It's holiday time! I've had my reading list sorted for ages, leaving the most coveted books on my tbr pile for my trip - which you must agree shows great restraint!
After much agonising, I chose this little gem to sneak into my cabin luggage and be first off the rank. Unfortunately I was much too tired after coming off night shifts to read much on the plane, but made up for it once we got to the beautiful city of Barcelona.
I will try to post mini reviews of my holiday reads by painstakingly typing them out on my trusty old Samsung in hotel rooms at night, and challenging myself by trying to figure out my Blogger app as I go, so please forgive me any formatting errors.
Pictured here is the beautiful ancient city of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, where we are currently staying.
Pictured here is the beautiful ancient city of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, where we are currently staying.
Title: Exquisite
Author: Sarah Stovell
Read: September 2017 in Barcelona, Spain
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2
Author: Sarah Stovell
Read: September 2017 in Barcelona, Spain
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/2
Book Description (Goodreads):
Bo Luxton has it all—a loving family, a beautiful home in the Lake District, and a clutch of bestselling books to her name.
Enter Alice Dark, an aspiring writer who is drifting through life, with a series of dead-end jobs and a freeloading boyfriend. When they meet at a writers’ retreat, the chemistry is instant, and a sinister relationship develops. Or does it?
Breathlessly pacey, taut and terrifying, Exquisite is a startlingly original and unbalancing psychological thriller that will keep you guessing until the very last page.
My musings:
Ever since its release date earlier this year, I have kept stumbling across raving reviews about Sarah Stovell's dark and unsettling psychological thriller about obsession and lies, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. With a premise that was certain to mess with my mind, I thought it would make the perfect holiday read. And true to its promise, once I started I was well and truly hooked!
Told in the alternating voices of Bo and Alice, the story soon spiralled into the murky waters of lies, deception and a friendship gone terribly wrong. Having two unreliable narrators, each with their own agendas and motives, soon saw me constantly questioning everything I read, which made for an interesting if somewhat exhausting reading experience. To be honest, neither of the two women were particularly trustworthy, both scarred from dysfunctional childhoods that make most of our ordinary lives sound like princess fairy tales. Despite the age gap between the women, and their obvious differences, their rich background stories explained perfectly why they would be drawn to one another. I confess that the young struggling Alice struck me as the more innocent of the two and I warmed to her much more than to Bo, despite her love for hiking (which I share) and being much closer in age to me.You will have to see for yourself whether I was on the right track or not!
Stovell's writing is engaging and seductive, drawing me so deeply into the story that I emerged a long time later like a sleeper out of a disturbing dream. With its constant twists and turns and two narrators who both tried to convince me that there account of events was the right one, I was constantly questioning what I was reading, to the very last page. And to be totally frank with you, I'm still not sure if I got it right, even after the last page has been turned. Yes, it certainly made good on its promise of messing with my mind!
I don't want to give any spoilers, so will not delve any deeper into the story other than to say that there is a lot of tension and foreboding as the two women's friendship blossoms. For me, disaster was always the inevitable outcome, and the power of the story lay in its detail. Personally, I thought that the ending was a bit of a let-down, feeling slightly rushed where it could have drawn out the unbearable tension just a tad longer to make it truly satisfying. However, I can fully understand the hype Stovell's book created, and will be anxiously looking out for her next book in anticipation of another great read.
Summary:
Exquisite is an unsettling and utterly compulsive story of a friendship gone wrong that will mess with your mind and make you question everything you read. A must-read for lovers of domestic noir who are looking for a character driven story with unreliable narrators who will stay with you long after the last page has been turned.
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