Surprisingly, I finished a book for no other reason than I enjoyed reading it. And I’m glad I did, because this book was so compelling and true. The Author’s Note at the end of the book really honed in on the theme and completed the story. PTSD, both from war and from violent sexual crime, is spoken of honestly throughout this story. It expanded my horizons of understanding PTSD and the resulting day to day of living with PTSD. There’s almost nothing I can write now that will do the brilliance of this novel justice – the way Tami Hoag intertwines the truths of PTSD with the main storyline, all while adding the suspense and thrill of a mystery.

10/10 I would highly recommend this book. It’s not just a compelling story that made me actually want to keep reading (which is difficult provided by short attention span) but it also accurately reflects (albeit dramatized of course) the symptoms of PTSD and what it’s like to be a victim of sexual assault.

Dana laughed. ‘No! I’m not ever going to be okay. Not the way people who have never been through what I went through are okay. Whether I ever remember the details or not, that experience is a part of me now. It changed me. But I’m alive. I won. I’ll take that over the alternative.’”