Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 💫 Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 💫 Spice: Closed Door

By Ashley Elston (@ashleyelston)

What an unexpected delight to have this book be my last read of 2023! It is a unique psychological thriller!

Evie Porter is a sweet southern girl who, after a whirlwind romance, has fallen in love with Ryan Sumner, and they are moving in together. She is really into him. The only problem? Evie Porter isn’t real. She’s the most recent in a long line of identities her illusive boss, Mr. Smith, has given her over the years, and Ryan is her most recent mark. Most of her jobs are long cons, where she gets her assignments in small pieces, never being given the whole picture. But, after her last job went wrong, she knew Mr. Smith wasn’t happy, and this was a test. When Evie and Ryan run into Ryan’s old high school friends and his new girlfriend at a party, she is shocked that the woman introduces herself with Evie’s real name, hometown, and other details she has closely guarded. Only her boss could have planted this woman – but to what end? Now, in a game of cat and mouse with her boss, it will take all of her training and instincts to best him.

This is the definition of an unputdownable book. With the jumps between past and present jobs, trying to figure out why a mystery woman was sent to her current job, her boss’s motives, and many other moving parts, you are constantly guessing, and right when I thought I had figured it out, I 100% had not. It’s one of the most fun thrillers I’ve read in a long time.

Many thanks to PRH Audio for the free audiobook. Saskia Maarleveld is superb as the sole narrator, playing the tension and anxiety of the book perfectly.