I saw this book on Netgalley and liked the premise, so requested it. Thank you very much to Harper Collins UK and One More Chapter for granting me access to the book for the purpose of review. I received an ecopy of the book for review but was not otherwise compensated. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
So, Leah Talbot is driving home on Valentine's Day when she hits a deer on a quiet road and damages her car. She isn't expected home - she and her husband, Elliott, have been together for eight years but are basically living apart. She walks to a gates house and finds the gates slightly open, so she goes to knock on the door. A man called something Tate answers, and lets her in so she can use the phone to call Elliott, and a breakdown recovery. She's covered in the deer's blood so she goes to clean up, and while she does Tate supposedly phones the police to tell them about the deer on the road.
Leah ends up fainting due to low blood pressure, and when she comes round she's sitting in the living room with Tate pressing a glass of brandy on her. She begins to be very uncomfortable and wants to leave. She borrows an umbrella and then ends up kissing Tate on the doorstep, despite her misgivings. She goes home, where Elliott is not yet home, and has a long shower. Elliott is concerned about her, but it's obvious there's no love between them anymore.
The next morning, Elliott leaves the house early and Leah decides to take Tate a bottle of wine to thank him for helping her. When she arrives at the house there are police all over. It turns out that the man introduced himself as Tate killed the owner of the house and has disappeared. The police are a little suspicious of Leah, too, since she was in the house too, and she doesn't tell them about the kiss.
She then gets a text message from Tate, and so begins a game of cat and mouse as Leah races to save everyone she loves and Tate toys with her.
I raced through the book and I did think the first half was pretty good. I wished Leah had just told police what had happened in full, but fine, whatever. I liked the mystery and Tate was genuinely chilling. However, the second half got repetitive and I totally lost track of what time it was supposed to be (it was dark? And then it was the afternoon?). By then I just hoped that the ending would make the whole book pay off. However, it did not. There was no explanation at the end as to why Tate had done what he did. There was no explanation as to how he knew Leah before the night she showed up at the house (which he did - he had already been to her house?? But how/why???)
I wanted to like this a lot more than I did and I'm giving this three out of five.
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