Girl Well Read

A special thank you to NetGalley, Edelweiss, Macmillan, and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Caroline Stark is hosting a lavish housewarming party at her new beach house. When her husband, Jason, shows up not only late to the party, but followed by a Russian woman he claims is a business associate, the couple get into a very public and very ugly fight. She knows that Jason is lying and that the woman is really his mistress.

When her marriage falls apart and she is left with an empty bank account, and cancelled credit cards, Caroline has an impulsive fling with a bartender. Aidan also happened to be working her party that night and knows all about her husband problems. What she doesn't know is that Aidan has a history of violence.

As if things couldn't get worse, her college-aged daughter seems to be taking her father's side. Crestfallen, she turns to Aidan for comfort—but that comfort soon turns to revenge. The only problem is that their brief fling has left Aidan with a dangerous obsession with Caroline and her family. Meanwhile, Jason disappears and all eyes are on Caroline. Isn't it always the spouse?

Told from multiple points of view, Campbell confuses her reader (on purpose) by telling the same events from two very different perspectives. The dynamic is also interesting: Caroline is a wealthy, 43-year-old woman who is trying to keep up appearances to launch her career and social standing whereas Aidan is a 27-year-old bartender that served time for manslaughter. Both characters are unlikeable, untrustworthy, and unreliable.

There were a few plot holes that I ultimately struggled with, but I'll partially overlook given Campbell's strong writing and ability to deftly create suspense and tension. She pens some strong characters and used the unreliable narrator as the perfect mechanism to execute her effusive plot. There wasn't the startling revelation that I was hoping for in that I did figure it out, but again, her writing was intricate and compulsive.