Tag: marriage

Posted on

Review: The End Of Her

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Another great thriller by Shari Lapena. Though she hasn’t been able to recreate the chilling atmosphere of The Couple Next Door in her later books, she still manages to pack enough in The End of Her to satisfy her readers.

Stephanie and Patrick are parents to newborn twins, exhausted and sleep-deprived like all other new parents. They are finding it hard to juggle everything and staying on top of work. Yet, they are happy and satisfied with their lives.

This bubble of happiness bursts when one day Patrick’s past arrives to haunt them. A woman turns up, seemingly from out of nowhere, and starts blackmailing Patrick. She accuses him of killing his first wife and threatens to tell Stephanie all about it.

Not ready to give in to the blackmail, Patrick confides in Stephanie about everything and assures her that he is innocent of murder. Now it is up to Stephanie to believe her husband or to start doubting him. Trust is not as easy to come by as Stephanie had thought. Suddenly secrets start tumbling out, and Stephanie is not sure who and what to believe.

Shari Lapena is truly a master of Domestic Thriller. There are no bodies, hardly any murders in her books, just some truly creepy psychopaths living a normal life and fooling everyone around them. She makes you look twice at the people you meet daily, and wonder if such people exist in real life!

The End Of Her is a fairly easy read; I finished it in one day. You want to get to the bottom of everything as soon as possible. It is a classic “one more chapter” book that lives up to its promise.

Posted on

Review: The Perfect Wife

Rating: 4 Stars

JP Delaney has done it again! The Perfect Wife is the perfect thriller. It keeps you on the edge and waiting to see how it all concludes. Technically, this book can be classified as a sci-fi thriller, but only because it revolves around Artificial Intelligence.

The blurb of the book is so misleading that you think that you’re in for a murder mystery. Actually, The Perfect Wife is about Artificial Intelligence and human failings. Whoever wrote the blurb probably didn’t read the book. Abbie finds out in the first chapter that she was declared dead five years ago.

Abbie Cullen-Scott wakes up after a vivid dream to find herself in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. She assumes she was in an accident, and wants to know what happened. When she sees her husband, Tim, she wants to know what happened, and whether their autistic son is all right.

Tim is a genius. He is the founder of Scott Robotics, a tech company that has made revolutionary strides in AI technology. What Tim tells Abbie is so unbelievable that she is unable to grasp the implications of it all. Abbie’s memories are of 5 years ago, when she disappeared. What follows is the chilling and thrilling story of Abbie trying to figure out the truth while looking out for her son and her own welfare.

Delaney goes back to the theme that he first used in The Girl Before, and tweaks it into something that is so much better. It is guaranteed to create conflict within the reader about right and wrong. After all, how far is far enough when it comes to technology?

There is an ambiguity about who the narrator of the story is. Seemingly two different people are telling the same story, but from different perspectives, which makes it more engaging.

A word of warning though: This book talks a lot about Autism and its challenges, and the different approaches to understanding it. The author has an autistic son himself and he has tried to be as real about it as possible. For many people, it might be painful to read about the treatments and attitudes regarding Autism that are very common in real life.

A superb thriller that makes me look forward to Delaney’s next.

Posted on

Sunday Dispute: Is It Mid-Life Crisis?

I have been facing a dilemma. That of changing tastes and choices. I have always been proud of primarily being a detective at heart; a thrill seeker and a mystery solver, with a streak of adventure and a love for the unknown. There were a few years when this love was shared by another genre: Romance. Alas, that love affair only lasted for the duration of my teenage years. There were a few other friendships, but none as permanent and everlasting as the one between mystery thrillers and me.

This year, as I enter into my forties, I fear that my reading habits might be going through a mid-life crisis. The previously much-loved and adored friend no longer seems to hold my interest. Infact, I can hardly get myself to even look at a thriller any more. There are stacks and stacks of books staring at me, silently willing me to pick them up, their attractive covers screaming from Instagram accounts, their stellar reviews whispering sweet nothings into my ears, yet I feel nothing.

I have not found another favorite genre yet, but I’m looking around. All of a sudden I seem to have become more bold and daring, willing to venture into unknown worlds, rather than remaining a one-genre woman. It’s not easy. I would say it’s a lot of hard work. I keep thinking that if I read enough crap I might find something that will hold my interest for a longer period of time. Something with whom I can enjoy a long-term relationship.

But when you have been married for as long as mysteries/ thrillers and I, anything new just seems like a short-lived affair brought on by the advent of middle age. You have to give me one thing though. I haven’t stopped spending money on the darned genre. I still buy more thrillers than is good for my bank account, more than I can possibly read in this lifetime at least! It’s like a disease in my blood.

The more I write about it, the more it seems like the tale of a marriage going through a bad time. Maybe that’s what it is. We have been together for so long that we need a break from each other. Yeah, that’s what we should do.

Though we need to define the boundaries of this break. I don’t want to be left alone later on in life, telling anyone who would listen, “…but we were on a break!”

Exit mobile version