This was not my favorite thriller, unfortunately. I thought the premise was strong, but as I got to know Eli's character, I found that I wasn't invested in her rescue. This read a little too unrealistic and I didn't care for the writing style.

Number One Fan is advertised as for fans of Misery. Go straight to Misery, do not go to page 1.

Bestselling novelist Eli Grey gets in the wrong ride-share and is offered a drink. With the trust of paid drivers, she thirstily drinks it down and falls asleep from all the travel. But when she wakes up chained to a bed, God knows where she realizes she has been drugged. Though he has not raped her, she has been bathed and clothes chained, a violation in itself. As with many of these kinds of crimes, she has met her captor in passing. But what does he want? Her or her work? If she could remember her captor, she could figure things out.

This book is not well written. With no introduction, readers don't know or care about the main character. Eventually, readers are told that she is horrible to people and we should forgive her because she grew up mistreated and in foster care, We are only scared to the amount that we see ourselves in Eli. And it takes about half the book to get to the actual story and what is actually going on. This is an interesting twist but didn't make up for the slow pacing and switching third-person views quickly, sometimes as fast as a paragraph.

The good thing here is the highlight of convention violence. This is so intrinsic to the culture that the mantra “cosplay does not mean consent” had to be created. I have been to some big conventions and most often things are safe and friendly but sometimes women are attacked and or young attendees are played upon. The book also brings to light that it isn't just con goes who perpetuate harassment and assault. Even “stars” and “celebrities” can be predators. When this comes out, careers are ruined. Just look to The Expanse for a recent and relevant instance.

I didn't like the book itself at all. This idea has been done many times before and is much better. I give it props, though, for looking at convention violence.

Publication Date: August 30

I received an ARC from the publisher; all opinions are my own,

I am notoriously picky about stories like this, but this one sucked me in and just wouldn't let me go. It sits really comfortably between horror and thriller and asks a lot of interesting questions about stories. I understand the comparisons to Misery, but I found it to be really different, actually (I've read some terrible thriller rip-offs of it and this is not that, it looks at writing, fame, and fandom in a much more modern and realistic context). I also really appreciate that you can tell this was written by someone really familiar with fandom and book communities... the questions and conflicts within rang really true to me. I would recommend this to readers looking for thrillers with complex female characters that are high on suspense and interrogate larger societal issues.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today.


It is crazy when you think about it. We grow up being told not to talk to strangers, not to accept rides from anyone we don’t know, don’t eat any food or drink anything that we can’t trust. Yet here we are riding in Ubers and spending time on social media conversing with complete strangers.

Eli Grey will live to regret not being more cautious. Ever since her series of books about Millicent and magic have exploded on the screen and bookshelves, she’s a celebrity. Nothing like Beyonce, but amongst her fans, she’s big. Of course she’s going to have fans who love her and trolls who don’t. She’s a very private person, but knows the game. Her assistant Joe is probably the person she is closest to, and she pays him.

When Eli embarks on a tour to promote her books, she is out there amongst the fans and detractors. After an appearance in one city, she takes a small plane to the California desert for another appearance. Having ordered a rideshare to get to her destination, she just hops in when a man appears to drive her. Next thing she knows, she wakes up in a basement chained to a bed. With very few people checking up on her, will anyone ever notice that she’s gone missing?

While this is a cautionary tale for all of us, it is more than that. It is a thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering if Eli will be able to survive what is ahead of her. What does this man want from her? The book is riveting. Eli is one tough cookie, but her captor is one absolute nut job. You can’t reason with crazy.

I know Meg Elison has a following for her incredible writing. I now know why. This book was exceptionally well written. It was impossible for me to put down, and I stayed up way past my bedtime finishing it.

It's hard to live up to the master, Stephen King.

And this didn't do it.

This tried really hard to be a gender swap of Misery.....and sadly failed.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book, to me, would the nightmare of anyone. This book was about how a deranged person, decides to recreate his career by stealing someone else’s identity. He was very systematic about his he wanted to become Eli Grey. He was very proactive and thought about all the things he needed to have in place to begin his takeover. His downfall, he did not know how much of a fighter Eli was. Whereas he thought he would break her spirit quickly to fit the mold he wanted, he found Eli was not going to break easily. What proceeded to happen was how Eli displayed this fighting spirit and was not going to let some low life ruin her. This book was excellent. I had to read in one sitting in order to find out what happened. And people wonder why I, personally, read these books….I will to be a victim.

When Stephen King wrote Misery it was billed as horror, but to me he walked a fine line between the horror fiction he was known for and what we've come to know as the thriller/suspense genre. He did it masterfully - of course, as he pretty much does everything - and it's a book I've reread as a result.

Ellison's writing is billed as a suspense/thriller novel, yet comes across way more as horror - and in a way that, had I been aware of, meant I likely would not have requested this one. The torture was graphic. And brutal. I didn't expect it, especially straight away, and it made me cringe and dread turning pages. I get that this is a twisted story of obsession, and perhaps I'm just too old or timid to enjoy reading the explicit ways that played out because it turned me off fairly early on. I wanted more psychological and less physical engagement - emphasizing the obsession less in a serial killer way and more in a "number one can" way. Even the psychological here was basically all creepy sexual psychology, and it made my skin crawl.

Perhaps that is what Ellison was going for - if so, she succeeded in spades. But when you write a story that is basically a gender flip of a classic thriller, you have to expect comparisons to that earlier book - and where King used nuance to paint his character as crazy, she went for straight up physical demonstrations of it. It meant a much more graphic read than I wanted or expected, and that's where it lost me. It just wasn't a good fit for me..

