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Thursday 17 October 2019

Book Review ~ The Rival by Charlotte Duckworth



 ✨✨ Happy Publication Day ✨✨ 


Quercus
17 October 2019

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

NOW

Living in her home in the remote countryside - the perfect place to get away from it all - Helena is a career woman with no job and a mother without a baby. She blames Ashley for destroying her life. But is what happened really Ashley's fault?

THEN

When Helena hires Ashley to work for her, she's startled but impressed by her fierce ambition. They form a dream team and Helena is proud - maybe this is the protégée she's always wanted to have? But soon Helena realizes that nothing will stand in the way of Ashley's drive to get to the top. And when Helena becomes pregnant, everything she has worked so hard for is suddenly threatened, with devastating consequences...

What did I think about it..

Ashley really, really wants the life that Helena has and is determined to get exactly what she wants and the way she tries to get what she wants forms the basis of this clever, psychological suspense novel, which has all the elements needed to keep your attention absolutely gripped from start to finish.

Helena hires Ashley to work for her and at first everything seems to be going well. Ashley's fierce ambition, whilst it doesn't exactly endear her to her colleagues, means that the company goes from strength to strength however, pretty soon substantial cracks start to appear in the partnership and it becomes obvious that there will only be one winner. I've never worked for a corporate company so haven't experienced that cut throat environment where rivalry dominates but the author describes the claustrophobic nature of working as part of a competitive team really well so that I was soon engrossed in the backroom shenanigans. The story moves along at a cracking pace and the tension is invariably cranked up really high especially when the rivals really start to affect each other's work/life balance.

The story is divided well into THEN and NOW and we get the differing points of view of both Helena and Ashley which adds a clever ambiance and which kept my attention focused. I read The Rivals in a couple of sittings as I couldn't put the book down and I wanted to see exactly how it would all play out. I wasn't disappointed by the outcome.😊



Charlotte Duckworth has spent the past fifteen years working as an interiors and lifestyle journalist, writing for a wide range of consumer magazines and websites. She lives in Surrey with her partner and their young daughter. 


Twitter @charduck

@QuercusBooks





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