Title: THE END OF HER
Author: Shari Lapena
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
Read: August 2020
Expected publication: out now
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Book Description:
It starts with a shocking
accusation...
Stephanie and Patrick are recently married, with new-born twins. While
Stephanie struggles with the disorienting effects of sleep deprivation, there’s
one thing she knows for certain – she has everything she ever wanted.
Then a woman from his past arrives and makes a shocking accusation about his
first wife. He always claimed her death was an accident – but she says it was
murder.
He insists he’s innocent, that this is nothing but a blackmail attempt. But is
Patrick telling the truth? Or has Stephanie made a terrible mistake?
How will it end?
What attracted me to this book:
THE END OF HER was a bookstagram-made-me-do-it
choice for me, and I am so glad that I was able to join a group read of this
entertaining story. Entertaining perhaps in the same way as watching a car roll
down a hill towards the river and knowing that you are unable to stop its
descend. If you love the type of books where you helplessly stand by and watch
each character’s life slowly unravelling, then look no further!
My musings:
I have read every one of Lapena’s books and
something in her writing always draws me back. With her latest book, AN
UNWANTED GUEST, I was forever hooked, because I love nothing more than a
claustrophobic setting. Here, the physical setting may appear pretty benign,
but Lapena creates claustrophobia galore as her hapless characters become more
and more ensnared in a tight net of villain Erica’s making. I do love a good
villain in a mystery, and on a love-to-hate-this-character scale from 1 to 10 (ten
being me plotting a slow and painful death for them to get what they deserve),
Erica was at least a nine! As she systematically went about destroying all
other characters’ lives, and looking like she was getting away with it, too, my
blood pressure rose to alarming levels – my husband kept commenting on the
unhealthy shade of red my face went as I was ha-hmppph-ing in disgust at her
antics.
As if Stephanie and Patrick didn’t
have enough on their plate looking after newborn colicky twins, their lives are
taking an even steeper downturn once the morally devoid Erica appears on the
scene, rising like a nightmare spectre out of Patrick’s past. How well do you
know your husband? This is a question Stephanie will ask herself often in the
coming weeks, as Erica is setting out to make their existence pure hell. There’s
nothing better than a book that puts you in the victim’s shoes and makes you
wonder what you would do in their position! I squirmed, I snorted, I had steam
coming out of my ears as I plotted Erica’s demise to finally end this torture!
Summary:
If a rising anxiety related heart rate and the fact
that I devoured this book in one single night to find out what would happen are
any indication of how good this book was, then we have a winner! Yes, there was
a bit of suspension of disbelief necessary to swallow it all hook, line and
sinker, but to be honest, as far as entertainment goes, it ticked all the boxes
for me. So if you are looking for a quick, entertaining and anxiety inducing
read with a villain you will want to throttle with your own bare hands a few
chapters into the book, then this should definitely be on your radar!
Thank
you to Edelweiss and Pamela Dorman Books for the free electronic copy of this
novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
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