Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Gemma Rogers: Stalker

In her debut novel Gemma Rogers plays a cat and mouse game of who is stalking who:

Eve Harding is walking to meet a friend when her world is completely destroyed when she is grabbed and violently sexually assaulted. Her world completely changes, how she sees herself, her body, everyone around her as well as the places she is familiar going. She wants her assaulter found and punished, but he has eluded the police. Then Eve comes up with a plan, she will not stand by and let this man destroy another woman's life. Eve now has a new mission in life, try to find the main who assaulted her and make him pay.

This was really impressive for a debut novel, I felt that Rogers laid out the story she wanted to tell really well minus at the beginning when I found the time jumps a little bit confusing as they are fairly close together. I wish she would have used titles like before and after or 6 months before or 6 month after. However, I do like books that tell the story where the time frames get closer and closer together, which Rogers does here. This also heightened the suspense throughout the book as you begin to wonder how did Eve after everything end up in the jail cell?

I think that Rogers did a great job in not romanticizing rape in any way, from the rape itself to showcasing the fact that there is not only an physical toll that the victim can experience but the emotional one as well. Rogers does not sugar coat a thing. Do I think that Eve was maybe outside the norm of "recovering" so fast, sure, but I think that all the other aspects that Rogers presented around sexual assault in this book were glamorized at all that this can be overlooked.

Speaking of Eve her growth within this book is amazing, from devastating and destroying her life to trying to take aspects of it back to hunting down her assaulter, you cannot help but cheer for her all along the way. Eve just seems like such a real person throughout and you really get to know her as majority of the chapters feature her. There are a few chapters from the detective, which were good, rounded out part that side of the story but there were also chapters featuring her assaulter. Normally, I like when an author put the bad guy front and center as you as the reader gets to know them better their motives, but in this case I wish Rogers would have held them back. They heighten some of the suspense as you wait for Eve to find out the information that you as the reader know, but I personally think they gave away too much and would have preferred to be left in the dark.

I know I have put quite a few things in this review that wish were different in the book (and I guess I will add that I was kind of hoping for a more realistic ending) but all that said this was an awesome debut novel I did not want to put the book down, and I highly recommend this book who like psychological suspense reads as well as cat and mouse thriller books. I look forward to reading Rogers next book.

Enjoy!!!
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