The Vixen Amber Halloway is Carol LaHines’s addition to the ever-growing microgenre of “good for her” literary thrillers. The story itself is told from the perspective of Ophelia, a former Dante scholar imprisoned for a nebulous crime involving her ex-husband and the woman that, in Ophelia’s eyes, caused the downfall of her marriage. Told in a series of short vignettes, the reader follows Ophelia as her marriage crumbles and she spirals further and further into a state of obsession, jealousy, and rage.

Several things were going on here that I enjoyed, as well as a couple of other aspects of the novel that didn’t work as well for me. For one, LaHines did a great job integrating literary allusion into the text. Ophelia’s academic interest in divine and medieval punishment and her specialization in Dante’s work are mirrored quite effectively in her own journey into the subconscious and the unraveling of her sanity. It’s also a pretty fast-paced book and the writing style fosters this in a way that kept me on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what Ophelia would do next. It’s not told in a purely linear, chronological style, and skipping back and forth between Ophelia and Andy’s marriage, Ophelia’s time in prison, and all of the moments in between revealed important information when it would be most effective.

However, I found myself rather let down by the ending, and the novel's tendency to drag in the middle made its mere 200 pages still feel too long. If you’re going to write a “good for her” thriller from the perspective of the jilted and borderline-psychopathic ex-wife, go all in! The ending felt like a bit of a cop-out, not necessarily in line with Ophelia’s perspective on her crime. I can also see that LaHines was trying to integrate aspects of Ophelia’s childhood into the story in order to give her a more complex psychological background, but even by the 20% mark I was tired of Ophelia’s repetitive musings on abandonment and her thoughts on her mother leaving her as a child. There is a lot of soliloquizing throughout, and to have Ophelia be SO aware of the damage that this abandonment did for her psychologically ends up feeling a bit out of line with the otherwise aloof and unreliable tone. There’s also something to be said for subtlety—the links between Ophelia being abandoned by her mother and then cheated on/left by Andy feel less impactful when the narrator herself explicitly makes this comparison at every given chance.

This could have been a great short story or novella if some elements were tightened up a bit. I would still recommend it as a quick and engaging thriller with some interesting academic perspectives, although it's not necessarily adding anything new to the genre.

Thank you to NetGalley and Regal House Publishing for the e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

this book started good and I was curious to see where it would go however there were some things that did not live up to the expectations


some parts were repetitive and it got boring. i still wanted to see what would happen so kept on reading.

the ending felt really flat; everything seemed so rushed with the hostage situation and the trail and everything.

i wish we could see more of the characters and their mental state, especially the FMC

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

As much as I wanted to like this book--the premise and the fact that the main character lives in the world of academia made me primed to be interested--I couldn't get into the book, even though it wasn't very long. The repetition from the narrator made things feel redundant, as opposed to feeling intentional for a particular reason (even with the unreliable narrator). The beginning moved too slowly for me to hang in there.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. I was completely glued to this story. My heart went out to the MC. I could feel her anguish and heartbreak. The author did a great job of putting you in the shoes of the one being mistreated and embarrassed while hubby is galavanting around with zero remorse. But then there is a shift and things get wild... I can't give spoilers, but I recommend everyone read this. I absolutely couldn't put this book down!

This is an enjoyable enough thriller, but it doesn't really reinvent the wheel. There's not much I can say beyond "it kept my attention", and while there are certainly worse things for a book to be, I don't have strong enough feelings to go out of my way to recommend it. The frequent timeline jumps were jarring, and I'm growing tired of the trend in women's thriller fiction to emphasize the mental illness of the unreliable narrator (it's just getting tired at this point), but I did find the plot engaging and the writing was competent enough to keep me from getting frustrated or distracted. I don't have high praise for this book, but I don't have too many critiques, either. I expect fans of the genre will enjoy it - and, disclosure of bias, I'm not a huge thriller reader, so it does take more for a book to hook me than it might for true fans of this type of book.

