex-enhancing medications contributed to his death, it's important to know they carry warnings for individuals with heart conditions (like Warne) and should be used responsibly. Warne was 52. British daredevil Bobby Leach became famous in 1911 as the second person to survive a plunge over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The stunt left him significantly injured, but he recovered. Years later, while on a publicity tour in New Zealand in 1926, Leach slipped on an orange peel and fractured leg. Gangrene set in, and the leg needed to be amputated. Complications from the surgery ensued, and he ultimately succumbed to his injuries. How's that for the unpredictability of life and death? The man survives one of the most dangerous stunts possible, then dies because of an orange peel.​ Above Leach — in 1925, months before his death — points to Niagara Falls and tells reporters: "There is where I went over Niagara Falls in 1911, in a barrel, and there is where I will go over again in a rubber ball, which I am having especially made. The ball will be ready in the Spring and after I have completed the tests I will be ready for another trip over the falls, next summer." (Leach's second trip over the falls never happened, of course.) Barbara Weldens, 35, was an up-and-coming French singer-songwriter who had already won several prestigious music awards. Her fans loved her emotional lyrics, haunting voice, and theatrical stage presence — often performing barefoot. On July 18, 2017, Weldens was performing at a packed church during the Léo Ferré Festival. After finishing a particularly powerful song, Weldens smiled, soaking up the crowd's applause, then suddenly collapsed. At first, some audience members thought it was part of the show — a dramatic flourish. But Weldens didn't move. Paramedics arrived quickly, but it was too late. An autopsy determined that Weldens had been electrocuted; she was performing barefoot as usual, and when her foot made contact with a defective piece of electrical equipment, it sent electricity shooting through her body. Félix Faure — the president of France from 1895 to 1899 — was known for his charm and diplomacy. Um, okay, you might be thinking, Why the hell am I reading about a 19th-century French politician on BuzzFeed? Here's why: On Feb. 16, 1899, the 58-year-old president invited his mistress Marguerite Steinheil (who was exactly half his age), to the Élysée Palace for an afternoon — ahem — meeting. It's believed Steinheil was performing oral sex on Faure in his presidential office (shades of the Clinton years) when he suffered a massive stroke. According to palace staff, Steinheil screamed for help, and the president was found in a highly compromising position — some even claim he died mid-orgasm, pants around his ankles. Rumors soon spread and the public nicknamed Steinheil "La Pompe Funèbre" — a dirty pun roughly translating to "the funeral pump." Yikes. Movie and TV director Boris Sagal was best known for helming 1971's The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston (and for being the dad of actor Katey Sagal from Married... with Children and Sons of Anarchy). But his long career — and life — came to a shocking, tragic end in 1981. Sagal had just finished directing the third day of production of the NBC miniseries World War III when he stepped off a helicopter and somehow walked directly into the aircraft's spinning tail rotor. The impact nearly decapitated him, causing catastrophic injuries. He was rushed to a hospital, but there was no saving him. He died five hours later at age 57. The circumstances of his death baffled many. How could such an experienced director — used to working around complex, dangerous sets — make such a fatal mistake? Whatever the cause, it remains one of Hollywood's most gruesome on-set tragedies. Richey Edwards was the intense, brilliant lyricist for the Manic Street Preachers, penning most of the lyrics of their iconic 1994 album The Holy Bible. But just one day before he was scheduled to fly to the U.S., on Feb. 1, 1995, the 27-year-old Edwards went missing. He was reportedly seen by fans and a cab driver in the following days, but his car was eventually found near the Severn Bridge, a known suicide site. At the time, Edwards was struggling with depression, self-harm, anorexia, and alcoholism. Still, no body was ever found. In 2008, over a decade later, his family had him legally presumed dead, but as their lawyer explained, it was more a move to get his affairs in order, saying, "That's not the same as an acceptance that he is dead." In the years since, people have claimed to spot the musician all over the world — Goa, the Canary Islands — always under a new name, always just out of reach. Some point to his fascination with disappearing as a concept. Before he vanished, he reportedly gave the book Novel with Cocaine to a friend and asked them to read the introduction, where the author wrote about vanishing from society. A 2019 book on Edwards entitled Withdrawn Traces, written with the cooperation of his sister Rachel Edwards, echoes this, saying that he'd shown interest in the idea of faking one's death in the years before he was last Rachel told GQ, 'We know no more now than we did 25 years ago.' In 1871, Clement