Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino
Published by Celadon Books on November 25, 2025
Genre(s): Thriller, Mystery, Horror
Format: Audiobook
Hours: 8 hours, 38 minutes
Narrator: Cia Court
Potential Trigger Warnings: Infertility, miscarriage, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, obsessive behavior, infidelity, stalking, harassment, blackmail, and deteriorating mental health
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plot details
In Best Offer Wins, Margo Miyake has spent 18 frustrating months losing bidding war after bidding war in the brutal Washington, D.C. housing market. When she learns about her dream home before it officially hits the market, she decides she’s finally done losing.
At first, Margo simply researches the property and its owners. Then she starts inserting herself into their lives. Before long, she’s stalking, trespassing, manipulating, and crossing lines that most people wouldn’t even consider approaching.
Through Margo’s increasingly obsessive behavior, Marisa Kashino delivers a darkly funny thriller that explores ambition, class, and the dangerous gap between wanting something and believing you’re entitled to it.
my thoughts
I picked up Best Offer Wins completely on a whim.
Spotify Audiobooks recommended it while I was driving to San Antonio, and since I wasn’t interested in listening to country music for six hours, I figured I’d give it a shot. By the time I arrived, I was hooked.
This book moves. Kashino wastes very little time, and every chapter pushes the story forward. I kept telling myself I’d stop after one more chapter, and then suddenly I was halfway through the book. The short chapters, clean writing, and steady pacing made this incredibly easy to binge.
What really grabbed me though, was Margo.
I didn’t always like her, and I definitely didn’t agree with her choices, but I couldn’t look away from her. Kashino takes a feeling most people understand, wanting something badly, and twists it into a full-blown obsession. Watching Margo justify increasingly invasive and questionable behavior felt equal parts entertaining and uncomfortable.
I also appreciated how relatable the premise felt. Most thrillers ask readers to suspend disbelief almost immediately. Best Offer Wins starts with a problem many people have actually experienced: trying to buy a house in a nightmare market. That familiarity made Margo’s spiral feel even more effective.
As for the ending, I can’t say it completely blindsided me. I suspected Margo would eventually make a choice that changed her for the worse. What surprised me wasn’t where the story ended up, it was how far Kashino pushed her and how naturally she got there. Looking back, all the signs were there.
final verdict
Best Offer Wins completely delivered on its premise. It’s sharp, addictive, darkly funny, and impossible to put down.
The real strength of this book isn’t the mystery or the twists, it’s Margo. Watching her obsession grow chapter by chapter kept me invested from beginning to end. Even when I knew she was making terrible decisions, I needed to know what she would do next.
If you enjoy character-driven thrillers, morally messy protagonists, and stories that take an everyday frustration and crank it up to eleven, Best Offer Wins deserves a spot on your TBR. This was an easy 5-star read for me and one of my favorite thrillers of the year so far.
If you enjoy obsession-driven thrillers, you may also enjoy my review of Cruelty Free.
lets chat!
How far would you go to get your dream home? Do you think Margo crossed the line long before she realized it, or was her obsession understandable given the circumstances?
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