What a stunning debut! This had everything a good psychological thriller should have; An original plot, chapters packed with suspense and interesting characters.

Synopsis:

Dr Daniel Ashcroft was perfect: handsome, romantic, protective. I thought I was so lucky.

But then I heard the rumors about his previous girlfriend, that she had vanished without a trace. That’s when I found the cameras in my apartment.

I was trapped. Daniel made it clear I couldn’t leave him, not without risking everyone I loved. I had to disappear, so I arranged my own kidnapping.

I should have known Daniel would never let me get away that easily. But he could never have predicted what I’d do next…
……………..

This was a real page-turner. And the ending was absolutely perfect! I never could have guessed it, and know many readers will love it as well. I also liked the chapters from Daniel’s POV. You really get into his head and how his view of the world shapes the life of his wife. It just shows how deranged a mind can be from the outside, at the same time that you get the logic when you discover the whole thought process the person has. In his world, everything he did made perfect sense, but from the wife’s view she felt controlled and manipulated. I simply loved this aspect of the book, it was very well done and convincing.

I highly recommend this book, and hope the author will write more books.

Thanks to Netgally and bookouture for this ARC in exchange for my honest review

well written with a gripping plotline and characters that were well developed and believable. Twisty and unpredictable it kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat.

Story very well written, captivating mystery, fascinating characters, I couldn’t put it down.

I am voluntarily reviewing a copy I received free from the author.

A Seemingly Perfect Man…
Dr Daniel Ashcroft, a seemingly perfect man. Noelle, his girlfriend, now sees Daniel for what he actually is. A controller, an abuser and quite possibly something more. She’s scared for herself and for the family she has left and would do anything to protect them. The more she learns, the more she knows she needs to act. And so, she does. Immersive psychological suspense with a sharp edge, well crafted characters and a solid narrative.

Daniel is a controlling boyfriend, and Noelle wants a way out of this relationship, so she hires a company to kidnap her.

There are a couple problems I have with this story. The main part being the kidnapping itself. If you truly want to disappear from an abusive spouse and kidnapping is the option, you would purposefully leave some kind of evidence that you were kidnapped, so your abusive spouse doesn’t think you just walked out on them. I don’t understand going through the whole ruse of a fake kidnapping, only to hire a company that specifically will not kidnap you in public. She literally wastes a thousand dollars by hiring someone to kidnap her at the apartment, rather than just hiring an uber to drop her off somewhere???

Next is the private investigator nonsense. She hires a PI to check things about her husband, but when her husband hires a PI from the same company to check on his wife, they say oh yeah! She’s emailed us asking about you and here is all the correspondence. What the hell? If you know Daniel is abusive, why are you telling him that his wife hired them to look into him? Is this not a giant breach of confidentiality?

Now to the actual plot, we are promised a plot twist that you don’t see coming, and that is the only thing that kept me reading, because nothing interesting was happening for the last 50% of the book. This plot twist can be guessed from very early on, and if you don’t see what is happening right in front of you, I don’t know what to say lol. Very disappointed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

"Make Me Disappear" is a debut novel by Jessica Payne. It stars Noelle who falls into a abusive relationship with her boyfriend Dr. Daniel Ashcroft: A raging sociopath. She feels like she in such a bottomless pit that she can't escape that her only option is to stage her own kidnapping.

What results in a great phycological thriller..... For a debut novel this book is excellently written and well paced. The first half is a back in forth in time with both Noelle and Daniel to where it settles to present time where it once again goes back and forth. Character development is outstanding and we both feel for both Noelle and her situation as well as jump deep into Daniel's mindset. Honestly, his chapters were awesome! He is truly a world class sociopath and it's almost chilling to read his part. As Noelle attempt to get ahead of things she meets up with a unlikely ally and they slowly plot their revenge against Daniel.

Their aren't too many negatives to this book. You do have to suspend a little belief at some things (the kidnapping(s) and while there were some great twists I figured out the main one. Although I think Jessica Payne nailed the ending it was still a little lackluster.

But overall this is a great thriller and recommended. I love it when we get great debut books and have another author to look forward too.

added to goodreads at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4637405403

Book was given free for a honest review.

