Her Every Fear

Kate Priddy is still recovering from her kidnapping at the hands of an ex-boyfriend, and an apartment swap with her distant cousin seems like the ideal way to get away from it all. Traveling from London to Boston, Kate hopes this is the key to getting over her fears. But when her new next-door neighbor is murdered, Kate realizes her fears may be hitting all too close to home.

This is a book full of twists and turns, and some highly creepy characters. In fact, this is a really creepy book, one of those eerie ones that has you second-guessing everything you're reading. There's a part towards the end that is downright terrifying.

Swanson is constantly turning what you think you know on its head, which is something I really appreciate in any show more mystery or thriller I'm reading.

The last third of the book feels too rushed. Swanson has done a great job building up all this nail-biting suspense, and then everything just kind of happens at once. Everything that happens is creepy, and surprising, but it all gets a bit mushed together, and seems less plausible, due to the speed at which the plotting suddenly moves.

I really enjoyed The Kind Worth Killing, and thought it was absolutely brilliant, especially the way Swanson expertly flipped around everything readers were taking for granted in his story. He does something similar here, but not to the same effect. Her Every Fear would have benefited from a few extra pages, and some time to let Swanson's great twists really sing. show less

Kate Priddy has had a rough couple of years. A horrific experience at the hands of an old boyfriend left her borderline panophobic with a dash of OCD. After a lot of therapy & support, she’s finally living a quiet life in her tiny London flat.

She’s never met her 2nd cousin Corbin Dell so it’s surprising when he gets in touch with a proposition. He’s coming to London for 6 months, leaving behind an opulent apartment in Boston’s Beacon Hill. Would she be interested in doing a swap?

Despite (and because of) her parents’ reservations, Kate enrols for classes at a small Boston art college & takes the plunge. But she barely makes it to her new front door before her nightmares come to life. Corbin’s neighbour Audrey Marshall has show more been violently murdered & Kate soon finds herself at the centre of the investigation.

This is one of those book where the less you know going in, the better. Over the next few days, we are introduced to other characters central to the plot as Kate reluctantly leaves the safety of her apartment. She meets Alan Cherney who lives directly across from Audrey & Jack Ludovico, the victim’s old boyfriend who is desperate for any news Kate can provide.

And then there’s Corbin who flew to London the same day Audrey died. He spends the bulk of the book across the pond but we get to know him as he recalls the first time he went to London & the events that would end up shaping his life. Kate has never met him but as they email back & forth about the investigation, she begins to wonder if he knows more than he’s telling.

They all take turns narrating their own stories, sometimes recounting the same event but with very different interpretations. The result is we are privy to their private agendas but don’t know who to believe. They are all unreliable including Kate. This was supposed to be a fresh start but her fragile psyche is taking a beating. Her slippery grasp on reality doesn’t exactly make her the poster child for mental health & even she doubts her spotty memory.

The style of the narrative leaves you feeling vaguely uneasy & a little jumpy about what/who may pop up on the next page. It cleverly brings your own preconceptions into play as you try to suss who is telling the “best” truth. Characters that struck you as shady become sympathetic & you start reexamining those you thought were in the clear. One of these people is lying & as the tension slowly builds, we become as paranoid as Kate & begin to cut her some slack for all her neuroses.

This is a full on psychological thriller that will mess with your head (I flatly refuse to compare it to any book with “girl” in the title). The author carefully doles out information & it’s up to you to decide what’s significant. And I genuinely appreciated that the clues are all there so you can look back & see where you may have taken a wrong turn. By the time the killer is revealed, it’s clear this was never just about Audrey but you’ll have to make it through the chilling final chapters before the whole story is told.

