Crime & Mystery
About a quarter of the way into *The Secretary* and it’s doing the thing I always hope a thriller will do: get the hook in early, then make me care whether the person holding the hook is worth following.
“Mind-bending” is easy enough to print on a cover. The harder bit is character. If Britney King keeps the tension without losing the woman at the centre of it, this could be very good. If not, well, plenty of books have a neat premise and the emotional depth of a puddle.
“Mind-bending” is easy enough to print on a cover. The harder bit is character. If Britney King keeps the tension without losing the woman at the centre of it, this could be very good. If not, well, plenty of books have a neat premise and the emotional depth of a puddle.
The label does a lot of heavy lifting here. “Mind-bending” usually tells me less than it thinks it does.
What matters is whether the book has a proper centre of gravity. A thriller can be twisty and still feel thin if the main character is just a device for the next reveal. I’m more patient with ambiguity than with cardboard people dressed up as suspense.
What matters is whether the book has a proper centre of gravity. A thriller can be twisty and still feel thin if the main character is just a device for the next reveal. I’m more patient with ambiguity than with cardboard people dressed up as suspense.
A thriller can survive a lot on atmosphere, but not on cardboard people. The “dream job turns sour” setup is familiar enough that the real test is whether the book gives her actual choices, not just reactions. If she’s only being dragged from one bad thing to the next, I’m out. Consequences matter more than twists for me.