Vallandigham, a famous American lawyer known for his dramatic courtroom demonstrations, was defending a client accused of murder. To illustrate his theory that the deceased had accidentally shot himself, Vallandigham brought a similar firearm into the courtroom and, while demonstrating what he thought happened, inadvertently discharged the weapon, killing himself. Tragic, yes, but there was a bright side to this. Vallandigham's demonstration was so convincing that it introduced reasonable doubt, and his client was acquitted. Jack Cassidy was a famous actor in the '60s and '70s, winning a Tony Award and appearing in classic TV shows like Columbo and Bewitched. (He was also the dad of '70s teen idol David Cassidy.) Sadly, Jack's life was marred by personal struggles, including alcoholism and bipolar disorder. His behavior became increasingly erratic toward the end of his life — ex-wife Shirley Jones says he once claimed he was Jesus Christ during a manic episode. Sadly, on Dec. 11, 1976, after a night of heavy drinking in his West Hollywood apartment, Cassidy passed out on his couch with a lit cigarette still in his hand. A fire soon erupted, and by the time firefighters arrived, it was too late. Cassidy's body was found burned beyond recognition, and dental records needed to be used to identify him. Connie Converse was writing and recording deeply personal songs in the '50s — way, way before the singer-songwriter era made that cool. Her voice was intimate and her lyrics literary, but her life became increasingly complicated as the years rolled by. After years of struggling to find an audience, Connie left New York in the early '60s, moved in with family, and fell into a depression. In August 1974, she wrote letters to friends and family saying she needed to "make a new life," packed up her Volkswagen Beetle, and drove away. She was 50. No one has heard from her since. In the decades since, a new generation fell in love with her melancholy brilliance. But what happened to her remains unknown. The letters she left behind could be interpreted as suicide notes, but they also mentioned returning to New York and her music career. And, if they were suicide notes, why was her body never found? Or her car, for that matter? Ten years later, her brother contacted a private investigator about searching for her, but decided to let it be; if she wanted to start a new life, that was her right. Here's hoping that is what happened, and there's not a darker explanation. Nick Zoricic was a 29-year-old Canadian freestyle skier, rising fast in the dangerous, high-speed world of ski cross — a sport that combines downhill racing with motocross-style obstacles (and has been referred to as "NASCAR on skis.") But on March 10, 2012, at a ski cross World Cup event in Switzerland, Zoricic's final race became a tragedy seen by hundreds of spectators. As he approached the finish line at full speed, Zoricic flew off the final jump — but something went wrong. Instead of landing cleanly, he veered off course and slammed into the safety netting and a solid boundary structure just past the finish. He hit the barrier with brutal force, disappearing in a spray of snow. When the snow cleared, Zoricic was lying motionless. Officials quickly waved off the other competitors and rushed to his aid, but Zoricic had suffered severe head trauma. He was pronounced dead a short time incident sparked international calls for greater safety measures in ski cross and other high-speed winter sports, especially since Zoricic's death was the second high-profile skiing fatality in two months — freestyle skier Sarah Burke previously crashed and died during halfpipe training. Movie star David Niven's first wife, Primula "Primmie" Rollo, was one-half of one of Hollywood's most glamorous and buzzed-about couples. She and Niven were very happy together, too, with two children, but their love story came to a tragic and freakish end on May 21, 1946. Primmie and Niven were attending a party at actor Tyrone Power's house when the guests decided to play Sardines, a variation of hide-and-seek. Looking for a place to hide in the dimly lit house, Primmie stepped into what she thought was a closet — but it was actually an open trapdoor leading to a stone staircase. Primmie fell down the stairs and suffered a severe skull fracture. Despite being rushed to the hospital, she died the next day at just 28 years old. Michael Hutchence was the lead singer of the Australian rock band INXS, which was best known in the USA for their #1 hit "Need You Tonight." In 1997, the 37-year-old was found dead in a Sydney hotel room under mysterious circumstances. Here's what we know: Hutchence was found naked, kneeling on the floor, with a leather belt tied around his neck and attached to the door. It was ruled that he died by suicide, but almost instantly, people had questions. Why the nudity? Why the specific positioning? Why the belt? Some suggested Hutchence had died during autoerotic asphyxiation, as David Carradine had. His family pushed back, saying he had been depressed over custody issues with then-girlfriend Paula Yates. Still, police found no suicide note, and there were no drugs found, just alcohol and a couple mild prescription meds. Harry Houdini has been dead for nearly