Every Breath You Take by Miranda Rijks
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 2nd November 2024
Published: 14th July 2024
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Has her husband really left her? Or is someone playing a deadly game?
When Eva’s husband Samuel doesn’t come home from a boys’ night out, she thinks he’s sleeping off his hangover at a friend’s house. So she waits. And waits...
Eventually, he sends her a text – he’s met someone else and needs a few days to get his head together. Eva is devastated. How could he do this? How could he do it to their children? She’d thought her marriage was rock solid.
She tries to go on with her life as best she can. But then things take a truly bizarre turn…
She receives a terrifying photo of Samuel with a knife to his neck, and a demand: do everything on my bucket list or he will die.
As Eva completes the increasingly crazy demands on the kidnapper’s bucket list, every aspect of her life begins to unravel: her children are struggling, she’s not paying attention at work, and her friends and family fear for her mental health. All the while, the threats are mounting. Samuel will die. Unless…
Can Eva save her husband and children or will she lose everything that’s dear to her?
Every Breath You Take - the gripping psychological thriller from the best-selling author of The Visitors and Make Her Pay.
MY THOUGHTS:
A missing husband...and a deadly list of dares...
Miranda Rijks has long time been a go-to author for me and the premise for this latest thriller (my 13th by her) drew me right in. I was intrigued as to what was really at play here. When the first big reveal came just halfway through, which I had funnily enough already theorised (so I was surprised to find I was right), I knew that there had to be a bigger better twist to come. But what that was, I had no idea. So when it came I was shocked by the twisted deviousness in her plotting! I certainly didn't see that coming.
Eva has just returned from a weekend in Amsterdam with her three besties - Angela, Kalah and Nicolette - to celebrate their collective fortieth birthdays. Straight into the haphazardness of mum life as she picks her two children Riley (11) and Alfie (9) from school and they return home full of the day's adventures. After packing them off to bed, a quick glance at the time tells Eva that it's gone 9pm and Samuel should have been home long before now. When he hadn't arrived home by the time she drifted off to sleep, she just assumed he had crashed at one of his mates' place after a drink or two at the pub.
But by morning, Samuel still hadn't arrived home and Eva began to worry. She rang his best mate Hunter who said he'd left the pub early the night before to return home and see her after her weekend away. After ringing a few people and his work, Eva calls the police to report him missing. But they aren't too concerned, citing most people return after a few hours, at the most a day or two.
And then Eva's phone beeps with a message. From Samuel. Finally! But nothing prepares her for what he discloses.
He has met someone, they are in love and he is leaving her to be with them.
What the...? Who ends a fifteen year marriage via text? Eva is both angry and upset in equal measure. But hold on, it doesn't end there. She receives another text with one word "Snapchat". She downloads the app and before long she receives a message to say that Samuel has been kidnapped and if she wants to see him alive again, she must follow the strict instructions completing a bucket list set out to her one by one by the kidnapper. If she goes to the police, Samuel dies. If she tells anyone, Samuel dies. If she fails to comply, Samuel dies.
What ensues are a list of rudimentary and ridiculous requests that she begins to follow until they start to become insane. From changing her Facebook status to single to signing up to a dating app and going on three dates to cutting off her gorgeous hair to barely an inch...and all of this must be captured on her social media. But when the requests border on insane, Eva knows she can no longer comply and must seek the police for help. But her every move is counteracted and stopped. Which leads Eva to wonder if she is being watched or tracked somehow...thus leading her to an old friend to turn for help.
For all intents and purposes, Eva looks as if she is spiralling out of control so is it no wonder no one believes her ludicrous allegations? She doesn't even have the proof to back up her claims because snapchats disappear as soon as you read them. Even when she tried screenshotting the threats, her tormenter knew and demanded she delete it or...face the consequences. If not Samuel's death, then her children's.
This is a fast paced entertaining thriller that does require you to suspend belief somewhat, but none of that matters if it is entertaining, which it is. I knew I didn't have it all figured out because who discloses their big reveal just halfway through a story knowing there's still a long way to go till the end. I knew Ms Rijks had something else up her sleeve but just what that was I had no idea. I was just prepared for something BIG...and it was. So big it blindsided me that I didn't see it coming. And I was expecting it! Hahaha.
I love the alternating chapters between "the wife" and "the lover" which will keep you guessing until she slips in her reveal that will leave you going, wait...what? The writing is addictive and plot is just crazy but like a car crash, you can't look away. My only complaint is how quick her friends and everyone else were quick to gather round and offer support when they had spent the entire book dismissing her theories and allegations as insane, citing she must be having a mental health breakdown. How quick the turnaround was after all was revealed. I would have thought - "sorry, but in times of adversity you find out who your true friends are" and they didn't seem to have her back at all.
Overall, a fast paced thrill ride that kept me engaged from start to finish, devouring it in just under 5 hours. A quick fast paced read that won't disappoint psychological thriller fans.
I would like to thank #MirandaRijks, #Netgalley and #InkubatorBooks for an ARC of #EveryBreathYouTake in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
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After a degree in Law, Miranda worked in marketing in London and Eastern Europe before setting up businesses in the horticultural, leisure and retail sectors. Along the way, she got a masters in writing and wrote the self-help book, ‘How Compatible Are You?’ and biography, ‘The Eccentric Entrepreneur’. In 2018, Miranda wrote ‘Don’t Call Me Brave’, a novel very loosely drawing upon her experiences of having a rare bone cancer.
She feels extremely lucky to be living the dream, writing psychological thrillers full time!
Miranda loves connecting with her readers, so feel free to drop her a line.
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