Sarah Stovell | Exquisite

I just finished reading the thriller of the summer. If you love psychological thrillers, the movies Fatal Attraction and/or Chloe, and alternate and unreliable perspectives, this is the one for you.
 

Plot:
 
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?

Review:

Have you ever watched one of those movie trailers that tricks you? The one that looks like a love story until a scorned woman is standing with a knife. The one that looks like a fun group of kids going camping until a stalker creeps around the woods. That’s what happened here.

While this was a huge recommendation for me and I was lucky to get my hands on a copy of something that wouldn’t come out until October in the U.S., I was psyched to get my hands on this psychological thriller.

 The story and plot are seemingly easy to comprehend. Young aspiring writer meets a highly successful author during a writer’s retreat. They develop an affair…or do they?

 

Told in a unique way, this book was set up as alternate perspective in the beginning as to where each woman is in their life before they meet each other and quickly they meet and it is a pure and lovely story about two women who fall in love.

 

Tensions are mounted when the perspectives are telling extremely different versions as to what happened. Who do you trust? Did any of this actually happen?

 

Alice is dumped by Bo. Bo is claiming there was never a relationship in the first place. What on earth is going on?! You won’t know. You do know that something dark and sinister is brewing in the background and you won’t be disappointed. Stovell does a fantastic job of alternating between Alice and Bo’s perspectives while the story is building up the tension. It then quickly switches to a lengthy portion of the novel of Alice’s sequence of events to Bo’s. Both are completely different and each woman blames the other, accusing each other of being evil and liars. The best part about this is that not only are both narrators extremely unreliable, but you know deep down something awful is to happen because there are a few “diary entries” if you will from a women’s prison.

 

This started off light and the kind of book you can read a few pages here and there (although I read it in two sittings) and quickly heads into a darkly sinister place. The pacing in this novel was phenomenal, the characters were unreliable in the best way possible, and the plot was perfect. I read the very last page three times before a chill ran up my spine in 80-degree weather. Terrifying and gripping, this is one that will stick with you long after you finish.

 

Rating: 5/5