a century but is still the most famous magician ever to live. Born in 1874, he was renowned for escaping anything — handcuffs, locked tanks, even being buried alive. He was also a hardcore skeptic, exposing fake psychics and spiritualists like the original myth-buster. But his actual death was both bizarre and embarrassingly simple for a man who built his legend on intrigue. In 1926, a college student asked if Houdini could take a punch to the stomach. Houdini, being Houdini, said yes. But the student didn't wait — he sucker-punched the legendary magician before he could brace himself. The problem? Houdini already had appendicitis, and the blow ruptured his appendix, leading to a deadly infection. But being the world's toughest man, he kept performing for days, ignoring the excruciating pain. Finally, on Halloween of that year, Houdini died at 52. Dorothy Arnold was everything you'd expect from a New York socialite: elegant, well-educated, extravagantly rich, and constantly in the public eye. And then — one day — she was On Dec. 12, 1910, the 25-year-old left her family's Upper East Side home to buy a new evening gown. She stopped by a bookstore and then chatted briefly with a friend on Fifth Avenue. That was around 2 p.m. And then…nothing. She vanished in broad daylight, on one of Manhattan's busiest streets, never to be seen again. Her family waited a full day before going to the police — not because they weren't worried, but because they were embarrassed. Her father even hired Pinkerton detectives to look for her in secret, worried that a public scandal could hurt her reputation. But weeks passed. Then months. No body, no note, no confirmed sightings. Over the years, countless theories emerged. Some believed Dorothy died by suicide over an unrequited love or during a botched abortion. Others speculated that she was murdered in Central Park or kidnapped right off the heartbroken mother died in 1928, still hoping for answers, while her father passed away a few years later. In one of his final interviews, he declared, "After all these years, I am convinced that Dorothy is dead." Tommy Cooper was a towering figure in British comedy — both literally (he was a big dude, standing 6′4″) and figuratively. He was famous for his bumbling magician act. Basically, his whole shtick was that his magic tricks always went hilariously wrong, which made what happened on April 15, 1984, during a live broadcast of a variety show extra horrific. Cooper walked on stage to thunderous applause, started performing, and then collapsed backward into the curtain. The audience burst out laughing, assuming it was part of the act. But it wasn't. For several agonizing seconds, Cooper lay on the stage floor, unresponsive. The host, Jimmy Tarbuck, told the show's producer: "This isn't it [part of the act]. 'Now', he said, 'you know how he is.' He's put this in... And...I said, No... this is not him!" The cameras kept rolling — broadcasting Cooper's death live to 12 million viewers. Stagehands eventually dragged him offstage as performers tried to keep the show going. It was later confirmed that Cooper died of a heart there onstage. Amelia Earhart was already a global icon when, in 1937, she set out to become the first woman to fly around the world. But on July 2, 1937, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean near Howland Island, contact with Earhart's plane was lost. She and navigator Fred Noonan were never seen again. Despite one of the largest and most expensive search efforts ever launched at the time, neither wreckage nor bodies were recovered. There are, of course, lots of theories about what happened. Some say she ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea. Others believe she crash-landed on a nearby island and died as a castaway. Then there's the theory that she was captured and killed by the Japanese after accidentally flying into territory they controlled. The thing is, no matter how hard people try, no one ever seems able to crack the mystery. Henry John Temple (known as Lord Palmerston) was prime minister of the UK and one of Victorian Britain's most influential politicians when he died at 80 in October 1865. The official report said that he passed peacefully from a fever, but according to longstanding rumors, Palmerston, known for his still-robust libido even in old age, was in the middle of a sexual encounter with a much younger domestic servant…on top of a billiard table…when his heart gave out, and he collapsed mid-act. It's hard to verify — and even harder to deny — given Palmerston's known womanizing. He married late in life but was said to have maintained a healthy interest in extramarital recreation long after. And really? I bet ol' Palmy would want us to think he went out like the salty old dog he was, not because of a wimpy fever. British actor and comedian Sid James was famous for starring in the Carry On films (a massive British comedy franchise comprised of 31 films released between 1958 and 1992). But his life ended on April 26, 1976 — in front of a packed Sunderland Empire Theatre — as he acted onstage in the comedy play The Mating Season. According to costar Olga Lowe. "I came onstage, said my first lines and he answered as normal. Then I sat on the sofa with him. I said my