True-Crime Podcaster Jaime Parker Stickle Returns With a New Detective Thriller [Exclusive]
Podcaster and author Jaime Parker Stickle, known for the true-crime podcast "The Girl With the Same Name," is releasing "Take Hart," the follow-up to her 2025 debut novel "Vicious Cycle." The book continues her detective thriller series featuring former reporter and new mother Corey Tracey-Lieberman, and Collider has published an exclusive excerpt ahead of its release, highlighting Stickle's growing career as an actor, professor and novelist alongside her podcasting work.
In "Take Hart," Corey balances an LAPD consulting role, a fledgling news blog and postpartum panic disorder when she learns of Sonja Hart, a mother from Highland Park who has disappeared with little public or police response. Corey stops taking her anxiety medication to sharpen her focus and uses personal connections to investigate, including digging through Sonja's Facebook contacts and client data from a spin studio, all while caring for her baby and navigating marital troubles and feelings for her investigative partner. As the case deepens, involving suspicious house fires and new neighbours, the killer eventually targets Corey herself, raising the stakes considerably.
- Jaime Parker Stickle releases new thriller "Take Hart," sequel to "Vicious Cycle."
- Story follows Corey Tracey-Lieberman investigating a missing mother's disappearance.
- Collider shares exclusive excerpt ahead of the book's release.
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Postpartum panic disorder is a form of anxiety that can affect new mothers, marked by sudden panic attacks and an overwhelming fear that something bad will happen to their baby. It sits alongside conditions such as postnatal depression as one of the mental health challenges new parents can face, and it forms the backdrop for the fictional detective at the centre of this story.
Jaime Parker Stickle built her audience through "The Girl With the Same Name," a true-crime podcast, before moving into fiction with her 2025 debut novel "Vicious Cycle." That book introduced Corey Tracey-Lieberman, a former reporter turned amateur investigator, whose story continues in the new novel discussed here.
The wider point of interest is Stickle's career path, moving between podcasting, acting, teaching and novel-writing, and how her true-crime background shapes the kind of detective fiction she now writes.