I originally DNFd this book a few months ago, but decided to give it another try. My reading experience didn't go any better the second time. I love a good unhinged female story, but this one was unoriginal and the writing was horrible. There was so much repetition of the same information (the main character mentioned her mother's abandonment almost 15 times by chapter 28) and the author must have expected the reader to have a dictionary on hand because there were way too many words I had to look up their meaning. I honestly don't like leaving bad reviews, but I didn't like this one at all.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me an early copy of this book.
Wow what a book I raced through this story devouring every word. Such beautiful writing that really conjured up the feelings of this unreliable narrator. We are aware from the start what we are dealing with in terms of her actions and the consequences but you can't help feeling sorry for her and getting dragged along for the ride.

This was a quick and fun read- told mostly from recollections of the main character, Ophelia. She was cheated on by her husband, Andy and it kind of spirals down into her obsessively stalking her husband and the mistress. Some childhood abandonment trauma from her mother comes up throughout the book.

Overall this was a great read and would definitely recommend!

Carol LaHines successfully wrote a compelling look inside the mind of a woman’s spiral into obsession and chaos. I found myself invested in putting together what led this woman to commit murder, and the “prison confessional style” kept it fresh and addictive.
I do feel it would excel more as a novella, as parts felt overwritten, or longer than they needed to be. A more ambiguous and sick ending would have felt more symbolic in my opinion.
That being said, the prose is enveloping and rich, with the sentence level craft feeling poetic but unsettling at the same time. Working in and out of second person is challenging and I was impressed with how well it was done.
I easily think this will be a new favorite for many readers who enjoy a good “feral woman mental breakdowns” fiction novel, with a less dark energy akin to “A Certain Hunger” by Chelsea G Summers or “Animal” by Lisa Taddeo. While it didn’t floor me in the same way, I will definitely be recommending this to others.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ ½
Genre: Mystery Thriller

When Ophelia finds out that her husband, Andy, has been cheating on her with a coworker named Amber Halloway, she is devastated and filled with anger and grief. As Ophelia's anger and hurt consume her, she makes the decision to follow the two lovers and carefully watch their every move. Andy's betrayal reawakens the trauma of her mother abandoning her when she was only eight years old. This occurs as Ophelia becomes more and more detached from reality.

This is not a very long book, and despite the fact that there is some repetition in the narration—during which it is important to keep in mind that the narrator is not reliable—it was still an enjoyable book to read. The story keeps going back and forth between the past and present, something I’m not a fan of. But I guess the author’s writing made it work for me, at least most of the time.

As you make your way through the remainder of the book, you will discover that the protagonist's mental health is put in a more precarious position. And all this is due to her deteriorating relationship with her husband. It is important to keep in mind that this book deals with a number of topics that could be extremely upsetting to certain readers, such as obsession, mental breakdown, and betrayal. So just proceed with caution.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book.

"My husband" meets "you"

If you're a fan of either then this is for you! A short book that I could not put down, nicely written and with good use of language.
Opheilia drags you along her spiral into a crazy lady whil she stalks her ex husband. It was a rollacoaster ride with her, from empathising with her to wanting to shake her and tell her shes crazy! The character was an educated individual which made the craziness even crazier, she was an intelligent lady which is reflected in the lamguage she uses. You can't help but like her, she's in no way an unlikable character although her actions are questionable, and does have a sense of humor too, my favourite line being "Im sorry, but you're giving me a headache" when her ex is tied up and "waffling"

The way the book is written is all from her head, recalling events and trauma, there isn't much dialogue, only her recollection and her side of the story. It was an interesting and different read, which I really enjoyed

This isn't a long book and was an enjoyable read. It was interesting being in the mind of an unreliable narrator while they are having a mental breakdown, I just don't feel like there was any mystery or tension to the story and it needed that.

3.75 rounded up for goodreads purposes

listen do i agree with what ophelia did? no. would i also go absolutely feral if my husband cheated on me with a hotter woman half my age? yeah probably.

a new one for the weird book girlies. getting into the brain of someone who needs intensive therapy is always a wild ride and this didn’t disappoint.

the dog was unwarranted though. and i understand hearing about ophelia’s past to explain maybe why she overreacted but i feel like it would’ve packed a bigger punch if it was left more ambiguous.

thank you to netgalley & the publishers for the ARC!