next line and he didn't answer." James had suffered a heart attack and slumped over on the couch. "I thought it was a gag," Lowe added. "Well, you would with Sid. He was such a rascal... Ten minutes earlier, he had been the same old laughing Sid." Once the gravity of the situation set in, the curtain was dropped. James was 62. In 955, thanks to powerful family connections, Pope John XII was elected pope at just 18 years old — and he acted like a modern 18-year-old frat boy, treating the Vatican like his personal frat house, complete with gambling, drinking, and orgies. The party came to an end in 964 when the 27-year-old pope was caught in bed with a married woman, and her husband beat the horny "religious" figure to death. Since this tea is over 1,000 years old, there's some uncertainty about whether the angry hubby story is true (another account says John XII had a fatal stroke mid-coitus). The church tried to clean up the story, but it was too juicy to bury. Some priests even argued his entire papacy was illegitimate due to his immoral lifestyle. If you're thinking, Well, something like that would never happen in today's Catholic church, it's time to learn about Cardinal Jean Daniélou, a respected French theologian, Jesuit scholar, and rumored future pope, who was found dead of a heart attack in 1974. But not just anywhere. He died in the Paris home of a sex worker, with lots of money in his pocket. The church first claimed he died on the street, then revised their story to say he died at the sex worker's home with money so she could bail her husband out of jail. Uh-huh. The priesthood scrambled to contain the scandal, and his supporters noted he was known to advocate for marginalized communities. Still, skeptics weren't buying it. Was he visiting her for humanitarian reasons? Or for something a bit more…hands-on? We'll never know. (But we know.) In the early 1900s, William Ellsworth Robinson, a white American magician, captivated audiences using the persona of "Chung Ling Soo," a Chinese conjurer. To sell the lie, he never spoke English on stage and wore face paint. That's bad enough, but it gets worse — his act was almost entirely stolen from an actual Chinese magician named Ching Ling Foo. (He didn't even try to hide the theft — he changed only two letters of his name!) On March 23, 1918, during a performance in London, Soo (the fake Chinese magician, to be clear) tried to perform his most famous "bullet catch," which involved catching a bullet fired at it went terribly wrong. A malfunction caused a real bullet to be fired, striking Robinson/Soo in the chest. Breaking character and speaking English onstage for the first time, he exclaimed, "Oh my God. Something's happened. Lower the curtain." He died the following day. Author Sherwood Anderson (famous for the short story collection Winesburg, Ohio) was on a cruise to South America in March of 1941 when he decided to unwind with a martini. Somehow, he managed to accidentally swallow the toothpick that speared the drink's olive, and soon began experiencing severe abdominal pain. The captain stopped the cruise in Colón, Panama so that Anderson could be hospitalized, and doctors discovered he had peritonitis — a life-threatening inflammation of the abdominal lining. The cause? The toothpick, which had perforated his intestines, leading to infection. He died March 8, 1941. Japan's world-famous Sankai Juku dance company stopped in Seattle on Sept. 10, 1985 to perform a piece entitled "Jomon Sho," where four dancers hang upside down from a building by ropes attached to their ankles (a metaphor for life and death or something artsy like that). They were supposed to dance while being slowly lowered to the ground, a process expected to take 30 minutes, but after only a couple of minutes — and while still 80 feet in the air — one of the company's most senior dancers, Yoshiyuki Takada, noticed his rope was He tried to carefully reach up and grab the rope above where it was fraying, but it snapped before he could. He fell the long distance to the ground silently, landing with a thud. A doctor in the crowd tried to help, but it was no use — Yoshiyuki Takada was dead. It later came to light that they only tested one of the four ropes to be used, and that they'd requested old ropes because new ropes caused the dancers to twist and turn too much. The company stopped performing the hanging outdoor dance after the tragedy, but has since added it back into their repertoire. (The photo above is an example from a more recent performance.) Jim Sullivan was a folk-rock musician in the style of Gram Parsons or Nick Drake who appeared in the classic film Easy Rider. His 1969 debut album U.F.O. was filled with lyrics about desert roads, aliens, and leaving Earth behind — the kind of stuff that didn't exactly scream "chart-topper," lol — but it built a cult following years later. In March 1975, Sullivan left L.A. to drive to Nashville in hopes of kickstarting his music career. En route, he checked into a motel in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, then bought a bottle of vodka and drove out of town. He was spotted 26 miles away at a then never again. His car was later found abandoned with his wallet, ID, guitar, and belongings still inside. Locals