Exquisite by Sarah Stovell (Short Book Review) @OrendaBooks @Sarahlovescrime #Psychological #Thriller

Sent to me by Orenda Books in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: 01/06/17

Publisher: Orenda Books

ISBN: 978-1910633755

Format: Paperback, 300pp

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Rating: 4/5

Summed up in a word: Tumultuous

Book Synopsis

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?

Breathlessly pacey, taut and terrifying, Exquisite is a startlingly original and unbalancing psychological thriller that will keep you guessing until the very last page.

My Review

Exquisite has had a huge presence in the book community and the reviews are incredibly positive. Luckily Karen at Orenda Books was kind enough to send me a copy to review for myself. I enjoyed Exquisite, I thought it was an interesting and dynamic psychological thriller that harnessed the raw intensity of the human condition. It was chilling to see the relationship between the two women building up to a disturbing crescendo, only for it to dissolve in the flurry of passion, insecurity and violence.

With a combination of two unreliable narrators and a lightening fast pacing, Sarah Stovell manages to trick the reader into questioning their own conclusions over and over again. I certainly recommend this to all thriller lovers who like a darker shade of fiction as there are plenty of gritty and twisted themes running underneath the story. It was my assumption that this was going to be a story about Alice’s obsession with Bo but as they say, there are two sides to every story and this is a story worth reading.

Pick up a copy of Exquisite here: Orenda Books / Amazon UK / Goodreads

About Sarah Stovell

Sarah Stovell was born in 1977 and spent most of her life in the Home Counties before a season working in a remote North Yorkshire youth hostel made her realise she was a northerner at heart. She now lives in Northumberland with her partner and two children and is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Lincoln University. Her debut psychological thriller, Exquisite, is set in the Lake District. @Sarahlovescrime

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