Once you start, it becomes compulsive reading so to save time just go ahead & turn on all the lights & check the locks before you crack the cover. show less

In February of 2016, I was on a lovely family vacation in Hawai’i. On this trip I brought a number of books, one of which was Peter Swanson’s “The Kind Worth Killing” (I reviewed it on this blog here). I read that book in the span of about one day, sitting on a Lanai on Kauai and devouring it ravenously. In February of 2017, I was in St. Cloud, Minnesota, sitting in the Stearns County Courthouse and waiting for my husband to finish up judging a Mock Trial competition. Perhaps not as glamorous of a setting, but I brought Peter Swanson’s book “Her Every Fear”. It was almost a year to the day later. And boy, did I devour this one as well.

The thing about Peter Swanson’s thrillers is that he has a knack for completely making show more you question everything, and taking the reader by complete surprise. Much like in “The Kind Worth Killing”, there is a moment in “Her Every Fear” where the game completely changes, and I had to set the book down for a moment and try and regroup after the big reveal. But before I talk more about the plot, I want to talk about the characters in this book, specifically Kate and Alan. I really, really appreciated how Swanson portrayed Kate and her anxiety disorder/PTSD. As someone who also has an anxiety disorder, I thought that he captured the constant, if not usually mild, fears that just kind of plague you in your day to day life, be it intrusive thoughts, or the feeling that something awful is going to happen even if there is no reason to believe so. In a lot of books like this this could be used as a character flaw to show just how broken she is, but with Kate there is nothing but sympathy for her and what she went through in her past. Alan is a character I had a harder time wrapping my head around, as he’s someone who is definitely a little bit off, mentally. I don’t want to spoil anything because there are so many reveals that are masterfully executed, but I will say that there is lots of sympathy for Alan as well in his own crippling oddness. He could have easily been painted one way, but I ended up kind of understanding him, and like that Swanson put him together the way that he did.

The mystery itself is very well done, with twists and turns that come slowly to the surface. It’s a slow burn, and you think that you may have something figured out, but then things will completely change on you. He also does a very good job of slowly turning the screws of suspense, and wrote moments that really messed with my memory and consciousness. There was a moment involving a cat being let out of Kate’s apartment, only to be found in the apartment again in the middle of the night. Not only did she question if she had let him out in the first place, I TOO QUESTIONED IT, and had to prevent myself from flipping back and checking. It’s this kind of uncanny and upsetting horror that really gets me, and makes me super squeamish (so much so that I had to set the book down and go watch “Frasier” for a couple of hours). Swanson is also deft at skillfully switching perspectives, be it Kate, or Alan, or one of the other perspective chapters of other characters (whom I shan’t spoil here). All of them had complete and well rounded voices, and I feel like he really lets the reader get into all of their heads. The puzzle pieces are laid out for the taking, and gosh did I enjoy picking them up and putting them together. While I managed to figure it out eventually, it wasn’t long before the reveal, and I was still pretty blown away by it all.

“Her Every Fear” is a great thriller, one that I tore through and highly recommend to fans of the genre. And if you haven’t already, go back and pick up “The Kind Worth Killing” as well, and treat yourself to a double header of awesome twisty thrills! show less

I picked up this book solely on the premise. A young woman who went through a horrific event in her life, swaps apartments with her male cousin. London for Boston. So far so good. But wait, there's more! On the day she arrives in Boston, a woman is found murdered in the apartment across from her. Let's see what unfolds...

Kate is mentally recovering from when her boyfriend kidnapped her, put her in a closet, and then committed suicide. I'm not even going to touch the reasoning of why he decided on that plan with a 10 foot pole. She's a character I immediately wanted to connect with. No, never happened.

Kate's mindset is that everyone is a killer and danger looms around every corner. Yet, she never once suspected or sensed that a man has show more been stalking and living with her for weeks! Kate's activities include drawing people she's met, sometimes venturing out to a grocery store or restaurant, lounging around and falling asleep to old movies. Then there is the instant attraction to her neighbor Alan, despite still emotionally scarred by her past. Just as a reminder, Kate thinks everyone is a killer and bad things follow her. In her eyes, Alan is different. Sure, he admittedly stalked and became obsessed with Audrey, the murdered woman, but it's not a red flag in Kate's mind. She rationalizes it. It's Swanson's way of mis-guiding the reader at the cost of the character's identity. So far so good, right?

