Published By: Zaffre
Pages: 384
Released On: 24/10/2024
A friend will help you move on. A best friend will help you move his body.
Opal, Marina and Lilah are three strangers and have nothing in common. Well, except for the man who’s been lying to all of them. And who they are now holding hostage in a basement.
From the author of Bad Men, Eat, Slay, Love is a book about making friends, finding joy, and discovering the woman you really are . . . though, sometimes, becoming your best self involves committing abduction and murder.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Zaffre for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
Who didn’t absolutely love Julie’s previous book Bad Men? It was phenomenal.
It is so much fun. I wanted this review to be quite long, but it’s hard to review because it’s such a great book that when you’re reading it, I didn’t really make a lot of notes at the time. So this will probably be briefer than I’d like.
It takes a good book to keep me from my bed, but I was completely hooked on this that before I knew it, I’d read a quarter of it and it was getting late. It’s so much fun and Julie has such a knack for writing humerous, slightly quirky thrillers.
Kidnapping, hostages etc. and comedy shouldn’t go hand in hand so well, but it really does. It doesn’t shy away from the gore and morbidity but it is also packed full of humour.
I read the first quarter in about an hour, it was so addictive, and I’d finished it in less than a day.
I can sometimes be a little iffy about multiple points-of-views, because I can end up forgetting who is who, but this one was instantly recognisable because the three main characters are so well created.
We have Opal, the fitness freak, who appears benevolent and caring towards the other women but also comes across as hard and cold – she had the biggest journey throughout the book, for me. Then we have Marina, the single mum who is struggling to manage three young children and this unfortunate situation she finds herself in. She was great, and a real laugh. And finally there’s Lilah, the grieving rich lady, who I really felt for frrom the off. She was a bit timid but there was definite strength underneath.
It finishes well and you’re satisfied but in my opinion there’s definitely room for a sequel, or even an additional novella.
I know that Julie writes books other than thrillers under Julie Cohen, but I have only read the two thrillers under Julie Mae Cohen. I will definitely keep my eye out for her other genres, as her writing is so well crafted that I’m sure it’ll do well with anything. But I do hope she has more thrillers up her sleeve because I could read them forever. She’s only two books in for me and she’s already become a go-to author and one I would gladly recommend.
Yes it is about murder and whatnot, deception, lies, thievery, coerciveness, violence. But it’s also about friendship and sisterhood and trust. Going against the patriarchy, standing up for yourself, love, what you’d do to protect your family and your friends, about finding yourself, coping with life being a modern woman, as a single woman, as a single mother.
It’s got absolutely everything and it’s told so expertly. Definitely one of my books of the year.
Books By Your Bedside 