REVIEW: The Date by Louise Jensen

Title: The Date
Author: Louise Jensen
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: June 2018
Genre: Thriller
Buy the Book: Amazon | BN | Audible

Description: One night can change everything.

‘I know it as soon as I wake up and open my eyes... Something is wrong.’

Her Saturday night started normally. Recently separated from her husband, Ali has been persuaded by her friends to go on a date with a new man. She is ready, she is nervous, she is excited. She is about to take a step into her new future. By Sunday morning, Ali’s life is unrecognizable. She wakes, and she knows that something is wrong. She is home, she is alone, she is hurt and she has no memory of what happened to her.

Worse still, when she looks in the mirror, Ali doesn’t recognize the face staring back at her…

My Thoughts: This was a true nail-biter and an excellent choice for thriller fans. Newly separated from her husband, Ali agrees to go on a date with a man she has been talking to online. When she wakes the next morning, she has no memory of the night before, but she is injured and covered in blood.

As if that were not terrifying enough, Ali no longer recognizes her own face in the mirror—or anyone else’s. That detail immediately raises the stakes and makes her situation feel even more vulnerable and unsettling. I would love to see this story adapted for the screen.

As the story unfolds, the reader learns that the person who hurt Ali is stalking her and knows about something terrible from her past. That thread made the tension especially effective because Ali’s prosopagnosia—face blindness—means the danger could be standing directly in front of her, and she still would not know who to fear.

The structure and pacing are excellent. I was invested in Ali’s situation from the beginning and stayed on edge, eager to see how everything would play out. The finale and big reveal were genuinely shocking and took me through a wide range of emotions.

The supporting characters also added to the suspense. Many of them felt unreliable, which kept suspicion shifting and made Ali’s fear more convincing. I felt tremendous empathy for her and, like Ali, was never sure who could be trusted.

My Final Verdict: The Date is a gripping, twist-filled thriller that kept me turning the pages from start to finish. Louise Jensen builds tension beautifully, using Ali’s fear, confusion, and vulnerability to create a story that feels both unsettling and impossible to put down. With its fast pacing, unreliable characters, and shocking reveal, this is a strong recommendation for readers who enjoy psychological thrillers with emotional impact and plenty of suspense.

Thank you to the publisher, Bookouture, who provided an advance reader copy of this book via NetGalley.

REVIEW: The Lion's Den by Katherine St. John

Title: The Lion’s Den
Author: Katherine St. John
Narrator: Christine Lakin
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: June 2020
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Buy the Book: Amazon | BN | Audible

Description: Belle likes to think herself immune to the dizzying effects of fabulous wealth. But when her best friend, Summer, invites her on a glamorous getaway to the Mediterranean aboard her billionaire boyfriend's yacht, the only sensible answer is yes. Belle hopes the trip will be a much-needed break from her stalled acting career and uniquely humiliating waitressing job, but once she's aboard the luxurious Lion's Den, it soon becomes clear this jet-setting holiday is not as advertised.

Belle's dream vacation quickly devolves into a nightmare as she and the handful of other girls Summer invited are treated more like prisoners than guests by their controlling host-and in one terrifying moment, Belle comes to see Summer for who she truly is: a vicious gold digger who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

Belle realizes she's going to have to keep her wits about her -- and her own big secret closely hidden -- if she wants to make it off the yacht alive.

My Thoughts: The Lion’s Den blends thriller elements with women’s fiction, pulling the reader into a world of extreme wealth, luxury, and excess. It is a world filled with lavish, materialistic temptations, but beneath the glamour is a darker current of corruption, manipulation, and desperation.

The story is a very slow burn, moving between Belle and Summer’s past and present in a way that made me question how they ever became friends in the first place. I liked Belle, even though she often comes across as naïve and gullible. I kept hoping she would find her backbone and finally tell Summer where to go.

At first, being invited to cruise around the Mediterranean on a super-yacht for Summer’s birthday sounds exciting. But after seeing so clearly how selfish Summer has been—and continues to be—I struggled to understand why Belle would accept the invitation at all.

