About the Book:

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish.

Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity’s recollection of the night their family was forever altered.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already-grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.

Published by Hachette Australia – Sphere

Released 25^th January 2022

My Thoughts:

Verity was first published in 2018 as an eBook and has only just become available worldwide in paperback. In between this, it has exploded into an internet sensation and made Colleen Hoover the biggest star on BookTok – TikTok but about books. I don’t follow it, but I know about it. I have read Colleen Hoover for a long time now, starting back when she was still exclusively self-publishing. I only reviewed another of her new release’s mere weeks ago. She is prolific and enormously talented. I said in that last review I wrote, that I had never yet met a Colleen Hoover book I hadn’t read in a day and here I am again: I started Verity at breakfast and was finished by mid-afternoon. So. Readable.

Verity is different to Colleen’s usual style and genre, but this just goes to show her skill as a writer, working within a completely different genre and absolutely nailing it. This novel is a twisting, unsettling, violent, creepy, sinister, sexy, psychologically mind-bending read that fully consumed me. I could not put it down. My daughter read it before me and devoured it in a day. With shades of Gillian Flynn blending with classics along the lines of Jane Eyre and Rebecca, our protagonist finds herself uncovering a story so horrifying, it beggars’ belief, and of course, all the while, she’s in a house in a remote area, falling for a grieving man…utter perfection.

‘It’s what you do when you’ve experienced the worst of the worst. You seek out people like you…people worse off than you…and you use them to make yourself feel better about the terrible things that have happened to you.’

The twist at the end to cast doubt over all that had come before only confirmed to me that my theory on Verity was correct. In other words, I didn’t fall for the twist. I still think she’s utterly deranged, but I’m happy to debate on it with you if you feel otherwise. Highly recommended.

☕☕☕☕☕

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.