I love stalker stories and Single White Female stories, so the premise of the story intrigued me. This book is a fast read that hooked me immediately, but I wanted a little more from the ending. Overall it’s an entertaining story perfect for the Summer.

This was a really slow start for me. I started and stopped this book on two separate occasions and had a really hard time getting into it...unfortunately for me, this was a DNF at 52%.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Delta is a photographer obsessed with her new clients Amelia and Fritz ... she wiggles herself into all aspects of their lives ... but how long can this obsession last before she is caught or worse ?

➡️this is more of a slow moving suspense than a thriller, but a great study in human psychology
➡️I often tried to guess how this book would end, but was definitely wrong, although I was a bit disappointed in the ending
➡️ I wish we knew a bit more of Delta’s background - why she was so ... disturbed but it wasn’t clear to me why ...

Overall, a little slow but enjoyable

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press and Minotaur Books for an opportunity of read The Photographer

3.5 ⭐️

The Photographer by Mary Dixie Carter is a compelling psychological suspense novel. The female protagonist, Delta Dawn, is a professional family photographer who chronicles social events, like children’s birthday parties, for well-to-do residents of New York City. She describes herself as a documentarian, a director who creates moments in her clients’ lives. She becomes obsessed and invested in the lives of the Straub family—Fritz, Amelia and daughter Natalie---after she photographs Natalie’s 11th birthday party. As Delta inveigles herself into their lives, it becomes apparent that she is an obsessive-compulsive sociopath and has difficulty separating fantasy and reality in her life. At this point, as a reader, I was hooked by the suspense as the tale unfolded.
The story is told in the first person by Delta, and is very effective that way in conveying the inner turmoil of this highly intelligent but very disturbed individual. The members of the family are less fully realized; Amelia, the mother, is portrayed as selfish and shallow, while daughter Natalie is a more sympathetic persona. Fritz is ineffectual.
This novel is well written with good plot movement, suspense, and a strong “creepy” factor that held my interest throughout the plot twists of the story. I will look for future works by Mary Dixie Carter.

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my unbiased review.

Addicting, thrilling and just plain GOOD!! Special thanks to the author, St Martins Press and NetGalley for the review copy!

This suspense filled novel comes out on Tuesday, May 25 and I highly recommend you all read it.

This story is a story of lust, of wanting what others appear to have, of wanting to be loved and appreciated. Sometimes you can create that and other times it falls in front of your face. Can Delta Dawn create her “perfect” life that she’s always wanted or will her lies catch up to her and cheat her of the very thing she wants?

The writing was good, the story was really thought out and the characters were very well developed. I honestly couldn’t put it down.

First, thank you to the publishers at St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for this ARC of The Photographer.

Wow. This book is absolutely crazy, in every way imaginable. Think One Hour Photo meets Obsessed. Delta Dawn, a child photographer, is hired to photograph the Straub’s daughter’s 11th birthday party. This is just the beginning of her obsession with the family.

Written in such a way that you find the narrator unreliable, I was chilled to the bone at how accurate the portrayal of Delta’s character was executed. I was terrified of her. She tells you one thing but you’re not so sure you can actually trust it, and the thing is, you’ll never find out. You have a narrator feeding you lines just as she’s feeding this family.

The relationships between each character was forced, most likely because of how Delta intruded into their lives. The only one that felt organic was between Delta and Natalie, which I enjoyed.

This story is dark and twisted. Delta continues to exert her presence in the Straub’s life, but we are never sure why. You can assume and you can guess, but the reality is never shown. It lies somewhere behind the veil. I felt myself resenting her for not being able to trust us, the audience, with her secrets.

The ending is so twisted, but I did see it coming. I wasn’t surprised, but, I know if I were in a similar situation, I would be disgusted and angry. In essence, The Photographer is a fast paced thriller that will leave you wondering: was any of that actually legal?

If you know me, you know that I love me a good psychological thriller every once in awhile. That’s why I was so excited to receive this eARC of ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʜᴏᴛᴏɢʀᴀᴘʜᴇʀ by ᴍᴀʀʏ ᴅɪxɪᴇ ᴄᴀʀᴛᴇʀ.

This story follows Delta Dawn, a photographer who has found her niche in photographing the wealthy and elite families in New York City. When she is invited to photograph eleven-year-old Natalie Straub’s birthday party, she develops an obsession with the Straub family, and begins to seek out ways to insert herself into their lives in hopes they will accept her as one of their own. Delta manipulates the infertility woes of Fritz and Amelia Straub, the sensitivity of their daughter Natalie, as well as the interactions with others in their lives in order to gain entry into their posh lifestyle.

This book was fast-paced, and easy to get sucked into because you just want to see what lengths Delta will go to to get what she desired. Being in the mind of Delta was so interesting, and the first person narrative really added to the reading experience.

