Author: Chandler Baker
Narrator: Almarie Guerra
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication Date: July 2019
Genre: Mystery / Thriller / Women’s Fiction
Buy The Book: Amazon | BN | Audible
Description: Sloane, Ardie, Grace, and Rosalita have worked at Truviv, Inc. for years. The sudden death of Truviv’s CEO means their boss, Ames, will likely take over the entire company. Each of the women has a different relationship with Ames, who has always been surrounded by whispers about how he treats women. Those whispers have been ignored, swept under the rug, hidden away by those in charge.
But the world has changed, and the women are watching this promotion differently. This time, when they find out Ames is making an inappropriate move on a colleague, they aren’t willing to let it go. This time, they’ve decided enough is enough.
Sloane and her colleagues’ decision to take a stand sets in motion a catastrophic shift in the office. Lies will be uncovered. Secrets will be exposed. And not everyone will survive. All of their lives—as women, colleagues, mothers, wives, friends, even adversaries—will change dramatically as a result.
"If only you had listened to us,” they tell us on page one of Chandler Baker's Whisper Network, “none of this would have happened."
My Thoughts: Four women, all with different lives and backgrounds but share the common thread of working for the same company and having been subjected to varying degrees of sexual harassment, abuse or assault by the company’s general counsel, who is now the front-runner to fill the slot of CEO. It goes without saying that if this should happen, their lives will become more of a nightmare with this man at the helm.
Does this scenario sound familiar? It should be as the news is filled with these types of stories that cross numerous levels of the corporate world. This sinister behavior doesn’t recognize social, gender, race or affluence barriers. Nobody is off limits and in this case when the perpetrator is allowed to continually victimize those less powerful than he is, something has to give and it does. The women file a lawsuit, he takes a header off the eighteenth-floor balcony and now the women find themselves under investigation by the police, their company and facing a countersuit. Was his death a suicide? An accident or a murder? The death doesn’t come as a surprise as the reader is given that information right away, but the rest of the book took forever to come full circle. In fairness, I think I would not have felt this if I had not chosen the audiobook. I liked the narrator’s performance and understood the need for the pacing that was done, but it started to drive me batty. Though I acknowledge I lack patience, the author does a very good job of providing numerous details to the reader and then bringing it all together full circle at the end.
My Final Verdict: Overall, the story was well told, gripping and suspenseful. I had a lot of empathy for the women, some more than others and thought the villain was portrayed accurately, with the right amount of charm and likability to gain the women’s trust. I felt their actions were all believable and logical and had to pick my jaw up off the floor several times. I recommend this book to fans of mysteries, thrillers, suspense and women’s fiction.
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of Whisper Network from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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