Tag: Psychological Thriller

I am a fan of Nicola Marsh, as she can write a good psych thriller. While The Ex Between Us has good bones, however, there are a few things that keep it from being one of her better books.

First the good.

The story unfolds from both Jo and Abi’s points of view, so we get two different perspectives of the action. It also unfolds in the present and in the past, as some chapters reflect the characters’ actions when they were still in school together.

I like the setup. The friendship between Abi and Jo is long-lasting even through all of their ups and downs. There is a testament to girl power in here somewhere – even as the reader learns that not everything is as it appears.

Abi’s profession is unique, although I wish there had been more of it. It was interesting and unique and would have been fun to explore it.

Mostly, I like that I was off-balance throughout the entire book. I was never quite sure where the author was going with anything and had several theories that changed each time new information was revealed. I never got it quite right.

That being said, the book does suffer in a few places.

Abi and Jo both consistently refer to the drama that they see other people bringing to them. They even laugh at old schoolmates as being stuck in high school “mean girl” mode. Yet the two of them often engage in the same behaviors.

There is a lot of repetition, especially from Jo. I thought that her memories of being younger would have a bigger impact on the current time. As it turns out, they end up being largely filler. There are opportunities in Jo’s unhappy past that could have made great psych thriller material. But they do not end up being relevant.

There is a strange, uneven tone to some parts of the story. Abi knows what is going on, but she doesn’t, but she has suspicions, so she takes steps to prove things, but she still doesn’t know…her actions are inconsistent.

I can’t say much about Jo without giving away major plot points. But she is unreliable as a narrator. Come to think of it, so is Abi for that matter. There are characters that appear briefly but never do much.

I guessed a couple of the plot twists early on, so I wasn’t surprised by some of the “big reveals.” However, the depths of the relationship that come to light, in the end, are interesting.

On a side note, I believe the author is Australian? There are several references using Australian terms (singlet for tank top, crisps for potato chips, turf you out instead of toss you out, etc). I question why the author chose to set the story in America.

There is nothing that particularly screams California in the setting, so it might have been easier to just set the action in Australia. Then these things wouldn’t jump out. However, the wording is distracting which does tend to take me out of the action of a book.

As I mentioned at the outset, I did not guess all of the twists. The author did have a few surprises that I did not expect. But the Australian terms used by characters from California and the uneven, even childish, behaviors of the main characters keep it from being truly amazing – which it had the potential to be.

The Ex Between Us was still interesting enough that I will eagerly await the next psych thriller from Nicola Marsh.

Author Bio

USA TODAY bestselling & multi-award winning author Nicola Marsh writes page-turning fiction to keep you up all night.

She has published 80 books, sold over 8 million copies worldwide and been translated into 25 languages.

She currently writes contemporary romance and domestic suspense. You can find some of her series romance under the pseudonym Nikki North.

A physiotherapist for 13 years, she now adores writing full time, raising her two dashing young heroes, sharing fine food with family and friends, barracking loudly for her beloved North Melbourne Kangaroos footy team, and her favourite, curling up with a good book!

Unforgivable by Natalie Barelli is one gonzo of a psych thriller. It starts out as one thing and morphs into another before ending with a touch of “what the heck did I just read.”

It’s all mostly good.

If you’ve read a psych thriller, you know that a common writing technique is to start with a prologue containing an event either A) in the past or B) during the action of the book.

Then it is up to the reader to find out either A) how the event shapes the current situation or B) where exactly the event takes place and why.

In the case of Unforgiveable, the author does something a bit unique. There is no prologue. The book starts with Chapter One, where the narrator talks about something and then says, “but we’re not there yet.”

It’s a clever way to do a non-prologue while allowing the narrator to control the story from the beginning. This is important because later in the book (no spoiler) the reliability of both the victim at the beginning and the narrator are called into question.

But we’re not there yet 😉

The book can be seen as a three-act story: the first lays the groundwork of a soon-to-be-family who has to deal with an obnoxious ex-wife. This actually takes up more than half of the book.

Again, it’s clever, because by the time the author starts throwing some twists around, the reader is invested in the crazy ex-wife thread.

I don’t want to give anything away. So, just quickly, the second act is where the main character (Laura) starts to question everything she thought to be true and the third is…well, where everything else happens.

The author did a great job of making the villain especially toxic. There were times that I wanted to punch her. I thought the male in the middle was a wimp. He didn’t do anything for me. And the narrator was a bit weak as well.

In the “second act,” the author draws out a history between two characters that seemed to essentially come out of nowhere. It could have used a bit more backstory.

And that’s even before the reveals and twists start to appear – THAT is when it really goes gonzo. Additionally, once we get to the event mentioned in the first chapter, the book is essentially over, and it becomes a non-event.

Oh, and just an aside. I noticed this in the author’s previous book Unfaithful. The story takes place in Seattle. But there’s very little that actually identifies the city as such. Additionally, there are too many wrong words.

