In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson

Woman tries to protect her family after a home invasion ends with her daughter in a coma.

Hey, it’s Diego.

It’s officially too hot to do anything but read books by the pool.

Here are the thrillers on my TBR list that have a summer theme.

And my review of In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson.

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Book cover for Every Fall by Angela Douglas

When a young couple escapes the dangers of their crime-ridden neighborhood, they think they’ve found safety, until eerie visions, buried trauma, and a tragic loss unravel their sanity.

Every Fall by Angela Douglas is a chilling domestic thriller about the haunting cost of toxic masculinity, where the greatest threat to a mother and her children may be the man sworn to protect them.

Summer Beach Thrillers

Summer Camp Vibes

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager is on my list of summer camp psychological thrillers about a young woman who returns to her childhood summer camp to uncover the truth about a tragedy that happened there fifteen years ago.

Idyllic Location

Wish You Were Her by JE Rowney is one I mentioned as a new release a couple of weeks ago. Set in Aruba, we follow Samantha as she receives an unexpected message from an old friend, prompting her to join him after her life falls apart. But not everything is as it seems.

Family Vacation Gone Wrong

I’ve covered Just the Nicest Family by Alison James before, about a holiday that goes terribly wrong for a family when an unknown person turns up dead in the villa they are staying in the south of France.

In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson – Review

Ava is living an enviable life with great kids and a husband who is able to provide a house in an upper-class neighborhood. This all changes when they are the target of a house invasion. Now her younger daughter is in the hospital with a bullet wound, and her husband has taken a beating. Things turn for the worse when she finds out this was no random attack and the perpetrators are back to finish the job.

Trigger Warnings: Violence, murder, infidelity, sexual assault, drugs.

In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson is a domestic thriller set primarily in a family home and a hospital.

Domestic thrillers: a subgenre of psychological thrillers set in a single location, focused on the unstable minds of characters, exploring perception, reality, and psychological tension, often leaving readers questioning what’s real. The emphasis is on internal conflict and mental unraveling rather than external action.

Alderson’s writing is purposeful and effortless.

We follow a single point of view throughout a single timeline as Ava drives the plot.

Ava is a proactive character, and given that the plot is about dealing with a crisis after another, this results in a very interesting read. If anything, the only issue I had was that I had to suspend my disbelief too much as to what Ava was able to do as a normal mum towards the end of the book, when the crises got a bit ridiculous.

The themes are about being a good parent and the sacrifices each one has to make to keep the ones you love safe.

There is little romance in the story and no spiciness. There are no scenes of graphic violence, but there is swearing.

So, what about the ending? (No spoilers obviously)

I love my stories to wrap up nicely, with a neat little bow at the end. I like to read a cathartic scene where everything our characters have been through finally pays off physically and emotionally. Then a denouement in another chapter (or chapters) following the characters decompress where things are resolved and I’m left delighted at how well things played out at the end, every plot thread resolved.

The ending wrapped things up pretty nicely. The denouement didn’t close all the loops, though.

In Her Eyes has climbed up to my top 4. It gets a bit corny towards the end, but it was marvelously plotted and kept me engaged throughout. Definitely check it out.

Similar Books to In Her Eyes

  • I Will Find You by Harlan Coben

This Week’s Finds

New Releases

  • The Couple Before Us by Daniel Hurst is about a couple who move into a new home only to find out that something terrible happened to the couple that lived there before. Except nobody should have lived there before. Are they safe?

  • The Reunion by Sonya Bateman where a body is discovered during a fifteen-year high school reunion.

Thriller News

Marked Down

  • The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak: At his daughter’s New Hampshire wedding, Frank realizes something is very, very wrong with her fiancé’s filthy rich family…

  • The Unseen Neighbor by Kate Bold: Suburban wife Eliza Bennett’s orderly life within the manicured lawns of her quiet community is thrown into chaos when she discovers her husband’s duplicity. But do his lies have anything to do with a series of missing people?

That’s all for this week. See you next time.

— Diego Dunne

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