When I read the blurb for this book, I thought it would be exactly the kind of thing I would enjoy. And I did. Just, not as much as I wanted.

Beth Belmont goes running in the woods every day, until one morning when she finds a piece of paper with a list of five names written on it. The third name is hers, but she doesn't recognise any of the other names. This is unsettling, which is understandable. But, the real unsettle comes when Beth discovers the first two names on the list have died in the last couple of months. And hers is the third name.

This story is a fight for Beth to discover who has written the list and why they want her dead - which she is convinced they do. The actual reveal is not that exciting, and I felt let down by the ending. It was set up to be so exciting, and it really could have been. It should have been an edge-of-the-seat, can't-put-it-down thriller. But I did put it down. Regularly.

There seems to have been a spate of psychological thrillers in the last couple of years where lists of names or being stuck remotely with a list of people are involved. We see people trying to figure out who they can trust and who is the killer. This is one of those novels, but it is not the best. When I compare it to 'An Unwanted Guest' by Shari Lapena or 'The Hunting Party' by Lucy Foley, it is nowhere near as good as those books.

One thing that really bugged me about this was the number of times the author described something as being "atop" something else. Irrational irritation, maybe. But, it really, really annoyed me.

All the same, this book wasn't terrible. I enjoyed it at times.

Fans of psychological thrillers.

The premise. The idea of the list with names. It could have gone so many ways. (Honestly, pretty much all of them would have been better than the way in which it did go.)

The author's style. I found her irritating.

Read a good thriller.

Annoyed. Disappointed. A little excited from time to time.

Nope. Not for me.

If you want one of these kinds of books, there are a lot better in this genre.

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Created Mar 19, 2022 at 7:08am • Submit your own review...