I wished for more details of Delta’s history that would help the reader understand how our main character has developed into the person she is now and what drives her obsession with families such as the Straubs. I felt like it was hinted that there were some historical patterns of behavior for Delta that were never fully explored that could have added to the story.

An easy read for fans of a quick dive into the psyche of characters who leave you feeling a little icky. I will definitely look forward to Mary Dixie Carter’s next novel.

Delta is a photographer and uses her skills to show the parents of the children she photographs the life they want to see. Throughout the story Delta repeatedly tells clients that photography is all about light and how to frame an image to have the desired effect that you want. And that’s exactly what Delta does when she inserts herself into the life of the Straubs. The Straubs, Amelia and Fritz, have one daughter Natalie and are successful architects focusing on creating light open spaces. As Delta forms a new friendship with the family, she learns that Amelia desperately wants another child bringing about an interesting opportunity for Delta to remain a permanent fixture in their lives.

This is definitely a light popcorn thriller read. The pages read very quickly and while I did figure out the main character’s motives and predicted the twist early on I was still interested to read it to see if it might of ended differently (it didn’t).

Thank you @netgalley and @stmartinspress for this eARC in exchange for my honest feedback. Publishes on MAY 25th.

I fought a few battles with this book. First of all, it was a slow start for me. In addition, I found most of the characters in this book completely unlikable. All of this combined to make it difficult for me to invest in the book the way I would have liked to. However, it was an original idea with a strong creep factor. The main character, Delta was flat out crazy. I would have liked more of her back story. It would have helped to understand why she was that way. I feel like we were given snippets of her past but never knew what was real and what was her twisted perception of reality.

Overall, this was a good debut with a creative storyline.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to review this book and the opinions contained within are my own.

addictive psychological thriller and let me tell you it is a crazy, twisted, page turner of a read filled with lies,  secrets and manipulation.

We follow Delta, a photographer  that captures New York City's elite.  Her life begins to change when she is hired to photograph a birthday for  Amelia and Fritz Straub's daughter. Delta begins to emerse herself in the Straub's when she begins babysitting  for their 11 year old daughter Natalie and becoming friends with her mother. While babysitting Delta goes a little too far, snooping into the Straub's life and struggles of having another baby. Delta becomes obsessed with the Straub's and determined to be part of their lives and family. Delta knows she must become a suggoragate for the Straub's, but how far will Delta go to get what she wants?

Ominous, crafty, and compelling!

The Photographer is a cunning, intense thrill ride that highlights just how quickly life can spin out of control when you are lonely and starved for affection, tend to engage in destructive behaviour, are driven by uncontrollable, obsessive tendencies, share in other people’s special moments, and often have easy access to their personal property.

The prose is eerie and dark. The characters are manipulative, deceitful, and consumed. And the plot is a simmering, engrossing tale of power, betrayal, control, obsession, malice, seduction, desire, and jealousy.

Overall, The Photographer is a taut, sinister, solid debut for Carter, and with this kind of imagination, I’m extremely excited to read whatever utterly disturbing tale she manages to come up with next.

Reading Between the Wines book review #58/115 for 2021:
Rating: 4 🍷 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book: The Photographer
Author: Mary Dixie Carter
Genre: General Fiction (Adult)
RELEASES on May 25, 2021!!! GRAB YOUR COPY TODAY!!
Recommended to readers who would like the marriage of Single White Female meets You.

Sipping thoughts: Delta Dawn (cool name, I know right) is definitely the female version of Joe Goldberg from the book You but a little less intense and crazy. Carter writes this book in a way that you feel sorry for Delta rather than enraged or upset. This book takes you on a journey of obsession, love, heartache, and loss with the psychological thrills added.

Cheers and thank you to @NetGalley, @marydixiecarter, @MinotaurBooks and @StMartinsPress for an advanced copy of @ThePhotographer

#MaryDixieCarter #ThePhotographer #StMartinsPress #MinotaurBooks #NetGalley #advancedreadercopy #ARC #Kindle #Booksofinstagram #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #nicoles_bookcellar #bookworm #bookdragon #booknerd #booklover #bookstagrammer #bookaholic #bookreview #bookreviewer #IHaveNoShelfControl #ReadingBetweenTheWines #fiction #generaladultfiction

When I first started reading this book I was thinking this is weird and I am not sure I want to continue reading this. But I did continue and I’m glad I did because the more I read the more it became interesting even though it was still weird. The ending was definitely a surprise.

Thank you to NetGallery for giving me the chance to read this ARC.

When Perfect Images/ Are Made of Beautiful Lies/ The Truth Will Be Exposed

This is the tantalizing tag line of Mary Dixie Carter’s debut novel, The Photographer.

