Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
After a breakdown on a movie set, Irish actor Adele Rafferty, the narrator of this superior thriller from Howard (56 Days), moved to L.A., where she's been reduced to reception desk duty at a motel and auditioning for commercials. Then she gets a call out of the blue inviting her to star in the psychological horror picture Final Draft being made in West Cork. The caller states that filming was to start the very next day, but the lead actress has just quit. Delighted that news of her breakdown hadn't reached the filmmakers, Rafferty accepts and flies to Ireland overnight. An encouraging text from her former agent leaves Adele comfortable that Final Draft is legit. But when she arrives in the isolated location for the shoot, she gets an anonymous message warning her that things aren't safe for her. That ominous communication presages some creepy doings on the set that place her sanity and life at risk. Howard makes her lead's experiences feel fresh and immediate as she breathes new life into tired horror tropes. Riley Sager fans will be riveted. Agent: Sara O'Keefe, Aevitas Creative Management. (Aug.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Howard (56 Days) returns with a multilayered, metafictive thriller. Former soap star Adele Rafferty is trying to resuscitate her acting career in L.A. after a major setback in Ireland. She is offered a role in the horror film Final Draft and is immediately flown back to Ireland to begin shooting. But she soon finds herself in the same situation as the movie's protagonist--lost, alone in the dark, and with no cell service. The role that could be her big comeback could be the one that kills her career-and her-for good. The story-within-a-story structure can be intimidating, but Howard's parallel narratives of movie and novel, along with the audiobook's vocal talents (Alana Kerr Collins, Alan Smyth, Gary Furlong, Gerard Doyle, Siobhan Waring, and Alison McKenna), keep the book's chapters distinct and digestible. Adele's first-person narration puts readers right in the action, while other chapters with movie script pages are read in a distinctly detached, clinical voice. VERDICT Aware of its slasher-movie tropes without dissolving into parody, this complex thriller is the perfect bridge between the works of writers like James Patterson and icons like Jason Voorhees.--James Gardner
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