The final quarter of the book takes a dramatic turn, pulling the story together in a way that gave me the answers I had been looking for. At the same time, the shift was so sharp that I briefly wondered whether I was reading two different books. Somehow, though, the approach works. By the end, I was completely invested—hands fisted and white-knuckled—waiting to see how everything would play out.

Readers who are not fans of slow-burn plots should be prepared to exercise patience. The payoff is there, but getting to it felt tedious at times. Most of the characters are deeply unlikable, yet they are written well enough that it was easy to form strong impressions and assumptions about who they really were.

I do wish the ending had been more fleshed out after the major plot twist. I finished the book wanting a little more closure—perhaps even an epilogue—to show what ultimately happens to all the players.

My Final Verdict: The Lion’s Den is a slow-burn, character-driven thriller wrapped in sun-soaked luxury and simmering tension. While the pacing requires patience and the ending could have offered more closure, the final twists are compelling enough to make the journey worthwhile. Readers who enjoy messy friendships, glamorous settings, and secrets that unravel piece by piece will likely find this an entertaining and suspenseful read.

Thank you to the publisher, Grand Central Publishing, who provided an advance reader copy of this book via NetGalley.

REVIEW: Don't You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane

Title: Don’t You Forget About Me
Author: Mhairi McFarlane
Narrator: Madeline Gould
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: September 2019
Genre: Contemporary Romance / Women’s Fiction
Buy the Book: Amazon | BN | Audible

Description: You always remember your first love... don’t you?

If there’s anything worse than being fired from the lousiest restaurant in town, it’s coming home early to find your boyfriend in bed with someone else. Reeling from the humiliation of a double dumping in one day, Georgina takes the next job that comes her way—bartender in a newly opened pub. There’s only one problem: it’s run by the guy she fell in love with years ago. And—make that two problems—he doesn’t remember her. At all. But she has fabulous friends and her signature hot pink fur coat... what more could a girl really need?

Lucas McCarthy has not only grown into a broodingly handsome man, but he’s also turned into an actual grown-up, with a thriving business and a dog along the way. Crossing paths with him again throws Georgina’s rocky present into sharp relief—and brings a secret from her past bubbling to the surface. Only she knows what happened twelve years ago, and why she’s allowed the memories to chase her ever since. But maybe it’s not too late for the truth... or a second chance with the one that got away?

My Thoughts: This book had far more depth than the description suggests. At first, the premise sounds like an engaging second-chance romance: Georgina crosses paths with Lucas, her first love, after twelve years, only to discover that he does not seem to remember her. That question alone creates instant tension—does he truly not remember, or is he pretending? And if he is pretending, why?

The story took me in directions I did not see coming, and those unexpected turns made it even more captivating. I wanted to understand both Georgina and Lucas, and McFarlane does an excellent job of filling in the gaps by revisiting their teenage years. Learning why they did not end up together back then was heartbreaking, and the way McFarlane slowly revealed the truth drew out real emotion.

McFarlane blends humor and romance beautifully with more serious subject matter, including infidelity, toxic relationships, death, and other sensitive topics. Readers may want to be mindful of potential triggers. Even when the story moved in directions I did not expect, those choices ultimately brought everything full circle, and I absolutely loved how it all came together.

Georgina was easy to like right away, and her warmth, humor, and vulnerability made her immediately relatable. I also enjoyed the energy and support of her friends, who helped round out her world, as well as Lucas’s brother, Devlin, who was instantly likable.

Lucas took longer for me to warm up to, largely because I knew he had broken Georgina’s heart. That made me cautious about him at first, but as the story unfolded, McFarlane gave him enough depth and context for me to see him differently.

My Final Verdict: Don’t You Forget About Me is a witty, emotional, and ultimately satisfying read that delivers much more than a simple second-chance romance. With relatable characters, heartfelt revelations, and McFarlane’s sharp blend of humor and vulnerability, this is a story that lingers after the final page. I would recommend it to readers who enjoy contemporary romance with emotional depth, complicated pasts, and a strong sense of hope.

Thank you to the publisher, HarperCollins Publishing, who provided an advance reader copy of this book via NetGalley.