Emma Carpenter has just read the worst book of her life. Well, that might be a stretch but it is certainly up there and Emma can’t help but vent her frustrations in a one star review on Amazon. That should have been the end of the matter until the author, H.G. Kane, messages Emma and asks her to take down her review. Emma refuses and Kane swears she’ll regret not doing as he ordered. Emma thinks nothing of it until he appears outside the house she is taking care of and promises Emma she’ll find his next book very realistic. Too bad she won’t be around to read it.

Ah, one star reviews. They suck.

As I’m sure my fellow authors can attest to, getting a one star review can be quite the punch to the gut. You spend hours, weeks, and months trying to perfect the story you’ve had in your mind for just as long (if not longer) only for someone to say how much they hated it. Yet, most of us will shrug it off, maybe take the criticism as constructive, and move on with our lives.

The same, unfortunately, can not be for H.G. Kane, the author Emma royally ticks off at the beginning of the book. Sure, there is some heated comments back and forth but Emma, like most of us, thinks nothing more of it and moves on and, surely, so will the author. But 99.9% of authors aren’t H.G. Kane and he doesn’t take kindly to a faceless reviewer trashing his book and he is determined to get even.

This book is incredibly fast pace and I flew through it. The action starts relatively quickly and there are many nail biting moments where we don’t know if Emma is going to make it out of this situation or not. What was also unique about this book is as the house invasion is going on we get snippets of Kane’s newest manuscript, inspired by his attack on Emma. We get a look into this madman’s mind and, in some cases, learn what’s going to happen next to Emma before she knows, making it all the more heart pounding.

The twist is well executed and I do like how Mr. Adams made Emma a realistic human, i.e. didn’t have her making dumb decisions that us, as the reader, would never make. My only criticism of the book and why I would give it 4.5 stars instead of 5 is that the book went on for a good 20-30 pages more than it needed to. This seems to be a common criticism of Mr. Adams’ works and while it didn’t make me hate the book, I still found it a bit longwinded and thought it should have been wrapped up a bit earlier.

Nonetheless, this book is well worth the ride and something worth picking up on a rainy weekend.

4 1/2 stars out of 5