He has the perfect look, the perfect manners, he is absolutely charming and he even likes her sister Millie who suffers from the Down syndrome. Grace cannot believe her luck when Jack Angel proposes, she must be in a dream. There is just one favour he asks of her: she should give up her job at Harrod’s which is needs a lot of travelling. Grace reluctantly agrees, but since she expects to have children and then be a stay-at-home-mum for some time, this does not seem to be too bad. Everything is perfect – but it is all just a façade. The ink on their wedding certificate has not yet dried when Grace realizes that she might have made the biggest mistake of her life. However, she does not know that hell on earth is waiting for her.
The novel slowly
reveals more and more of Jack’s atrocities before you can see the full extent
of his evil character. You know that this cannot go on forever, the suspense
slowly rises. First, you only feel pity for Grace, then you want to find out how
she could end up in this situation and finally, you tremble and pray for her to
find a way out. All this is really thrilling and sometimes the nerves are
really on the edge while reading.
B.A. Paris’
novel plays with the greatest fears you can imagine: being held prisoner and
abused and having people around who only see the outside and cannot look under
the surface. Feeling and actually being completely helpless while not only your
own life but also the one of your beloved is at risk, must be one of the most
awful nightmares imaginable. At the same time, everybody envies you for your
perfect life which is everything but not what what it seems to be. Albeit it is
just a novel, it makes you think about what you really know about your friends
and acquaintances and if all those perfect lives that you see from the outside,
are really the same behind closed doors.
