Release date: August 22, 2023
Publisher: Berkley
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Synopsis:
Jane is unhappy.
A struggling midlist writer whose novels barely command four figures, she feels trapped in an underwhelming marriage, just scraping by to pay a crippling Bay Area mortgage for a house—a life—she’s never really wanted.
There’s only ever been one person she cared about, one person who truly understood her: Thalia. Jane’s best and only friend nearly a decade ago during their Creative Writing days at Oxford. It was the only good year of Jane’s life—cobblestones and books and damp English air, heady wine and sweet cider and Thalia, endless Thalia. But then one night ruined everything. The blood-soaked night that should have bound Thalia to Jane forever but instead made her lose her completely. Thalia disappeared without a trace, and Jane has been unable to find her since.
Until now.
Because there she is, her name at the top of the New York Times bestseller list: A Most Pleasant Death by Thalia Ashcroft. When she discovers a post from Thalia on her website about attending a book convention in New York City in a week—“Can’t wait to see you there!”—Jane can’t wait either.
She’ll go to New York City, too, credit card bill be damned. And this time, she will do things right. Jane won’t lose Thalia again.
Review:
Give me a book with a sociopath as one of the main characters and I’m all in, there’s something about a character that just owns who they are, even if it’s dark and disturbed that just really works for me. This book flips back and forth between present day and nine years ago when Jane and Thalia first meet. I get annoyed when there’s some big secret from the past timeline sometimes, especially when the author draws it out to the point of torture but that didn’t happen here which was so refreshing. You find out at an appropriate time what happened in the past and then the story really began to move along at a rapid pace for the remainder of the book. I really liked the direction the author took and was surprised at many of the twists, super solid and well executed. If you like thrillers with unlikable and dark characters with interesting plots try this I had a lot of fun with it.
Overall rating: 4/5
Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.
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