Philippa East

A frustrating and annoying character makes this story barely palatable. The trope of anxious women with past secrets has run its course. Unfortunately, this was the first of two, back to back, of this similar character that I read and I’m about finished with the entire thriller genre, at least with women protagonists. Reading through this story was exhausting and annoying and I couldn’t wait for it to end, the only thing keeping me from putting it down altogether was the curiosity of how it would all end.

An advanced copy of this book was sent to me by the publisher. The opinions are my own.… (meer)

I struggled at first with Safe and Sound by Phillipa East, it seemed to take a lot of reading to establish both the story and the characters. By the end of the book, however, I had been absorbed by this psychological thriller and was glued to the pages.

Housing manager Jennifer Arden discovers a deceased tenant where the body has been lying undiscovered for about 10 months. It appears that she died of natural causes, but Jennifer feels tremendous guilt because she failed to do an annual inspection which would have revealed the corpse much earlier. Jennifer becomes obsessed with why this woman, Sarah, who was known to have a lot of friends and a loving family, was not found for months. As she digs into Sarah’s life, a number of discrepancies are revealed. She eventually meets with an ex-boyfriend and a former coworker who help her uncover Sarah’s secrets. Jennifer is also dealing with her own problems. She suffers from excessive anxieties, and can easily lose touch with reality. We learn that there has been an incident in her own life that has led to her paranoia about her son’s health.

I found I had to be patient with the character of Jennifer as I must admit I found her quite annoying at first. She seemed so unstable that I couldn’t totally trust her as a reliable narrator. As the story progressed it was very easy to question Jennifer’s choices and judgments. The author draws her readers along and Safe and Sound becomes an intriguing read about a woman desperately holding on while at the same time trying to uncover the truth.… (meer)