Can You Trust Anyone?
When Louise kisses a gorgeous man at a bar on Friday night, she thinks little of it. After raising a young son alone after a hurtful divorce, she deserves a bit of fun. That is, what she thought was fun until her now boss starts on Monday morning and she realises he’s her mysterious kiss and a married man. While she tries to keep her distance, it’s clear that David hasn’t forgotten. To make matters worse, Louise meets Adele, a young and lonely young woman who’s new to town…she’s also David’s wife. As Louise falls hard into both relationships not all is as it seems. Someone’s playing games, but who?
I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Behind Her Eyes for review from the publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. It’s been a while since I’ve read a good thriller, after trying so many of the current ‘it’ books I needed something a little different, a little darker. So I was happy when Pinborough’s novel was ready for me to read. The novel moves between Louise and Adele, two very different women who both have an interest in the same man. The closer the women get, however, the darker the novel becomes.
In true thriller fashion, readers are questioning throughout the whole novel who’s telling the truth. As an outside perspective, I feel that most reader will be a few steps further than our characters, or at least they think they will. I will admit that while I didn’t entirely like some of the twists I was hooked. I needed to pick that book up and get it finished, I needed to see how it was going to work out and if my predictions were correct (some were, some weren’t).
I will say there were times when I felt that the did fall into some of the classic thriller tropes that can get fairly annoying. For example, the idea of a marriage that looks perfect to the outside world but is hiding something dark. This has been done so, so many times before and I did bore me at times because it kept being reiterated, particularly in regards to Adele. There was also the situation of two women who are so different but are thrown together in some way and bond. Realistically I could not see Adele and Louise getting along or being anything like one another, which meant I struggled at some point during the novel.
I had to give it three stars as the ending was a little too neat for my tastes. There were elements that, while intriguing and interesting, I felt didn’t really match the rest of the story and could have had a lot more exploration. To some extent, I felt like they were simply thrown in there for shock factor, which wasn’t needed. A good thriller is largely dependent on the ending the author creates and while this wasn’t my favourite ending, it did have an element of surprise.
Chloe Metzger 