After reading the premise of this book, and skimming a couple of reviews, I was so prepared to settle in for a nice binge read – I am a sucker for psychological thrillers (a la Gone Girl) and I went into it with an open mind and heart…and OK, maybe it was just me, maybe I was in a pre-holiday funk, or possibly my expectations were too high (I am itching for a book to CONSUME me, which happened just last week with Robert Crais’ new book – but, I digress). In any case, I suffered a bit of a letdown.

The protagonist, Leah Mills, had a really bad day about fourteen years ago, and she has lived basically as a fugitive since then. She lives a solitary life, isolated and keeping totally to herself except for a bit of an online existence, where she meets Julian…But, then she receives a letter from someone who apparently knows what happened. And, to make things worse, it looks like the person who wrote her wants to destroy the life she has created.

I admit I went back and forth between feeling like “yeah! This is great!” and “bleah.” Croft is a good writer, the pacing is good, the story flowed along, and the varied points of view didn’t distract as they can do when a story is told with multiple POVs. (Ps of V?)

I read a lot of mysteries and thrillers and am the first to admit I am not adept at figuring out the mystery early on – in fact, I am more often surprised to find “who done it” in a whodunit. But in this case, I figured it out early, so I suspect the plot may have been the problem for me. In addition to that expectations thing, pre-holiday funk, etc. Also, this was very similar to last summer’s The Lies We Tell, by Meg Carter, so possibly that made it feel like old terrain? Unclear…but the effect is that it was a bit of a disappointment for me.

Despite what may sound negative, I enjoyed the EXPERIENCE of reading this, and will definitely read other things by this author, who clearly has strong skills. I am grateful to NetGalley for providing me an advance copy of this book in exchange for my review. Three and a half stars (marked as four, as I think three is too low J).