Title: Best Offer Wins
Author: Marisa Kashino
Number of Pages: 304
Publishing Date: 25 November 2025
Genre: Horror· Thriller· Fiction· Mystery· Mystery Thriller· Contemporary· Suspense· Adult· Psychological Thriller
Synopsis:
An insanely competitive housing market. A desperate buyer on the edge. In Marisa Kashino’s darkly humorous debut novel, Best Offer Wins, the white picket fence becomes the ultimate symbol of success—and obsession. How far would you go for the house of your dreams?
Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband Ian — and in turn, get their marriage, plan to have a baby, and whole life back on track — Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend (with unbeatable, all-cash offers in hand).
A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly unhinged—but just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing. The An insanely competitive housing market. A desperate buyer on the edge. In Marisa Kashino’s darkly humorous debut novel, Best Offer Wins, the white picket fence becomes the ultimate symbol of success—and obsession. How far would you go for the house of your dreams?
Review:
I would by everything🎶
But Margo just wants one thing, a house! Okay so… this book straight up grabbed me by the throat and whispered “the housing market is a horror novel actually.” And honestly? It’s not wrong.
We follow Margo Miyake, a 37-year-old publicist who’s DONE with apartment life and is ready to jump into her suburban-dream-home era. Except the universe clearly hates her because she’s lost ELEVEN bids already. So when she finds a house before it hits the market, she becomes just a tad obsessed. And by “a tad,” I mean this woman goes full morally-grey, ethically-questionable Olympic athlete in Desperation & Chaos Gymnastics.
This book is SO smart.
It’s messy, it’s uncomfortable, it’s painfully real, and it’s kinda hilarious in that “haha… wait this is actually terrifying” way. Marisa Kashino takes the absolute madness of modern real-estate culture — the competition, the pressure, the emotional spiral — and turns it into a domestic thriller that feels both absurd and way too possible.
Oh and btw, I also had an advance listener’s copy, which was honestly just icing on the cake. I swear listening to the audiobook is half the reason I’m this obsessed, because the narrator absolutely nailed Margo’s spiraling, hysterical, dramatic descent. She captured the fmc’s chaotic energy so perfectly that it felt like watching someone crumble in real time. Literal chef’s kiss.
The first half got me giggling at the absurdity, but the second half???? The tension goes feral. Watching Margo’s decisions get darker, pettier, and more unhinged had me clutching my imaginary pearls like “girl… be serious.” But also “girl don’t stop I need to know how bad this gets.”
If you love morally grey
narrators, domestic tension, slow-burn unraveling, and satire so sharp it could
cut glass. That's it!
Best Offer Wins is the kind of
book you finish and immediately stare at your own walls like, “I could never
survive the real-estate Hunger Games."
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