said he seemed disoriented in the days before he vanished. Theories ranged from dehydration or a mental health crisis to foul play (perhaps by the mafia). But no remains were ever found, and no one reported seeing him after that 50 years later, there are still zero clues about what happened. His old friend Al Dobbs told the New York Times, 'I think he stumbled into something or someone that was unforgiving. It's kind of poetic to picture him still walking out there somewhere. But something happened.' During the Civil War — on May 9, 1864 — Union General John Sedgwick's troops were under fire from Confederate sharpshooters. Observing his men seeking cover, Sedgwick, confident in their safety, reportedly declared, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Almost immediately, a bullet struck Sedgwick under the left eye, killing him. If I'm ever in a situation like that, I will say something different, like, "They couldn't deliver us a gift basket of freshly baked cookies at this distance." Renowned detective Allan Pinkerton faced a lot of danger in his line of work, but he met his demise in a shockingly simple way. In 1884, while walking on a sidewalk in Chicago, he slipped and bit his tongue severely. Pinkerton neglected to seek immediate medical attention (you'd think a detective would have picked up on the clue that the immense pain meant he needed help), and the wound became infected, leading to gangrene. He died from infection on July 1, 1884. Percy Fawcett was the real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones — a British explorer obsessed with the uncharted Amazon and the belief that a lost ancient civilization was hidden within it. He called it the City of "Z." In 1925, the 57-year-old Fawcett set out into the Brazilian jungle with his 21-year-old son Jack and Jack's best friend Raleigh with big plans to finally locate the city he'd spent decades theorizing about. 'We shall return,' Fawcett told reporters ahead of the trip, 'and we shall bring back what we seek.' However, after sending a final message via courier from a remote outpost, the entire party vanished. No confirmed trace of any of them was ever found. Over 100 would-be rescuers and adventurers followed in Fawcett's footsteps in the years that followed. Some vanished themselves. Others were killed by tribes in the region. A few came back convinced Fawcett had died, or with wild stories of seeing him alive and living among Indigenous people, but none of these accounts could be what DID happen? Well, let's be real for a second — dying was easy in the jungle. Between piranha-infested waters, dangerous jaguars, and the risk of malaria, parasitic infection, and starvation, there were all kinds of potential tragic ends for the group. Some believe hostile tribes killed him. That's possible. In 2005, Kalapalo Indians claimed that their oral history passed down that Fawcett made the mistake of crossing into the land of the warlike tribe, the Kalapalos. And then there are the diehards who still believe he found the mythical city... and stayed there. You know what? Let's go with that happy explanation, especially because it sounds the most like the ending of an Indiana Jones adventure. In October of 1601, prominent Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe attended a formal banquet in Prague, which, I'm assuming, had quite the assortment of libations. Brahe was a stickler for courtly etiquette — which dictated that leaving the table before the host was considered impolite — so he remained seated despite desperately needing to relieve himself. This led to a bladder ailment, believed to be a ruptured bladder or uremia, which proved fatal eleven days later. So, go when you gotta go, folks! (Interestingly, a DNA study of one of his hairs suggests another possible cause of death — mercury poisoning.) Above is a statue of Brahe looking up like, "Dear God, I have to pee!" Roman Emperor Valerian was the first Roman emperor to be taken captive in battle — by the Persian emperor Shapur I after the Battle of Edessa — and things only got worse from there. It's believed that during his captivity, Valerian was forced to suffer incredibly humiliating indignities, including being used as a human footstool by Shapur. Eventually, Valerian was killed, his body was flayed, and his skin was displayed as a trophy. Damn. Above is a carving of King Shapur capturing Roman emperor Valerian at the archeological site of the Necropolis. Alright, alright, alright! Let's end on a wholesome one. James McConaughey — dad to Matthew — apparently had a very specific plan in mind, and it involved going out in the throes of passion, as explained by Matthew in his 2020 memoir Greenlights. James, a former football player and pipe supplier, was a tough, boisterous Texan with an outsized personality and a love for his family — including his wife, Kay. Matthew wrote that his father had long declared, "Boys, when I go, I'm gonna be makin' love to your mother." A bold prediction…that turned out to be 100% true. One morning in 1992, James suffered a fatal heart attack during sex with his wife. He was 63. The moment was, of course, devastating — but also carried a strange kind of poetic weight. As Matthew put it, "He called his shot and he died his way."