Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson -- Reshelved Books

Hello again, Dewey Readers!

There's snow out there. 

Another day, another book review! 
I read Peter Swanson's Her Every Fear in one day.  That's how good it was.  Needless to say, I did read it during a snowstorm, but still.  I could not put it down. 

This novel is about two cousins, Kate and Corbin,  who live in London and NYC respectively.  The cousins have never met before, but they make an arrangement to trade apartments for a period of 6 months.  Kate has terrible anxiety, and she isn't sure if she should be worried or if it's just her mind that makes her worried.  She also suffers from terrible panic attacks that make her feel like she is going to stop breathing and die.  But she knows the panic attacks will not kill her, and that the attacks will eventually pass.  However, it does not stop her overwhelming fear that there is something out there that WILL kill her.  

Having suffered from panic attacks myself, I sort of related to Kate.  I get where she's coming from and and how the attacks can make her anxiety escalate.  However, unlike me, her panic attacks stem from trauma that she experienced.  Previous to the novel's start, Kate had been in an absuive relationship with a man who as jealous and violent.  After Kate broke up with him, she came home one day to him sitting on her bed with a gun.  He locked her in the bedroom closet and committed suicide outside the closet door.  Kate was locked in that closet for days until she was found.  

Now in NYC, Kate walks into the midst of a crime scene where her would be neighbor was violently murdered, the body mutilated.  Police suspect that her cousin may or may not be a suspect.  It is also possible that the killer is on the loose and perhaps has killed women before.  Kate has the suspicion that something isn't right in her apartment. Doors that she felt like she shut are slightly ajar, the eyes of portraits that she drew aren't quite the way that she remembered drawing them... but she tells herself it's just her anxious mind.  

This novel is as much of a thriller as it is about trusting yourself and your instincts.  Jillian and I both hated the last thriller we read (check out our Battle Book Reviews of the Lying Game) but this one was refreshingly fast paced and different.  I also liked how while parts of the novel took place in London, more than half of the novel took place in the U.S.  perhaps this kept me culturally in tune...  

So Dewey Readers  I leave you with a review of 5 out of 5 Coffee Beans.  If you're thinking of reading a thriller, pick up this one.

~Jessica