Book: “Her Every Fear” by Peter Swanson
Publishing Info: William Morrow, January 2017
Where Did I Get This Book: The library!
Book Description: Growing up, Kate Priddy was always a bit neurotic, experiencing momentary bouts of anxiety that exploded into full-blown panic attacks after an ex-boyfriend kidnapped her and nearly ended her life. When Corbin Dell, a distant cousin in Boston, suggests the two temporarily swap apartments, Kate, an art student in London, agrees, hoping that time away in a new place will help her overcome the recent wreckage of her life.
Soon after her arrival at Corbin’s grand apartment on Beacon Hill, Kate makes a shocking discovery: his next-door neighbor, a young woman named Audrey Marshall, has been murdered. When the police question her about Corbin, a shaken Kate has few answers, and many questions of her own—curiosity that intensifies when she meets Alan Cherney, a handsome, quiet tenant who lives across the courtyard, in the apartment facing Audrey’s. Alan saw Corbin surreptitiously come and go from Audrey’s place, yet he’s denied knowing her. Then, Kate runs into a tearful man claiming to be the dead woman’s old boyfriend, who insists Corbin did the deed the night that he left for London.
When she reaches out to her cousin, he proclaims his innocence and calms her nerves–until she comes across disturbing objects hidden in the apartment and accidentally learns that Corbin is not where he says he is. Could Corbin be a killer? What about Alan? Kate finds herself drawn to this appealing man who seems so sincere, yet she isn’t sure. Jet-lagged and emotionally unstable, her imagination full of dark images caused by the terror of her past, Kate can barely trust herself, so how could she take the chance on a stranger she’s just met?
Review: In February of 2016, I was on a lovely family vacation in Hawai’i. On this trip I brought a number of books, one of which was Peter Swanson’s “The Kind Worth Killing” (I reviewed it on this blog here). I read that book in the span of about one day, sitting on a Lanai on Kauai and devouring it ravenously. In February of 2017, I was in St. Cloud, Minnesota, sitting in the Stearns County Courthouse and waiting for my husband to finish up judging a Mock Trial competition. Perhaps not as glamorous of a setting, but I brought Peter Swanson’s book “Her Every Fear”. It was almost a year to the day later. And boy, did I devour this one as well.
The thing about Peter Swanson’s thrillers is that he has a knack for completely making you question everything, and taking the reader by complete surprise. Much like in “The Kind Worth Killing”, there is a moment in “Her Every Fear” where the game completely changes, and I had to set the book down for a moment and try and regroup after the big reveal. But before I talk more about the plot, I want to talk about the characters in this book, specifically Kate and Alan. I really, really appreciated how Swanson portrayed Kate and her anxiety disorder/PTSD. As someone who also has an anxiety disorder, I thought that he captured the constant, if not usually mild, fears that just kind of plague you in your day to day life, be it intrusive thoughts, or the feeling that something awful is going to happen even if there is no reason to believe so. In a lot of books like this this could be used as a character flaw to show just how broken she is, but with Kate there is nothing but sympathy for her and what she went through in her past. Alan is a character I had a harder time wrapping my head around, as he’s someone who is definitely a little bit off, mentally. I don’t want to spoil anything because there are so many reveals that are masterfully executed, but I will say that there is lots of sympathy for Alan as well in his own crippling oddness. He could have easily been painted one way, but I ended up kind of understanding him, and like that Swanson put him together the way that he did.
The mystery itself is very well done, with twists and turns that come slowly to the surface. It’s a slow burn, and you think that you may have something figured out, but then things will completely change on you. He also does a very good job of slowly turning the screws of suspense, and wrote moments that really messed with my memory and consciousness. There was a moment involving a cat being let out of Kate’s apartment, only to be found in the apartment again in the middle of the night. Not only did she question if she had let him out in the first place, I TOO QUESTIONED IT, and had to prevent myself from flipping back and checking. It’s this kind of uncanny and upsetting horror that really gets me, and makes me super squeamish (so much so that I had to set the book down and go watch “Frasier” for a couple of hours). Swanson is also deft at skillfully switching perspectives, be it Kate, or Alan, or one of the other perspective chapters of other characters (whom I shan’t spoil here). All of them had complete and well rounded voices, and I feel like he really lets the reader get into all of their heads. The puzzle pieces are laid out for the taking, and gosh did I enjoy picking them up and putting them together. While I managed to figure it out eventually, it wasn’t long before the reveal, and I was still pretty blown away by it all.
“Her Every Fear” is a great thriller, one that I tore through and highly recommend to fans of the genre. And if you haven’t already, go back and pick up “The Kind Worth Killing” as well, and treat yourself to a double header of awesome twisty thrills!
Rating 9: Another home run by Peter Swanson! I devoured this book and it had me on the edge of my seat the entire time!
Reader’s Advisory:
“Her Every Fear” is included on the Goodreads lists “Twisty Page Turners”, and “2017 Crime Novels You’re Excited For”.
Find “Her Every Fear” at your library using WorldCat!
The Library Ladies 