It felt as if Swanson decided that Kate is truly a boring character, so let's switch gears! Her cousin, indirectly accused of the murder, surely must be the star of the show now. All I know about Corbin is that he is attractive, very well educated, comes from a wealthy family, but decided to house swap and live in his cousin's dingy London apartment. Did I mention they've never met?

But wait, there's more! Enter Henry, a "friend" Corbin makes who is the epitome of American Psycho. Let's kill women for fun, are you in, Corbin? Of course, I am. After all, aren't they all just cheating and slutting their way through life? Thankfully after a couple of murders, Corbin has a come to Jesus moment and decides to sever ties with Henry. Let's find out how Henry feels about this.

I'm going to leave the ending be. After all, even with my criticism, maybe there's a part of you that does want to read it and evaluate the absurdity for yourself. show less

✅ For fans of:
- multiple POV
- stalker murderers
- serial killer
- past coming back to haunt you
- Brit in the USA
- incredible plot twists

✏️ Spoiler-Free Review
4.75 True Rating
I adore Peter Swanson and his ability to set a scene so perfectly for a plot twist, so far ahead in advance that you feel like you have to read it immediately a second time.

I correctly predicted some things but had other things totally wrong, so I can’t say it’s predictable.

I also like that PS always wraps up his novel’s endings so you’re not left hanging, even when it’s a series (this one is a standalone though)

Have you read Peter Swanson yet? No? Well, if you're a fan of twisty, turny suspense novels like I am, you'll want to add him to your 'must read' list.

Swanson's latest book is Her Every Fear.

Brit Kate Priddy suffers from anxiety, panic attacks and OCD. Her bouts and symptoms got even worse after surviving a horrible relationship with ex-boyfriend George. When the opportunity arises to switch apartments for six months with her distant cousin Corbin in Boston, she decides it's a great opportunity to reclaim her life.

But when a neighbour of Corbin's goes missing the day she moves in, Kate begins to wonder if she's made the right choice. And then the neighbour is found dead.....

A fantasic premise with loads of places to go - and an show more uncertain narrator to tell the tale. Love it!

Swanson has the reader knowing much more than our poor Kate. There are three other voices - Corbin, a friend of Corbin and another resident of the apartment building in Boston. We know what's happened, what's happening and the danger that Kate is in. Kate tries to downplay odd incidents.... she let the cat out didn't she? How did he get back in? Is someone watching her from the window across the way? (nice little Hitchcockian plot device) Has someone changed one of her sketches? Or is it her own anxieties causing her worries and suspicions?

The narrative switches between then and now and only serves to heighten the tension as we learn more about the characters and their secrets. Swanson has painted one heck of a scary antagonist in one of the three characters His inner dialogue is truly frightening. So, while we know the whodunit long before the police, it's the journey there that makes for a deliciously creepy read.

Swanson's last book, The Kind Worth Killing, had a fantastic 'gotcha' in the last few pages. I was looking (and hoping) for a similar ending. It's there, but subtle. One line in a paragraph near the end has me thinking that Kate may be making another bad choice...... show less

‘Her Every Fear’ started strongly but unfortunately petered out at the conclusion, not due to a lack action as much as an absence of believability. Just an opinion on my part, but the turnabout of one of the key characters doesn’t pass the smell test.

This novel asks an interesting question: what if 2 clean cut young men conspire to commit a seemingly unsolvable murder, decide to do it again, but then one of them opts out? The story line’s an interesting one, the writing is strong, the characters are decently drawn, and the pacing is good. As mentioned previously, my problem is with the behavioral change in one of the murderers. I won’t go any further to avoid spoiling the conclusion, but judge for yourself. It’s a very show more worthwhile read. show less