The Perfect Suitor by Cole Baxter is the second psych thriller I have read in the past week that bills itself as one thing but turns out to be more like something else.
Still good, just not what I expected. It is certainly more suspense than psych.
Many psych thrillers have prologues as a way of setting the scene for what occurs later in the book. Sometimes it is completely in the past, sometimes it is a point that is midway through the plot.
In The Perfect Suitor, the prologue is solidly in the former category. In fact, the prologue is pretty much a completely separate event that only serves to set the frame of mind for Charlene.
Of course, like a good psych thriller, there are additional questions and influences, and there may (or may not) be another reason for the prologue. You’ll have to read the book to find out.
Because of the situation she finds herself in, I believe that we are supposed to feel sorry for Charlene. Sympathy is the emotion that was evoked.
But I didn’t feel it.
Amazon US https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Suitor-gripping-psychological-thriller-ebook/dp/B09V2Z351J
Not because the author didn’t do a good job of painting her as a sympathetic character because she absolutely was. If anything, though, she is almost too pathetic to feel sympathy for her. I found the passages of her self-pity, uncertainty, and hopelessness to be long and tiresome.
Now, fortunately, I have never been in her position, so that may have something to do with it. And other readers may find her to be instantly relatable. It isn’t a complete deal-breaker within the story either.
I just wanted to get through the long inner-monologues to the plot at hand, because that is the heart of the story and it’s a really good one.
As my mantra goes, I’m not dropping plot spoilers here. But suffice to say if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
There are quite a few twists, including a few toward the very end that I did not see coming at all. And Charlene’s growth as she becomes stronger and more aware is very well done.
For me, the push through the beginning was the hardest part of the book. Once Charlene meets the perfect suitor, the action picks up and it is a solid psych thriller from there.
Author Bio
Cole Baxter loves writing psychological suspense thrillers. It’s all about that last reveal that he loves shocking readers with.
He grew up in New York, where there, crime was all around. He decided to turn that into something positive with his fiction.
His stories will have you reading through the night—they are very addictive!
The Perfect Suitor is his first psychological thriller with Inkubator Books.