This book jumps immediately into the action and takes off at a quick pace. If you've read the synopsis, you know exactly what you are getting here. However, the story doesn't just focus on the crime/danger happening. It spends a lot of time on past events and lots of details about the author character's novels and those fictional books and plotlines. Almost as if this author (Meg Elison) would have rather written those fictional books instead. There is a lot of jumping around in timelines and perspectives that I found to be confusing, and at many times, hard to follow. After a quick and interesting start, the book just seemed to lose its way. It just wasn't for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing/MIRA for the ARC.

Eli Grey isn't a particularly likable person. She has almost no friends or family and keeps people at a distance. But she is a well-known author with a very large fan base. When she gets into what she assumes is her ride share, she wakes up shackled and in an unknown location, kidnapped by perhaps her number one fan.
Unlike Stephen King's Misery, her captor wants more than Eli's words. He wants her life and he just might be crazy enough to get it. The worst part, besides Eli's ordeal( which BTW was no walk in the park), is the fact that she fears because of her isolated and lonely life, that no one is looking for her.
Without getting into spoiler details, this was a ride on the cray cray train. I thought it would end one way, but, Eli's captor takes the crazy up an additional notch. When I finished, my first thought was I wonder which authors will blurb this book and if it gave any of them nightmares.

Somewhat similar to "Misery," but with the roles reversed and not as gripping. Eli isn't very likeable, and I had a difficult time connecting with her. There's too much focus on the past vs. the craziness of the crime/capture. I wasn't expecting the political and social issues, and that turned me off a bit. I struggled to stay engaged, which is sad as I was looking forward to this one.

This book was just too much like Stephen King’s “Misery,” but with a reversal of gender roles.

Bestselling author Eli Grey arrives at the airport and gets into a rideshare. She is exhausted and hot and is grateful when the driver tells her there is a cold drink in the cup holder. She downs half of it. Big mistake. Next thing she knows she awakens chained to a cot. Kidnapped by her Number One Fan.

The first few chapters were intense, but then it fizzled out. Some of the writing had me shaking my head. Example: Her captor throws urine on Eli and shortly after that she feels a UTI coming on. What? The transitions from present to past were not smooth.

I did like Eli’s assistant Joe. I enjoyed how he took charge and was persistent in trying to find Eli even when no one believed him.

Great premise but the writing just did not carry through.

I received an advance copy from the published. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

I got this as an ARC and I want ot first admit that I am biased. I love Meg Elison. I am a die hard fan, not in the way the antagonist is a fan. I just feel like she is one of the greats of our generation and I would love to get coffee sometime. But not in a creepy way.

I love the way she frames gender/sexuality and makes it fluid, like it needs to be.
Her last book was so realistic I felt like she had lived it. Like NO ONE can know what that is like if they haven't lived it, yet she nailed it. I made the library order copies of her books because I needed to be able to hand them to people looking for recommendations.
She does the same here.
This book had me on the edge of my seat worried like crazy for our protagonist. I was worried for Joe too.
I am still wondering what happened to the 18 year old runaway.
Seeing the mindset of the antagonist was so creepy I may never recover. So thanks for that.

Every bad thing that happened had me cringing in sympathy. Anyway, definitely read this. If I were still working for the library I would be recommending it already.

I love a good suspense and read a ton of them. The burb for this book looked great and I loved the setup and the characters, and really the plot too. But the execution left a lot to be desired for me. It was incredibly graphic and I did not expect the torture to be so explicitly described. So more than suspense, this felt like straight up horror, and torture porn. Which is not something I enjoy.

On her way to a speaking engagement, bestselling novelist Eli Grey gets into a Lyft and accepts a drink from the driver, trusting that everything is fine. She wakes up chained in the stranger’s basement. With no close family or friends expecting her to check in, Eli knows she needs to save herself. She soon realizes that her abduction wasn’t random, and though she thinks she might recognize her captor, she can’t figure out what he wants. Her only clues are that he’s very familiar with her books and deeply invested in the fantastical world she creates.

Number One Fan is a horror novel, filled with violence and profanity. The female protagonist is unlikeable, and her adversary, Leonard Lobovich, is either insane or just plain evil. I love thrillers and romantic suspense, and mistakenly thought this book was in this genre because Harlequin/Mira is the publisher. If you like horror novels, this may be for you. There is no romance in this story, but it does provide a behind-the-scenes look at a writer’s life in this MeToo era.

I received an advance review copy (ARC) from NetGalley for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

I didn't get halfway through the book before I was bored. It felt like Stephen King's Misery to me.

I wish there had been more about the crime and how she found herself in the situation, but it was just about her prior books.

Unfortunately, this was one I could not finish.

It's been awhile since I've read a psycho hostage story. This one's a good one..,lots of good backstory revealed and a scary captor. New to me author.

I smashed this book in a day. Leonard was such a righteous creepfest, I just had to see what he was going to do next...

...and he never disappointed.

Great book, great writing, and great characters.

Thank you to the publisher for gifting me a copy. It is my pleasure to write an honest review.

Yes yes yes!! there aren't many time that I have the ability to just sit and read something from start to finish but this one I couldn't put down. once I started there was no way I wasn't going to finish it. this is my first book by this author and I will definitely be keeping my eye out for more of meg elison's work.

I really wanted to like this based on the cover. Also someone I know really really liked it. Unfortunately I did not enjoy the writing style and found the story to be boring. It dragged for most of it.