Title: Leave the Lights On
Author: Liv Andersson
Publication: October 17, 2023
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Domestic Thrillers
Pages: 256
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SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
Cape Morgan, Maine, is the utopian ideal for a charmed life, and Beatrice Wicker knows it. The multi-million-dollar house on the sea coast. The joint bank accounts. The safety and security that go along with being married to an esteemed architect and community leader. The scenic coastline, perfect for her ambitious plan to turn an abandoned asylum into an artists’ retreat. So what if her husband sneaks off to see his second family now and again? Beatrice is willing to look the other way. It’s simply the price she must pay to keep their life together.
Josh doesn’t realize that Beatrice knows about his other life. That’s just one of Beatrice’s secrets. And now, that truth—along with a deadly host of other secrets from the past—is about to upend their false paradise.
When there’s an explosion at the local elementary school playground, and a two-year-old boy is abducted, it doesn’t take Beatrice long to make the connection between the missing boy and her husband. It was the son from Josh’s other life who was kidnapped, and Josh can’t do anything about it without revealing the truth.
Helping Josh find his son would destroy the façade of her perfect marriage and could put more children’s’ lives in danger. But that’s not all. It would reveal her deeper secret: Beatrice Wicker is not who she claims to be.
REVIEW:
*A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
Liv Andersson has written a domestic thriller with a unique twist I did not see coming. I had never read a book by her, but was intrigued by the synopsis. Andersson did not disappoint.
The story follows Beatrice in her perfect life… but it’s not so perfect, and she has a lot of secrets. Knowing that, I was not sure what to expect, but what Andersson gave me was absolutely not it. This book was sad, exciting, shocking, and so much more from the first chapter. I was so ready to find out how all these little pieces came together.
I did not really like Beatrice as a whole in the beginning. Her personality was a little weird and putting up with what she did made no sense to me. Then, as the story progressed, I started to understand her reasoning for doing things and putting up with things she had for years. There were many moments I gasped out loud as revelations were made and tensions got higher. There were not that many supporting characters in this story, but there was some importance to those minor characters and I encourage anyone reading to pay attention to them.
If you love a great, twisty domestic thriller, then this is definitely one to check out. I will absolutely be checking out more from author Liv Andersson in the future. You will not be disappointed when you read.