Americans don’t “ring” people, they “call” them. It’s not “potato mash” it’s mashed potatoes. One doesn’t eat “crisps” at a bar – they eat “chips.” It’s not that hard to do some searches to find the right word for something set in America.

But that’s a personal pet peeve.

The last chapter serves as a prologue, which also only quickly skims over the climax. I wanted that ALL to be much bigger – only because I really hated the villain that much. The character deserved much more to happen, and the reader needed that catharsis.

Unforgivable is still a good psych thriller. You’ll be questioning the reliability of Laura and the other characters. Natalie Barelli has done it again.

Author Bio

Natalie lives with her family in Australia, where she is forever thinking about new ways of killing people and getting away with it. Before writing full time, Natalie was an IT consultant. Favorite past time? Reading fabulous thrillers, otherwise known as research. And when she’s not absorbed in the latest gripping page-turner, Natalie loves to cook, knits very badly and spends far too much time at her computer.

Do I Really Know You? by Sheryl Browne is a psych thriller that keeps the suspense building. The reader has to guess who is telling the truth, who is lying, and who can be trusted.

Turns out that none of the characters are really easy to know. That goes for the characters knowing each other as well as the reader figuring everything out.

As is usual with a psych thriller, the story starts with a prologue that features an event. But it is impossible to tell who the victim is and who is the perpetrator.

That continues into the present-day action. But first, there is a brief flashback to fifteen years prior that provides backstory to the relationships between the four main characters: Kiara, Dave, Maddie, and Nathan.

We then enter present time. It quickly becomes apparent that none of them really know each other at all. And that goes for the married couples as well as the long-time friendships.

Maddie begins to question everything when a tragic “accident” involving Kiara throws the remaining three friends into turmoil, especially as their disbelief of each other is strengthened during the police investigation.

Who is lying? Why are people hiding secrets? Who is the victim in all of this? Are additional people pulling the strings, or is it a coincidence?

The author wisely keeps the answers to these questions mostly hidden until the end, which leaves the reader guessing right along with Maddie. As a result, she’s the one who becomes pivotal in the whole scheme of things.

I did guess one of the twists from the beginning, but as I have mentioned before, it’s more because I like to try to outguess the author. However, other readers will find the reveal of the culprit to be a surprise.

There are other twists and surprises that I did not guess. I liked the balance of obvious (to me) and not knowing something until the author revealed it.

I’m a big fan of Sheryl Browne (see also The Invite), and Do I Really Know You? is another solid psych thriller from her.

Author Bio:

Bestselling Author, Sheryl Browne, writes taut, twisty psychological thriller. A member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Romantic Novelists’ Association, Sheryl has several books published and two short stories in Birmingham City University anthologies where she completed her MA in Creative Writing. Sheryl has also obtained a Certificate of Achievement in Forensic Science and – according to readers – she makes an excellent psychopath. Sheryl’s latest psychological thriller DO I REALLY KNOW YOU? comes to you from BOOKOUTURE. Her previous works include the DI Matthew Adams Crime Thriller series, along with contemporary fiction novels, The Rest of My Life and Learning to Love.

Shalini Boland continues to grow as a psych thriller author. A Perfect Stranger is a combination of taut scenes, complex characters, and “omg, what did I just read” moments.

Even as the reader has to suspend disbelief just a bit, it is not hard to do so because the entertainment level is so high.

In other words, you’re not going to get a lot of depth, but you’re going to get a page-turning and engaging psych thriller if you just roll with it.

Like many psych thrillers, the story starts with an event before going back in time to the months leading up to that event. Sometimes it is easy to see how the event plays into current events.

In this case, however, it is not so apparent. I spent a good part of the first half of the book wondering how the prologue fits into the narrative. I like that it kept me guessing.

Even as Emily and Aidan circle around the issues they are facing it is easy to see that there is a lot more going on underneath the surface. Some of that doesn’t appear until way late in the book.

Again, it is an effective way to keep the reader hooked.

The story unfolds in alternating chapters, going back and forth between Emily and Dani’s points of view. As with other aspects, it takes a while to figure out how they are connected.

And oh boy, are they.

The way those are revealed is part of the suspension of disbelief that I mentioned earlier. But by the time you actually get to the point where you need to do that, you are all in.

The author wisely drops some red herrings along with some legit clues as to what is causing all of the trouble for both Emily and Dani.

Even after you get to the event of the prologue, there is still more to come. The author saves one big twist for the very end.

And that twist illustrates just how everyone in this book is pretty much a perfect stranger to everyone else.

Shalini Boland has done it again. If you liked her other books, such as The Family Holiday, you’ll like A Perfect Stranger.

Author Bio:

Shalini lives in Dorset, England with her husband, two children and Jess their cheeky terrier cross. Before kids, she was signed to Universal Music Publishing as a singer songwriter, but now she spends her days writing suspense thrillers (in between school runs and hanging out endless baskets of laundry).