by McGarvey Black
Release Date August 7
ARC Read from Joffee Books
Book Review
This book slapped me in the face and the best way possible.
I have a really high standards for thrillers unfortunately and I specifically look at these elements when I determine if I like a thriller or not:
-pacing
-conflict (is it interesting? Believable?)
-rising action falling action etc things need to be planned and in order not just everywhere chaos lol
-characters that you root for and characters you despise
-a writing style that is easy to follow
This book did all of the above in excellence. It’s giving Frieda McFadden and I’m loving it. It’s not so dark that you need to sleep with the lights on. This is a good thing to me personally because I enjoy my sleep. Now when I want something super spooky I’ll pick a horror book. This book was definitely a solid twisty turner of a thriller. The cover is also excellent. 100/10
While there is a lot of action that takes place in the first 20% and then around 40% you start to feel a bit of a slower pace and think that the book is just gonna drive on the author somehow gets in your mind and then slaps you and throws you off the cliff and then catches you.
Now,
I almost put this book down at 70% and was gonna give it a four star just because I liked it, but I thought the ending was gonna get slow and then I stuck with it and the ending to this was so good. I’ve been having very high standards with my thrillers, and this hit the standards. Stick with it past the 50-70 percent mark. It’s all needed info and helps build the ending. Literally everything in this book was so well planned. It’s hard to go into too much detail without giving spoilers. You can just see the attention to detail in this book and it’s clear the author is passionate about storytelling which makes me want to read more of their work.
I will say I don’t know if a sensitivity reader was hired, but I think things were done well. There is a main character with a chronic illness and she’s not treated well so be aware that there is ableism with that from the husband. But (the main character) the husband who’s doing this abuse, is a despicable character anyways so you’re not meant to like him and it is expected for him to be throwing insults at his wife. This was part of the character development. When you don’t actively dislike a character for doing objectively bad things, it gets hard for you to want them to die for no reason and so by picking out a few things that kind of hit close to home for me I personally wanted to murder this man as well. He was a perfect villain.
I inhaled this in one sitting and needed to know what was next. I’m blown away. This is a good one. Also points for a cruise ship setting.
CW:
-ableism
-alcohol use
-murder
Thank you for this treat! I received an eARC and am leaving my honest feedback voluntarily.
#TheSecondHoneymoon #NetGalley
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