By Colleen Hoover
When Ashleigh Lowen comes across a man’s skull crushed, the few first words gave me an impression that it is going to be gory thriller. Later I realised it is a different one.
When Jeremy Crawford offers his shirt to Ashleigh in a public restroom, I thought it is going to be a romantic thriller. But then, it had clearly more to it.
I had known for a fact that it is going to be a thriller, for I come across when I was looking at a list of thriller books. Colleen Hoover, known for her, emotional romantics, made a good attempt to introduce her fanbase to something different on the plate.
For me, the names of the characters had a wonderful sense into who they were. Be it Ashleigh’s pen name Lauran Chase or Crew Crawford, the names, themselves had a good story behind them, which I loved. With just handful of characters, it is simply wonderful to think what Colleen could deliver.
It is not a grand book with a lot of characters, and you need not have a very tedious mind to grasp it. If you are like a slow reader like me, it would just cost you a day, maybe even less, because it is impossible to stop reading it once you had started to.
But, one thing that is quite questionable is that, how could Ashleigh take so long to read the manuscript, for it had just 19 chapters and being a writer herself, it is possible for her to have a good reading speed. Even if, she wasn’t capable of reading it fast enough, how could it take her weeks to stay away and read chapter by chapter. Though Colleen tries to justify this, by portraying that Lowen got overwhelmed with all that she read and was scared to continue reading it, anyone who picks such a manuscript would definitely find it hard to let their hands off it.
The intricacies in explaining how Verity’s mind worked, especially in the manuscript was breathtaking. It is really difficult to sketch the psychology of Verity and it was very well done. Just as when I got bored of the repetitive nature of the intimacy described, Colleen was quick enough to change it to a different plot.
I think that the whole perspective with the protagonist being a writer, might have helped Colleen to relate and she must have taken a safe sojourn into this new venture of hers, which is fabulous.
Colleen managed to justify her genre, I truly was intrigued about what is waiting in the next page.
All in all, it was a very good read and a definite page turner.
My rating: 4.8/5
Lit Loom 