The writing here is, admittedly, pretty amazing. Character development and plot movement, as well as the establishment of tone, is all done masterfully. What is ludicrous, however, is the plot itself.

Afterwards, Lowen destroys the letter. However, the book ends with her being unsure as to whether the letter was true or just another manipulation from Verity.Starting with Lowen, at the beginning she appears to us as just a woman trying to live through life’s misfortunes while only really wanting to write books, and maybe find true love. She doesn’t seem like a bad person in the slightest, and despite her various self-deprecating assessments, we still get the impression she is a good person, destined to be a good and lovable heroine. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime that uproots Lowen from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan to the quiet Vermont countryside. Contracted by a publisher to ghostwrite the three remaining books in an uber-popular series after the author was involved in an accident, Lowen has a ton of work ahead. Research lands her in Verity Crawford’s home office, looking for anything that might indicate the direction the author wanted to take the series. Instead, she finds herself caught-up in Verity’s life. Living in her home, sleeping in her bed, and spending time with Verity's husband, Jeremy, and their young son. Inescapable is the grief and pain marring it all. That is the only parallel to her usual works as the book ends with an ending which is not quite really an ending. You have room to question it. Ask yourself how the story could continue and with this book, it can drive you insane. A woman knows if she wants to keep a man forever, she has to act like she could get over him in a day.

On the topic of Verity’s things, Lowen comes by something very odd. She was writing her autobiography, though she hadn’t finished it yet. Lowen finds out that she intentionally drove her car into a tree and that is just the tip of the frosty iceberg. Upside Down After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.What a treat. This is a prequel to Billingham’s excellent and long-running crime series, showing his protagonist Tom Thorne as a young detective sergeant in 1996, haunted by a horrific crime he couldn’t prevent, and desperate to find a seven-year-old boy who has just gone missing. It’s clear Billingham is having tons of fun with his timeline – there are lots of references to huge mobile phones (“a fancy toy for twats and the seriously minted, that was all”), plus Thorne’s scepticism about whether CCTV will ever “replace old-fashioned nous or shoe leather” and to the Euro 96 football championship that plays out as the investigation continues. But Billingham is, as ever, skilled at showing the pain at the heart of the crime, the mother whose son has vanished, the friend who took her eye off him for a minute, the hideousness of not knowing where your child might be. Cry Baby works as a way into the series for sure, but it’s even more entertaining for us old aficionados to see the origin story of Billingham’s hero, watching him become the man who would make his debut in Sleepyhead. Synopsis: Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts a job offer from Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish.

What you read will taste so bad at times, you’ll want to spit it out, but you’ll swallow these words and they will become part of you, part of your gut, and you will hurt because of them.” – Verity, Author Note on her manuscript Plot holes? Nah, plot CRATERS. How did she fake the brain scans? Why didn't Jeremy just kill her when she came home from the hospital? (maybe I missed something?) Girl is up at night sneaking around opening bank accounts but can't reach out to a friend and be like HALP??? And don't use this whole autobiography as the reason, because your publisher could corroborate your story and you're telling me you never discussed it with her afterward???? Before I end up turning it over and over to figure out which truth is the actual truth, I’d like to point out that I loved this book. True, I disliked almost every character in the book, hated some of their decisions even more, and the atrocities in the book were too dark and too intense to call it a pleasant read. Even with all that, I can never deny that this a masterclass in writing a confounding psychological thriller, because as dark and intense as the book is, it’s also wildly gripping and addictive from the moment it starts until the very end. My mother used to say that houses have a soul, and if that is true, the soul of Verity Crawford’s house is as dark as they come.” – Lowen, Chapter 4Personally, I enjoy it when authors weave these large and complex tapestries of information where one can rarely be certain of what is truth and what isn’t. The author does a fantastic job at playing with this concept in Verity, constantly showering us with information from different sources about the same events, leading to clear contradictions we are pushed to try and solve ourselves.