Jennifer Kitses | Small Hours

Plot:

On the edge of the economic downturn, Helen and Tom fled New York for what they’d hoped would be a fresh start: a small home in a former mill town, where they could raise their twin daughters away from the pressures of the city. But two years later, their fragile equilibrium has hit a breaking point. One September morning, Helen begins to lose control. Exhausted from juggling ambitions, frustrations, and unrealistic expectations, she snaps — and finds herself drawn into a violent conflict with two local teenagers. Unaware of her danger, in a Manhattan office seventy miles away, Tom is facing a crisis of his own at his high-pressure newsroom job — and struggling to hide a second, secret life.

The hours tick by ruthlessly as Helen and Tom fight to bury the mistakes and lies that are rising ever faster to the surface. Searing and suspenseful, Small Hours is both a powerful story about how one misstep can derail a life and a moving portrait of a couple’s search for a new path forward.

Review:

SMALL HOURS is a psychological and domestic thriller that is not only slow-burning, but paced fantastically with fantastically believable scenarios and characters. Helen and Tom are a married couple in their 40's with twin toddlers living in the suburbs. I am a 30 year old single male with no children who lives in the country and I still found myself relating to both characters as I read about them fighting their way throughout this twisted and emotionally charged day.

What I really enjoyed about this one was that while both characters were relatable and well-written, I found myself at times liking and not liking each one for what they were doing/saying. We've all had days...bad days, where things don't work out the way we want and sometimes the smallest thing can turn a bad day into the worst day. Jennifer Kitses captures that fantastically. 

This isn't a high-tension, twist and turn, or crazy tense novel. This is a wonderfully written domestic novel with two everyday people just trying to make it through life. The ending was beautifully satisfying, like waking up after a bad day to a cloudless sunny sky and realizing that in the end, everything is going to be okay.

Rating: 3.5/5