Saturday, August 15, 2020

Review - The Apartment


Title:  The Apartment
Author:  K.L.Slater
Genre:   Psychological Thriller
Publisher:  Thomas & Mercer
Format:  Kindle ARC
No. of Pages:   266
Date of Publication:  April 28, 2020
My Rating:  3 Stars

DESCRIPTION:

It’s an opportunity she can’t refuse. The woman before her tried…

Freya Miller needs a miracle. In the fallout of her husband’s betrayal, she’s about to lose her family home, and with it the security she craves for her five-year-old daughter, Skye. Adrift and alone, she’s on the verge of despair until a chance meeting with the charismatic Dr Marsden changes everything. He’s seeking a new tenant for a shockingly affordable flat in a fashionable area of London.

Adder House sounds too good to be true… But Freya really can’t afford to be cynical, and Dr Marsden is adamant she and Skye will be a perfect fit with the other residents.

But Adder House has secrets. Even behind a locked front door, Freya feels as if she’s being watched: objects moving, unfamiliar smells, the blinking light of a concealed camera… and it’s not long before she begins to suspect that her dream home is hiding a nightmarish reality. Was it really chance that led her here—or something unthinkably dark?

As the truth about Adder House starts to unravel, can Freya and Skye get out—or will they be locked in forever?

Revised edition: This edition of The Apartment includes editorial revisions.


MY THOUGHTS:

Freya Miller has a five-year-old daughter, Skye, and they need security. Betrayed by her husband and losing her home is just about all she can bear. When she gets what seems like the perfect opportunity she jumps at it, without any clue as to what might happen to her and Skye. 

She spies a flat that is easily affordable, Adder House, and ignores her nagging intuition moves in with Skye. Things are eerie from the very start. After all, it is pretty much her only chance at a place to live. The alternative is unthinkable. Imagine her fear and apprehension rising when things move or she has that sickening feeling that she is being watched. And so much more. A living nightmare has begun and Freya just might not have a way out.

This thrilling book by K. L. Slater loosely reminded me of Riley Sager's Lock Every Door. Just like in Sager's book, the building Freya lives in is mysterious, and the other tenants in the building are more than a bit creepy. Also, the protagonist in the other book found herself in grave danger and so did Freya in this book. The other similarity is that the apartment buildings are named. Sager's book it is The Bartholomew, and this book it is The Adder House. 

Because I could not stop thinking of the other book I had a lot of difficulty when it came to writing this review, even though I read the other book well over a year ago! I must have put this review aside a half dozen times, and that is quite rare for me not to be able to compose a comprehensive review.

Nonetheless, Slater's book stands on its own merits. The requisite suspense, drama and danger are at every turn for Freya. There are the expected twists and turns and a decent conclusion. Having read other books by Slater, I have to say this one was my least favorite. Perhaps it is because the other book is stuck in my brain. Not sure.

Many thanks to Thomas & Mercer and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kim is the million-copy bestselling author of nine standalone psychological crime thrillers. SINGLE, her new thriller, is published November 2019.

Her titles are published in eBook by Bookouture and in paperback by Sphere (UK) and Grand Central (USA).

For many years, Kim sent her work out to literary agents and collected an impressive stack of rejection slips. At the age of 40 she went back to Nottingham Trent University and now has an MA in Creative Writing.

Before graduating in 2012, she gained literary agent representation and a book deal. As Kim says, 'it was a fairytale ... at the end of a very long road!'

Kim is a full-time writer. She has one daughter, two stepsons and lives with her husband in Nottingham.

Publishers: Bookouture, Sphere, Grand Central, Audible
Agent: Camilla Bolton at Darley Anderson 

Author website: www.KLSlaterAuthor.com
Twitter: @KimLSlater
Facebook: KL Slater Author
Instagram: KLSlaterAuthor

4 comments:

  1. I appreciate you honest reviews, Robin. You do them so well.

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  2. That's difficult when a book reminds you so much of another. You wrote a very honest review, though :) Thanks for sharing this!

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  3. I haven’t read that Riley Sager book yet. It’s hard when two books are very similar.

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  4. Great review! I think I’m going to give this a skip though.

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