Book Review: THE END OF HER by Shari Lapena

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.