Contemporary Fiction done right.
This is a bit of a different (and smaller) review from what I normally do, but it is totally worth it.
Background
Normally this is where I'd give a speech about the history of a book. However, I can't really offer much as it's not a non-fiction. Instead, I'll tell you why I picked it up.
For one thing, I've been irritated recently with contemporary fiction. This continues a long tradition with me where the rule of thumb is the older something is, the more I'll probably like it. Just ask my CD collection of the Beatles and Pink Floyd.
But fiction is especially gravelling to my eyes these days. It all feels reactionary or narcissistic. The reason for the former is that whenever something does well (I.E J.D. Robb's ...in Death series and Harry Potter) the book industry floods itself with copycats trying to be the next big thing. In my opinion, that's a waste of time. Rather than find a female detective with a troubled past like Eve Dallas, have an amateur detective stay-at-home mum, that's different.
As for the latter complaint of narcissism, this is me blaming social media for rubbing off on authors. The Internet's ability to distract people manages to astonish me every single day. It makes people think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, giving rise to new contemporary thrillers among others. So these new 'thrillers' are all about terrorism and government conspiracies that can only be stopped by ONE MAN or psychological thrillers making the reader think that someone is looking for them.
Rom-Com female leads feel more narcissistic too (and thus unlikeable), there's a new dystopia and fantasy love on the rise, and the Literary Fiction genre feels like badly disguised poetry.
In short, it drives me mad and I usually steer clear, so Phoebe's book is actually relieving.
Why it stands out.
The Good, nay Great, part about this story is that it has a solid 'rhythm track'. For those not aware of the metaphor, bands in recording studios always record a 'rhythm track' of a song first without the vocals, guitar solos, or other flourishes added later in what's called an overdub session.
In the writing world, the rhythm track is the story and the overdubs are the flourishes like the fancy words and poetic phrasing.
Most psychological thrillers cock up the rhythm track spectacularly. This one doesn't and that's what made it stand out to me in a genre that I usually have zero patience for.
Why is the story good and stable? Phoebe's characters all have this mysterious lunatic breathing them down and making them paranoid, and when the lunatic is revealed, they're not a paranormal monster but a mentally disturbed person. It's believable, it makes you scared if you're that kind of person, it does the job without making the reader feel stupid.
Speaking of the characters, they are also very well done. It's a classic dysfunctional family. At the core of the story are the two sisters, Corrine and Ashley. Ashley is a mum of three with a husband who I thought was a loser and Corrine is struggling to conceive with her partner, Dominic. Both are mourning the loss of their recently deceased father.
Again, this goes back to the solid rhythm track, but the character's intentions-and-obstacles are clear, making it real drama. Ashley wants a stable family and Corrine wants a child. Standing in their way is a total kook whose making them go crazy.
That sounds really obvious and not much of a compliment, but it is MASSIVE praise for one reason: many novels screw this up. That sounds ridiculous, but many 'authors' don't understand that the stories are made up of a character wanting something and something somewhat formidable is standing in their way.
For crime novels, the detective wants to solve the mystery, and what's standing in the way is that the mystery is unsolved. In romance novels, the female protagonist usually wants a loving husband, but she's standing her own way. Etc.
That intention-and-obstacle is the rhythm track of the story but often it is weak and covered up by pretty language. For instance, there's a book called The Mind-Body Problem that features great writing, but a weak story. It's little more than a character's thoughts. This goes back to the About Grace review down below on this blog.
The simple fact that Phoebe's characters have an intention-and-obstacle make this a stronger debut than most. It doesn't sound like much, but a guy in the reading and writing business like me doesn't take this stuff for granted.
And when I said that the story was contemporary, I don't think I stressed that word enough. All of this takes place in January 2017. Donald Trump was president...
(Elliott will resume this review once the vomiting session has concluded.)
Where was I? Ah, one thing.
One Note
Because this is not my field of normal reading, many times I asked 'Oh, I'm supposed to feel scared here?' That's only reason those sections didn't work for me. I have Aspergers, so my senses are a bit different from normal people. For all the neuro-typicals, it probably did its job very well, but I'm not the guy to ask. Judge for yourself.
Conclusions.
Phoebe's first book knocks it out of the park on basis of the solid, believable story containing characters with realistic intentions (getting pregnant and raising children shouldn't be hard) and threatening obstacles in their path (a total kook, mostly). Any complaints I have are trivial and should not affect your decision to buy it.
So buy it. Five stars.