WOWWWW! This is SOOOO DISTURBING, MINDBENDING! This is nightmar-ish, terrifying, unputdownable, sick, nasty! My head is spinning! My mind already left my head, running out of the town with a valise filled with my remaining grey cells!

This book hooked me up from the first sentence. I couldn’t stop reading. I couldn’t also bite my nails because they were too short and freshly manicured so I accidentally consumed 3 bags of doritos, 2 bags of gummy bears, 2 pounds of tomatoes (I might have killed my husband’s cooking tomato soap dream, but they were only eatable things on the fridge), 2 tubes of Colgate (don’t judge it, at least I rejected to bite lavender soaps!) as a result I took a nice visit to ER for stomach pumping. (After my lack of culinary skills, ER crew got used to our visits and they planned to give my name to the one of the hospital room!) But throughout the stomach pumping experience, I resumed reading ( thanks to lovely nurses gave their permission to use their fingers for turning the next page at my kindle!!! They even gave audiobook services by sharing the characters to read!)

I adored D. J. Palmer’s spooky, sneaky, thrilling words, even though there are some missing pieces about characters’ motives, some exaggerations, nonsense and illogical parts, I could only cut half star and I’m willingly rounding 4.5 to 5 stars again.

I didn’t like “Saving Meghan” so much and had difficult time to relate with the characters and the slow paced storytelling even though I enjoyed stories about Muchausen by proxy syndrome. (Stephanie Wrobel’s upcoming book “Darling Rose Gold” is an amazing example how to create so disturbing but also entertaining thriller about that subject) But at this book, all characters are vivid and I liked to read their POVS, visiting their minds and learning more about their struggles, motives and different opinions. And pacing was incredibly fast, heart throbbing. I kicked the air with my legs in excitement and fear to learn what was gonna happen next!!!

I mostly loved teenage daughter Maggie and her determination to believe in her own instincts to save her family from the danger. And of course Nina, a survivor and strong character who struggles to get on her feet after her husband’s betrayal, disappearance, left them penniless, vulnerable.

The story starts with Glen a.k.a seems like a douchebag husband deserves my ten thousand slaps or five thousand punches in the face punishment campaigns, disappears, leading a double life with another woman. Two years passes and his body has never been found. Nina builds a new life by moving with Simon Fitch, teacher from her daughter’s middle school. Simon seems like a dreamy boyfriend, financially supports to the family, having a close relationship with Nina’s son Connor. He is protective, romantic, caring and supportive guy. But according to Nina’s daughter Maggie, those dreamy attributes of Simon were not sincere. Her gut tells her there is something wrong and dangerous with this guy and she still believes her father is out there, alive, coming back to them.

So is Glen really liar douchebag who left his family and having a fantastic new life with his mistress?

Is Maggie jealous of her mother’s second chance of love? Is she too paranoid about Simon’s motives?

Is Simon really too good to be true kind of manipulating, obsessive guy? Could Nina be sleeping with her own enemy?

There are too many twists, surprises, nothing as it seems (my spider senses caught them all but I still enjoyed each one the twists!)

There are not so many things really thrill me. If I listed what I really scare me below:

MY HUSBAND’S NIGHTIME CONCERTS: Most of my neighbors think our house is sound effects studio or a zoo only works at the midnight time because my husband’s snoring resembling the wild animals’ chorus singing “We’re the world! We’re the animals just left the National Geography Wild Channel”
My neighborhood kids still ask for zoo tickets to visit our house and see all those wild animals (I couldn’t tell them only one man made all those sounds by snoring! Nobody believes me!)

Second thing is CLEANING: When I see a vacuum cleaner I thought it can become alive any minute and choke me with its hose and I’m allergic to bleach!

But this book more terrifying than husband snores and acrid smell of bleach! It excited me, made me
sit at the edge of my seat and fall down too many times, also gave me paranoid thoughts. (I still give my suspicious looks to my husband with widen eyes which make him check if something are wrong with my contact lenses. So I’m not threatening enough. I should practice my looks in the mirror.)

I highly recommend this to all thriller lovers looking for twisty, smart, entertaining but also agitating stories.

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin Press to share with amazing ARC COPY in exchange my honest review! Maybe it’s early to say but I might have read one of the best thrillers of 2020!