Excellent psychological thriller by a great author. Keeps you guessing & reading throughout. Ending was disappointing in my opinion & the reason I gave it 4 stars ⭐️ instead of 5. Didn’t like the way it left the entire plot just hanging. 😞

This gripping, addictive, riveting cutthroat wild ride makes you numb for hours! You keep giving empty looks, staying speechless as the whirlwind thoughts occupy your mind!

Another bold, depressing story is coming from Courtney Summers hit you like a sucker punch! Her words make you dizzy, disturbed, flabbergasted, shocked!

This book is telling the ugly realistic Aspera world ruling entire town, wrapping law enforcement around its finger. This is the real, bleak, ruthless, vicious world where only money, power and beauty rule!

Georgia Savis wants to be a part of this world by acting her dead mother’s wishes: she wants to be privileged Asperan girl. She wants to be adored. She wants to glow! She wants to feel the pure love!

But her mother’s words keep repeating in her head: “it’s better to know who you are than who you think you’re meant to be.”

Georgia’s life changes when she gets attacked, left in the middle of the road after she’s found 13 years old Ashley James, raped and brutally killed. The same people committed the murder might be her attackers who not only hit her with their car, they also stole her bike, left her unconscious. And she keeps telling the victim’s father Justin James who is the sheriff and her elder sister Nora: she didn’t see the faces of the perpetrators.

She’s lucky enough to be found and taken care by Chloe-Matthew Hayese who perfectly sit on the throne of Aspera Empire, giving Georgia a summer job that help paying the debts after stealing from her brother.

She thinks if she behaves and earns trusts of Hayeses, the sky is the limit.

But there are still unanswered questions out there: who killed Ashley James? Who stole her intimate photos she planned to use for her modeling career? What secrets are hidden behind the closed doors of Aspera?

Georgia is complex, flawed, struggling character who is way too much naive, allured by the pure beauty, lost, loveless, sad, lonely. Only thing she wants to be cherished, loved unconditionally, kissed, held! You get every right to get angry of her obtuseness, naivety. She created a dreamy world in her head and Aspera is the kingdom of the fairytale she’s written. But when the harsh reality collided into her dreams, only thing she is forced to do is waking up from that dreamy world and accept frightening nightmares of her own life!

This book is thought provoking, sad, intriguing!

I loved the bitter ending! Absolutely another heartbreaking, well executed, impeccably written book from Ms. Summers!

Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/ Wednesday Books for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.