Review by Booklist Review
Jones' eerie, suspenseful story switches between 1986 London and California in 2011. Cassie is enraptured by Ben Edwards, lead singer for popular rock group Secret Oktober, and believes that since he caught her eye and even took her hand once, they have a relationship--or at least the promise of one. Nicole, her older sister, is more sensible--a wannabe singer-songwriter, she's moved away from home and works as a waitress, waiting for fame to come her way. But chance puts her onto Ben's radar, and unbeknownst to Cassie, Nicole and Ben start a relationship. However, Cassie's obsessive jealousy and refusal to believe Ben isn't in love with her lead to a horrifying disaster. Years later, Nicole is married with a little girl and living in California. When Nicole's past blindsides her, she can only stand in the path of the terrible vengeance that fate seems determined to wreak on her. Complex, haunting, and full of shocking twists, this corker of a story shows how the deadly combination of jealousy, misplaced passion, revenge, obsession, and even love can have devastating consequences.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A British expat's connection to a defunct rock band comes back to haunt her in this sturdy thriller from Jones (The Trade Off). Over the past 10 years, Nicole Forbes has built a comfortable life in Coronado, Calif., with her husband and young daughter, Hannah. That stability gets shaken by a visit from writer Zoe Mortimer, who's working on a book about the popular 1980s band Secret Oktober and wants to know about Forbes's relationship with one of its members. Twenty-five years earlier, Secret Oktober stopped performing under mysterious circumstances that gave rise to a slew of conspiracy theories, but Nicole knows the truth--and she doesn't want to share it. While Nicole considers what to do about Zoe's inquiry, a stranger posing as Hannah's aunt abducts the girl from school. Flashbacks to 1986 flesh out the grisly truth about Nicole's connections to Secret Oktober and gradually link those events to her desperate search for Hannah in the present. While a few plot beats land on the predictable side, Jones makes good use of alternating timelines to build tension, and Nicole's maternal nightmare feels frighteningly real. This is a good bet for fans of Lisa Unger. (Mar.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Jones's latest high-stakes thriller (after The Trade Off) is the dual-timeline story of two sisters and Secret Oktober, one of the biggest bands of the 1980s. Nicole has worked hard to hide her involvement in one of the most scandalous cases of her generation and to build a perfect life with her husband and daughter, but she cannot escape her past. Twenty years earlier, Nicole and her sister Cassie coped with their mother's cancer diagnosis by diving into the realm of Ben Edwards, an English music star. As they followed his band, Secret Oktober, they soon entered a world of love, obsession, secrets, drugs, and death. As an adult, Nicole is haunted by her past, come back to life when her daughter is abducted; she's also forced to face the music of her lost love. Jones uses time jumps to slowly reveal Nicole and Cassie's twisted history, keeping readers on their toes while they try to uncover the villain. VERDICT Those nostalgic for the music of the '80s, intrigued by a spiraling plot, and mesmerized by star-crossed lovers will enjoy uncovering the tragedy of Secret Oktober and the band's biggest fans.--Sarah Braun
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A young woman falls in love with a British pop star only to become entangled in an explosive situation involving deceit, drugs, murder, and the tragic delusions of her younger sister. Londoner Nicole Forbes loves the quiet life she and her Navy SEAL husband built in the sunny seaside town of Coronado, California. But when her daughter, Hannah, gets taken out of school one day by a mysterious woman she tells her parents is her "auntie," Nicole fears that the past she tried to outrun more than two decades earlier has returned for a reckoning. In weaving Nicole's first-person, present-tense perspective with one that is third person and past tense, Jones creates a fabulously addictive story about betrayal and retribution. In the 1980s, Nicole and her 16-year-old sister, Cassie, develop independent relationships with Ben Edwards, the lead singer of a hugely popular band named Secret Oktober. While Cassie is a groupie who fights for flirtatious backstage encounters with Ben, Nicole meets him at a bar, where he compliments her for a song she wrote and sang. Unknown to the star-struck Cassie, Nicole and Ben become musical collaborators and then lovers. When salacious news articles about drug parties and women come to light about Ben and his band, Nicole is heartbroken, unaware that Cassie was arrested for participating in one such party. The situation unravels quickly after that when the mysterious drug-related death of a Secret Oktober bandmate forces Ben, Nicole, and Cassie into painful realizations about themselves and each other. Well paced, intelligent, and tightly plotted, this novel will appeal not only to lovers of suspense but anyone with a penchant for stories that explore the fraught relationship between obsessive love and fame. A riveting thriller about people caught up in--and destroyed by--the glitter of fandom. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
