Author: Michelle Frances
Format reviewed: Ebook
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Pan
Publication Date: 20th September 2018
Rating: 4 Stars
No one was going to replace her. Were they?
Carrie is a successful TV producer in a high pressure job. She’s talented, liked, and well-respected. She and her husband, Adrian, an award-winning screenwriter, decided years before that they didn’t want children. But now, just as they’re both at the pinnacle of their careers, she has discovered she is pregnant, and is shocked to find that she wants to keep the baby. But in a competitive industry where time off is seen as a sign of weakness, Carrie looks on the prospect of maternity leave with trepidation.
Enter Emma, the temp, who is everything she could wish for as her cover: smart, willing and charming. Carrie fears that Emma is manoeuvring her way into Carrie’s life, causing turmoil in both her marriage and her work as she does so. The problem is everyone else adores her . . .
Increasingly isolated from Adrian and her colleagues, Carrie begins to believe Emma has an agenda. Does Emma want her job? Or is she after even more?
Carrie is a successful TV producer in a high pressure job. She’s talented, liked, and well-respected. She and her husband, Adrian, an award-winning screenwriter, decided years before that they didn’t want children. But now, just as they’re both at the pinnacle of their careers, she has discovered she is pregnant, and is shocked to find that she wants to keep the baby. But in a competitive industry where time off is seen as a sign of weakness, Carrie looks on the prospect of maternity leave with trepidation.
Enter Emma, the temp, who is everything she could wish for as her cover: smart, willing and charming. Carrie fears that Emma is manoeuvring her way into Carrie’s life, causing turmoil in both her marriage and her work as she does so. The problem is everyone else adores her . . .
Increasingly isolated from Adrian and her colleagues, Carrie begins to believe Emma has an agenda. Does Emma want her job? Or is she after even more?
Thoroughly gripping story that by the last quarter had me on the edge of my seat while I saw how everything unfurled.
To start with this feels like a nice reasonably gentle women's fiction novel, about a couple who are having a baby, but the father is rather reluctant, and the mother is fearing for her job while she is on maternity leave. All issues that people face on a regular basis.
However it soon becomes apparent that there is something just isn't quite right with Emma, the temp, yes she is amazing at her job but I found it hard to warm to her. I wasn't too keen on her parents either who just didn't understand their daughter.
As events unfold, the tension ramps up, and its becomes a more compelling read, and slightly unsettling, as everything was a bit too realistic and easy to believe!
With each chapter, the focus was on a different character, so we did get to know all the main protagonists, especially Carrie and Emma very well. I'm not sure how much I particularly liked anyone apart from Carrie who I did enjoy but the others weren't horrible, they were just harder to like, and the reasons do become apparent as you read.
This was the first book I have read by the author and I would be tempted to read more. The writing really drew me in and I'm sure accounted to my disturbed sleep, last night!
This was a very good book, which for most of the first half I wasn't too surprised by but then the second half ramped it up a notch and I was completely wrong footed with the outcomes.
Thank you to Netgalley and Pan for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
To start with this feels like a nice reasonably gentle women's fiction novel, about a couple who are having a baby, but the father is rather reluctant, and the mother is fearing for her job while she is on maternity leave. All issues that people face on a regular basis.
However it soon becomes apparent that there is something just isn't quite right with Emma, the temp, yes she is amazing at her job but I found it hard to warm to her. I wasn't too keen on her parents either who just didn't understand their daughter.
As events unfold, the tension ramps up, and its becomes a more compelling read, and slightly unsettling, as everything was a bit too realistic and easy to believe!
With each chapter, the focus was on a different character, so we did get to know all the main protagonists, especially Carrie and Emma very well. I'm not sure how much I particularly liked anyone apart from Carrie who I did enjoy but the others weren't horrible, they were just harder to like, and the reasons do become apparent as you read.
This was the first book I have read by the author and I would be tempted to read more. The writing really drew me in and I'm sure accounted to my disturbed sleep, last night!
This was a very good book, which for most of the first half I wasn't too surprised by but then the second half ramped it up a notch and I was completely wrong footed with the outcomes.
Thank you to Netgalley and Pan for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
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