Trigger warnings: Intense recollections of attempting self-abortion; death of children; drowning; car accidents
Synopsis: Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish.
Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.
Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue to love her.
Review: Is Colleen Hoover okay? I'm a little worried about her. Verity is a very different book for Colleen to write as it doesn't focus on romance between characters. Instead, it is a thriller that is supposed to make you question everything. I didn't love this book. Verity is told from two perspectives. The first is Lowen who is trying to finish writing the book series Verity started. The second perspective is Verity herself as we see Lowen engage with an autobiography manuscript that Verity wrote. Lowen was naive and Verity was meant to look like a horrible person, and both women were very flat characters. I was hoping Lowen's sleepwalking would be a larger part of the story, but it never really was. That was the only part of Lowen that was even remotely interesting. Again, Verity was painted to be a monster. I think I'm just tired of obviously horrible characters because that isn't how the world is.
The idea with thrillers is to go into them with as little information as possible. I didn't know anything about Verity, except that it was a thriller. Still, I found the twists in the book to be rather predictable. I don't know if I have been conditioned by other Colleen Hoover books to not trust her characters, or if I just don't get caught off guard by thrillers in general, but nothing in Verity surprised me. I just felt like the story could have been balanced a little better. When Lowen is reading Verity's autobiography, she sees what a horrible person Verity was, and she thinks so highly of Jeremy. Having more interactions with Jeremy where he seemed angry or sharing his love for Verity would have, at the very least, made Lowen question her own perceptions of this couple and their family.
Colleen writes engaging stories, but Verity missed the mark. I appreciated seeing her try out thrillers though.
2 howls
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