#MakeMeDisappear #NetGalley
UNBELIEVABLE. 5 🌟
What a killer debut. Noelle wants to run away from her abusive so called boyfriend Dr. Daniel Ashcroft who's abusive to her both mentally and physically. He uses his fist to control her. First she thought she found a loving and caring man but slowly she learnt about his previous relationship with a woman who was disappointed without a trace. She started to poke into that matter which resulted in the hidden cameras in her apartment and stalking apps on her laptop and phone. And now she just wants to run away from him but he's threatening her that if she ever tried to leave him, he will hurt her loved ones.
One day sitting in a computer Shop she finds about a website bulld by ex criminals who can kidnap you for some money and so she makes a plan of fake kidnapping but soon she learns that she's entered into another nightmare. What will she do?
I was IMMERSED in the story, both Noelle and Daniel. Although I was more interested in Daniel's story. Till halfway it was fast paced then it became slow but it was ok, it was the story's requirement.
If you ignore that big jump at 1/3 and 1/2 of this book then this book is definitely for you.
Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for giving me an advance copy.

The debut game is strong with this one! I read this book in one sitting as I was totally invested in the story from the first page.

Noelle is desperate to break free from her controlling boyfriend, Dr. Daniel Ashcroft. He hasn't gotten physically abusive yet, but he controls her with an iron fist. There are cameras in her house, a keystroke app on her computers and phone...there is little that Noelle can do that Daniel won't find out about. He loves to make comments about the high mortality rate in pregnant women, which Noelle takes as a threat against her pregnant cousin. Because she fears him hurting her loved ones, Noelle doesn't leave him.

She eventually becomes so desperate to escape that when she goes into an Internet cafe one day to browse anonymously, she stumbles onto something so crazy, so desperate, that it just may work. An extreme kidnapping site, run by ex-felons who have experience and will do whatever the customer pays for, is her ticket out. She'll flee the state and will send word to her pregnant cousin when it's safe. She pays, she anxiously waits, and sure enough, one night she's in her bedroom when she hears the front door open. A masked man grabs her and puts her in the trunk of his car. Her relief soon turns to terror when she hears several voices, and they are talking about "scaring her a little" and then "turning her over" to 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭.

Has Noelle run from one bad situation into one that is infinitely worse? I could not believe the twists and turns this story took, and the chapters from Daniel's POV were so vile, I wanted to scream. The character development is stellar, and the plot races along with absolutely no filler; everything is integral to the story. I absolutely can't wait to see what she come up with next!

I always read the author's notes at the end of a book, and this struck me to my core: 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒔𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒖𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒔...𝒕𝒐 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑵𝒐𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒂 𝒏𝒆𝒈𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝒊𝒔𝒏'𝒕 𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒍𝒚 𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒌, 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒏.

Definitely familiarize yourself with the trigger warnings before you read. A huge thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for this ARC.

Noelle should have known that Dr. Daniel Ashcroft is too good to be true. He was the perfect boyfriend, or so she thought. Once Noelle found out about Daniel’s previous girlfriend had disappeared with no trace she started to poke around. That’s when she found hidden cameras in her apartment and it was clear that something was definitely wrong. Daniel made it clear that Noelle was now trapped and if she left him she would risk everyone she loves. How will Noelle escape this situation?

MAKE ME DISAPPEAR was a brilliant debut from new author Jessica Payne. She created a great story that kept a fast pace from the beginning to the end. It was very easy to like the lead character and root for her to beat this impossible situation that she found herself in. So many twists and turns this one will have your head spinning! Another great title from Bookouture!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This review will be posted to my Instagram Blog (@coffee.break.book.reviews) in the near future.

Have mixed feelings about this one, It started out really good and I was invested in Noelle's attempt to get herself safely away from her abusive boyfriend with an ingenious plan. But it suffered from too many complications and became less and less clear and believable. I believe it is first novel so would read her again and see how the author evolves over time 3.5

i wasn't keen on this book at all i'm afraid, it looked really good from the description but when i started it my opinion changed, i did see it through to the end but it just didn't jump out at me!

The beginning of this book hooked me immediately. I'm normally the kind of thriller fan who loves twist after twist, but in this case, it might have been too much.

About a third of the way into the story, the plot jumped around so much that I felt a bit of whiplash and couldn't keep up with who was good, who was bad, and who was lying or betraying someone else. About halfway through the book, it felt more distracting than intriguing.

There were so many interesting elements of this story, but the pacing felt a little out of control. I would have loved more tension and clarity so that the twists had a bigger impact.

Holy crapitola!!! This book grabbed my face with the first few lines and never let go!!! I devoured the entire book in mere hours! I am freaking obsessed with the alternating chapters told in first person. I’m obsessed with Daniel’s chapters being in first and second person perspectives. There are so many little mysteries that unraveled and unpacked slowly over the course of the entire book! I cannot believe that this is Jessica Payne’s first novel! It’s phenomenal!!! Her writing style is amazing and everything just flowed so well!!!