Title: INVITE ME IN
Author: Emma Curtis
Publisher: Random House UK
Read: May 2021
Expected publication: 2 September 2021
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!
Book Description:
To those who think they know her,
Eliza Curran has it all: two healthy children, a stunning home and a wealthy,
adoring husband. No one would guess the reality of her life: trapped in an
unhappy marriage to a controlling man, she longs for a way out. When she takes
on a new tenant, her life changes unexpectedly. Dan Jones is charming and
perceptive, and quickly becomes a close friend to the whole family. But Dan's
arrival threatens to tip Eliza's fragile world out of balance. And when someone
has as many secrets as Eliza does, the smallest slip could destroy everything.
My musings:
If I tell you that I felt furious almost the entire
time whilst reading this book, then you may think that contradicts my next
statement: I loved this book! It's only a very skilled author who can elicit
such a strong emotional response, and I would have walked through fire for our
main protagonist Eliza to free her from her overbearing, bullying, controlling
bastard of a husband!
From the very first moment Dan and Eliza meet and he cheekily introduces
himself as her future tenant in the newly renovated flat she is renting out, we
hear that Eliza is deeply unhappy. After ten years of living with a man who
watches her every move and is emotionally abusive, she is desperate to leave
her marriage. But her husband Martin holds some type of power over her, and she
is trapped. Is it any wonder then that she would easily be charmed by her
handsome, easygoing new tenant?
It's at this point that any similarities between INVITE ME IN and other likeminded
domestic suspense stories end. As Eliza's trap tightens and she is becoming
ever more desperate, lonely and isolated, I would have willingly finished off
her nasty husband myself. Again, it's only a very skilled author who knows how
to release her readers' inner psychopaths ;) And of course it's not as
straightforward as that ...
When the twist came, I was and I wasn't surprised. I knew that the author would
wait for an opportune moment to pounce and send her readers into a tailspin.
But I had no idea how evil and twisted this plot development would turn out to
be!
I'm not going to give anything else away. It's best to enter this story blind
and let yourself get swept away in its emotional maelstrom. INVITE ME IN is
that rarest kind of thriller- one that both chills with a constant sense of
menace and danger and also blindsides you completely. I enjoyed every minute of
it and read it in almost one sitting because I couldn't tear myself away. It
will easily make it onto my favourites list this year and I highly recommend it
to readers who may have become a bit jaded by the predictability of the
domestic noir genre. As each dysfunctional character stumbled towards the
inevitable finale, there was nothing predictable or formulaic in this story.
Well done Emma Curtis!
Thank
you to Netgalley and Random House UK for the free electronic copy of this novel
and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
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