Book Review - The Besteller by Jenny Knightsby

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Title: The Bestseller

Author: Jenny Knightsby

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Mountain Leopard Press

Publication Date: 10th September 2026

Rating: 5 Stars

Therapist Helena Salve knows that client confidentiality is the number one unbreakable rule of her job. But the constant stories of coercive control and threat she hears from her client Belle about her dangerous husband have been wearing her down. One night over too many glasses of wine, she tells her best friend Tala everything that Belle has told her.

The problem is, Tala is a down-on-her-luck novelist who is looking for an idea for her new thriller.

Months later, Tala is excitedly telling Helena that her publisher is saying this is going to be her biggest book ever. The story is Belle's story. Not only is Helena's job on the line, but if Belle's husband is as dangerous as she says, her life is too...

Why would Tala do this to Helena? She knows what's at stake.

Your friends are meant to protect you... aren't they?

What an accomplished and addictive debut novel this is. 

I barely wanted to put it down, and found the pages were turning almost by themselves as I had to see what would happen next. 

And wow there are some fabulous pay offs and twists in this that I somehow didn't see coming. 

This is though a book that does shine a spotlight on a tricky and for some upsetting subject of coercive control, and I believe it was dealt with in a way to open peoples eyes to it, and in a sensitive manner. 

I'm not completely sure I loved any of our leading ladies but I was rooting for them, and as things start to unravel, I was open mouthed. 

The author has such a readable writing style that the pages were flying past and I was hooked to the point that someone in real life apologised for making me jump while I was reading this  I was that unaware of my surroundings. 

Such a fabulous story, and one I feel that could play on my mind for a while after reading. 

Thank you to Headline and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.