Delta Dawn is a talented children’s photographer, in demand for her services at the moneyed elite set’s children’s birthday parties. After being asked to do photos at Natalie Straub’s birthday party, Delta falls in love with this ideal family of cool, cultural, and sophisticated architects, Fritz and Amelia, along with their precocious daughter. When a babysitter bails last minute, Delta is there to save the day and this begins her campaign to ingratiate herself into the Straub household-and the center of their lives.

Delta is skilled at photography-but also skilled at editing and manipulating pictures to fit her chosen narrative. And it’s not only photos she’s editing. Delta is manipulating people and their basest emotions and will stop at nothing to get what she wants and what she feels is rightfully hers.

This is a somewhat generic thriller that doesn’t really contain any heart-stopping moments or genuine thrills. The characters are a bit wooden and it’s hard to find a hero. Delta is so “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” crazy that it’s almost cartoonish instead of bone-chilling.

It is a fun and quick read that does a slow build that is satisfactory but not altogether satisfying. Overall, it’s “ok” but needs a bit more character development to get our emotions involved.

I love, love, love a strong debut. When you combine it with a creepy hands-on stalker, it gets even better. The Photographer was such a chill fest, and I seriously hope that we see Delta Dawn back for another installment. I can easily see her being a female Joe Goldberg, particularly with the way The Photographer ended. Please, Mary Dixie Carter, let us see more Delta!

I wanted to like this one, I really did. The premise pulled me in but the book just didn't do it for me. I'm not sure where the disconnect was although I suspect it was partly because some of the logic just wasn't there. I mean....who leaves their child with someone they just met because their babysitter flaked? That doesn't make any sense.

3 stars because it was enjoyable in the sense that I didn't feel like I couldn't finish it but overall, just meh.

I really wanted to love this book as there was a lot of buzz about it in my book groups, however I struggled to like any character and the plot seemed slow to me.

The Photographer, by Mary Dixie Carter, tells the story of Delta Dawn, a party photographer that is exceptional at taking pictures of children and families. She meets the Straubs, Amelia and Fritz, and their daughter Natalie, at Natalie's birthday party, and from there attempts to insert herself into their everyday lives. It begins with babysitting Natalie, escalating to house sitting and becoming a surrogate to the couple when they experience secondary infertility. Delta is singularly obsessed with the family, and the lengths that she goes to keep the family in her life is scary, creepy and diabolical, at times. For example, Amelia and Fritz consider adopting a child, and Delta manages to sabotage that by encouraging the birth mother to get back together with her dead beat boyfriend, and allowing Amelia to self-destruct during part of the interview process. Delta is focused on being part of this family, and goes to great lengths to make sure she remains in their lives.

Delta Dawn is an extremely unreliable narrator. I definitely didn't like her, as she was so unreliable and you could tell that she had some sort of mental illness going on. She lied compulsively to the Straubs, and as a reader, it was difficult to know if Delta was lying to the reader too. For example, she talks about a son, Jasper, who you aren't sure exists, and most of the details of her life are completely fabricated. She's a character that you never quite get to know, due to her compulsive lies. At the end, I was questioning if her name was even Delta Dawn, because she had lied about pretty much everything else in her life!

The end did have a twist that I was not at all expecting. Despite the extremely unlikable character of Delta Dawn, I really enjoyed this book. The unreliable narrator served a great purpose, and kept me guessing at everything that Delta did or said. It made for an extremely enjoyable book that certainly kept me on my toes! I'd recommend this book to those who like stories with unreliable narrators (think Gone Girl or Girl on the Train) or those who like domestic thrillers.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was plain creepy, and I couldn't put it down. Delta is a photographer who integrates herself into the life of a family that she was hired to photograph. She befriends Amelia, the cool Brooklyn mom, and moves closer and closer to her family, until she is part of the "family"

As a photographer, Delta wants each moment to be "perfect," even if that means touchups and photoshops, But this spills over to her relationship with the family, and her photoshop magic becomes part of her downfall.

This book is twisty and cringy, with compelling writing, and is a fantastic ride. I wanted Dawn to stop her actions, and yet, I wanted to see what would happen next. The ending leaves the reader hanging a bit, which only adds to the appeal in this case.

This is a fun summer read.

Told from the point of view of Delta Dawn, an accomplished family photographer who invisions herself in the lives of those she photographs. She becomes so obsessed with her recent clients that she manipulates the situation and inserts herself into the family. She sees a need and she fills it. Babysitter, sure! Pick up dry cleaning, yup! Water plants while we are away, she’s your gal! The most unbelievable part is that after she photographs their daughter's birthday they trust her enough to do all these other things, even giving her a key to their house. If you can get past that, the story takes you for a ride of deep obsession and strange behavior.
Overall, a wild ride inside the mind of an obsessive person. We get glimpses of her life before but never answers which left me a tad unsatisfied. A great quick read and that I would recommend.