Renee Knight | THE SECRETARY

Plot (via Goodreads):

From her first day as Personal Assistant to the celebrated Mina Appleton, Christine Butcher understands what is expected of her. Absolute loyalty. Absolute discretion. For twenty years, Christine has been a most devoted servant, a silent witness to everything in Mina’s life. So quiet, you would hardly know she is there.

Day after day, year after year, Christine has been there, invisible—watching, listening, absorbing all the secrets floating around her. Keeping them safe.

Christine is trusted. But those years of loyalty and discretion come with a high price. And eventually Christina will pay.

Yet, it would be a mistake to underestimate such a steadfast woman. Because as everyone is about to discover, there’s a dangerous line between obedience and obsession.

Review:

After reading another novel last month with what appears to be a similar plot, I was initially hesitant on picking this one up, but after reading a more detailed synopsis, I decided to give it a shot as the novel is rather short at just under 300 pages. 

Finding out that this one travels over a span of about 20 years, I was really excited to get to the meat of the story. Although, within the first few pages, I found the story wasn't really picking up with the pace. Sure, there were a few things here and there that added to the momentum of what's to come, but I found them sporadic and not really shocking. I will say that getting to get to know two characters and their relationship over the spend of this amount of time in such a short novel was interesting and yet I felt that something was missing. For instance, one character changes drastically and the other one doesn't change at all. 

By the time the big twist comes that is the penultimate change in the relationship between these characters, I was ready for blood! For a psychological thriller, I did find the whole courtroom aspect a great way to kind of show the devious sides of each character and was entertained by the change of pace and scenery. I will say, while this one wasn't my favorite novel, the first 250 pages of me waiting for something to happen definitely paid off with the last chapter. What a dark and fantastic way to end this story! I wasn't as entertained as I wanted to be during this novel, but the wait was definitely worth it by the ending. 

Special thanks to Harper Books for this copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 3/5