Countdown to Christmas! Top blog post for January ~ Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson

Last year I had loads of fun posting my Countdown to Christmas posts so I thought it would be a good idea to do it all again this year! I have started a little later than I did last year so this weekly feature may become a twice weekly feature once we are in December. I don’t know about you but this year seems to have really flown by and I can’t believe it’s time to start thinking about Christmas again! I don’t normally mention the C word until after Bonfire night but as that’s this weekend I thought I would be safe! So please, no throwing your mouldy pumpkins at me for starting my Countdown today!
Just to clarify that these reviews are my top viewed blog posts for the month I’m featuring. I will be doing a Best Books of 2017 in December and I’m pretty sure some of these books will also feature in that list. Last year I couldn’t get it down to 10 so did a Top 20 although this years list is going to be even tougher to put together as there have been some amazing books published this year.

Anyway, my top viewed blog post for January 2017 was…

**Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson**

About this book…

Following a brutal attack by her ex-boyfriend, Kate Priddy makes an uncharacteristically bold decision after her cousin, Corbin Dell, suggests a temporary apartment swap – and she moves from London to Boston.

But soon after her arrival Kate makes a shocking discovery: Corbin’s next-door neighbour, a young woman named Audrey Marshall, has been murdered. When the police begin asking questions about Corbin’s relationship with Audrey, and his neighbours come forward with their own suspicions, a shaken Kate has few answers, and many questions of her own.

Jetlagged and emotionally unstable, her imagination playing out her every fear, Kate can barely trust herself. so how can she trust any of the strangers she’s just met?

My review…

If Alfred Hitchcock were alive today then he would be chomping at the bit to get his hands on the film rights to Peter Swanson’s books. They have all the perfect ingredients for translating onto the big screen-dark and atmospheric, character driven with a strong focus on moral dilemmas. Yes, this book had a lot to live up to after The Kind Worth Killing but Peter Swanson has done a great job here!

Right from the start I found myself able to enter the character of Kate and I practically lived the whole novel through her eyes -I really felt every last drop of her panic attacks and paranoia as a crushing weight upon my chest! Her journey to her cousin’s posh Beacon Hill apartment, her meetings with the neighbours and her exploration of her new surroundings felt creepy as hell to me especially as I understood how difficult the whole change in her lifestyle was for her. Her nervousness transferred itself to me, the reader, and my heart rate climbed steadily the further into the storyline I delved.

Although Kate’s was one point of view there were actually three others telling their stories throughout. These acted as the perfect antidote to Kate’s growing hysteria and, although I have never been a huge fan of telling the same part of the plot through another’s eyes, it actually worked well here. The twists in the plot were unexpected and carefully thought through leading up to some shocking developments towards the end. And I have to say that, although their roles are small, I absolutely adored Kates parents-the author perfectly conveyed that feeling as a parent where you want to protect your child but know you have to let them go- I’m not sure I would have been able to after all that Kate had gone through!

If you like Hitchcock and Highsmith then you will love this! It’s a masterpiece of storytelling noir, full of dark corners and shadows where nobody is quite what they first appear to be. Be prepared to read it with the lights on!

Her Every Fear was published by Faber and Faber on 10th January 2017

Meet the author…

Peter Swanson is the author of The Girl with a Clock for a Heart and The Kind Worth Killing. He has degrees from Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College. He lives with his wife in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he is at work on his next novel.

And that’s it for January! Next Friday I will share my top blog post for February. And it’s one of the most talked about books of 2017! Any guesses?