Paper Cut

Mystery/Thriller, Fiction, Audiobook

Lucy Golden has spent twenty years living as a legend—and a question mark.

Once a teenage cult escapee turned true-crime icon, Lucy became infamous for the murder that secured her freedom and defined her life. But in Los Angeles, notoriety fades fast. Now, her story risks slipping into irrelevance—overshadowed by relentless online scrutiny, a persistent stalker, and the chaos of her own fractured family, including a celebrated photographer mother and a scandal-prone rock star sister. Worse still, internet sleuths are starting to ask dangerous questions about the crime that made her famous.

When a rising documentarian offers to retell her story on film, Lucy seizes the opportunity to reclaim her narrative and silence the rumors once and for all. But returning to the California desert means confronting the past she carefully curated—and the people who remember it differently. As filming unfolds, buried secrets begin to surface, blurring the line between truth and performance.

Told through a dual narrative that interweaves Lucy’s present-day unraveling with excerpts from her bestselling memoir, Paper Cut is a sharp, suspenseful debut that explores the seductive power of true crime, the fragility of identity, and the cost of controlling your own story. Dark, compelling, and impossible to put down, this is a novel where the truth is the most dangerous revelation of all.