Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (May 3, 2016)
When the artist Marianne Glass falls to her death, everyone insists it was a tragic accident. Yet Rowan Winter, once her closest friend, suspects there is more to the story. Ever since she was young, Marianne had paralyzing vertigo. She would never have gone so close to the roof’s edge.
Marianne–and the whole Glass family–once meant everything to Rowan. For a teenage girl, motherless with a much-absent father, this lively, intellectual household represented a world of glamour and opportunity.
But since their estrangement, Rowan knows only what the papers reported about Marianne’s life: her swift ascent in the London art world, her much-scrutinized romance with her gallerist. If she wants to discover the truth about her death, Rowan needs to know more. Was Marianne in distress? In danger? And so she begins to seek clues–in Marianne’s latest work, her closest relationships, and her new friendship with an iconoclastic fellow artist.
But the deeper Rowan goes, the more sinister everything seems. And a secret in the past only she knows makes her worry about her own fate . . .
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If you like psychological thrillers, you will like Keep You Close by Lucie Whitehouse.
To be truthful, I found the beginning a little slow. But as the story unfolds and the investigation progresses, things get more intriguing and interwoven. It's like walking through a garden; at the gate, it's all lovely flowers and small bushes and decorative stone tiles on which to walk. As you progress it morphs into a maze, you cannot see to your sides, so when you come to a turn, you have no idea what to expect. As you make each turn, you hold your breath a little bit. Something seems off to you. Where are those noises coming from? Are you alone in the maze? Turning back is not an option. Going forward is daunting, to say the least.
The end of the book flat out gave me the chills. There is a reason why, one that I think most could recognize, which is exactly why I cannot go into more detail here.
Ms. Whitehouse does a grand job showing how different people can remember the same incident in different ways. Everyone's life history affects their perceptions (or their versions of reality, if you will) in a unique way.
We get to know Marianne, even though she dies in the prologue. She seemed like a generous person, so it came as a decidedly nasty surprise that someone she knew was stealing preliminary sketches for some of her work on not one, but several occasions ... before and after Marianne's death. Now, that's cold! Apparently they would still fetch a pretty penny. Stealing from a dead person is not much better than desecrating a grave.
The cover art only increases the modern 'noir' feel of Keep You Close. While this was my initial read from this author, it will not be the last.
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(Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links.)
Ooh I love that garden analogy ... it gave me chills just reading your description!
ReplyDeleteThanks for being a part of the tour.
Ooh, now this one sounds really good. I love the idea of it being about how the same accident can be remembered in different ways when it comes to events like this. Such a deep discussion could be centered around that idea! And the cover is beautiful.
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