Ophelia, a professor of Dante, is stricken when she discovers that her husband Andy has been cheating on her with a winsome colleague. What follows is Ophelia’ s figurative descent into hell as she obsessively tracks her subjects, performs surveillance in her beat-up Volvo, and moves into the property next door to Amber’ s, which has gone into foreclosure. She spies on the lovers, growing more and more estranged from reality. Andy’ s betrayal reawakens the earlier trauma of abandonment by her mother at the age of eight. When Andy and Amber become engaged, Ophelia snaps. The story is a jailhouse confessional, a dark comedy, an oeuvre of women’ s rage, a suspenseful revenge fantasy, and a moving portrait of one woman’ s psychological breakdown.

I really enjoyed this story from start to finish. Will recommend to others.

📚 PRE-PUBLICATION BOOK REVIEW 📚

The Vixen Amber Halloway
By Carol LaHines
Publication Date: June 11, 2024
Publisher: Regal House Publishing

📚MY RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

📚MY REVIEW:

I haven't heard a lot about this book...But after devouring it in just a few hours, I genuinely don't know why not!

This was absolutely captivating - I simply couldn't put it down. In the opening paragraph, our narrator talks about others questioning her sanity because she spied on her estranged husband and his lover from a tree. She then mentions the eight spiral notebooks she filled with details learned over three months of her spying on them from the basement of the foreclosed house next door.

Me: "One ticket to Crazytown please."

Our main character, Ophelia, brings a whole new meaning to the notion of an unreliable narrator. This book is, quite literally, a portrait of the psychological breakdown of a woman scorned. Told from Ophelia's perspective, the reader gets a behind-the-curtain look at the way her childhood trauma, her memories of happier times with her husband, and her increasingly obsessive thoughts, all weave together to result in the chaos that becomes this unhinged revenge story.

Lahines created such depth to Ophelia, I felt everything: from empathy, to shock, to sadness, and even - at times - a little bit of vindication, for her experiences. Though I heavily cringed at some of her obsessive behaviors, there were times I could relate to the emotion that prompted her extreme actions. While I've certainly never done the things Ophelia did, I could recall a time or two when some of her unhingedness might've felt good. 😉

I will say: I think I'm a pretty intelligent person, but having to stop often and look up meanings of unfamiliar words detracted from the story for me. I eventually realized these words were a reflection of Ophelia's professorial mentality in the narrative, but it impacted my flow of reading the book.

If you love a good domestic thriller or revenge plot, this book has to be on your TBR list ASAP. Highly recommend! A big thank you to NetGalley and Regal House for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you for the ARC NetGalley😊
Read from 24 marts - 20 April.

This book drew me in by its cover and details. But it was the narrator who made me stay.
Who doesn’t love an unreliable narrator who’s unhinged and “slightly” mad?
But sadly it felt a bit repetitive and melancholy for me, and the flow of the book felt a bit off for me. I had a hard time reading it in one go, so I had to read it “a bit for a bit” to be able to make sense of the narrative (and to not be bored). Which might have been intended by the author, but didn’t sit with me. This book reminded me a lot of Alias Grace by M. Atwood, which also follows an unreliable character and both books ends in such an unsatisfying way.
This book would’ve been better as a shorter book. The concept and the idea of the book had so much promise.

This book is one big character study about a woman, Ophelia, suffering from repressed childhood trauma long into her adulthood. Her husband leaves her for someone else and slowly we discover how abandonment from your loved ones can really turn the tide over everything you considered right or wrong. I liked that Ophelia was consistently aware of the fact that what she’s doing is not “normal” at all but borderline obsessive, yet she seemingly had no control to stop herself, to put a pause on everything that would decide her fate; it felt as if years of feeling helpless as a child suddenly gave her some sort of courage to ask her husband *Why.* There were a lot of interesting themes to unpack in this book - nature vs nurture (in this case, Ophelia’s circumstances made her who she is), abandonment and dealing with subsequent abandonment issues your whole life, how the after-effects of trauma impact even the way people perceive you in normal settings etc. etc. I felt sympathy for Ophelia because I really don’t think she wanted things to end as they did, but she really was utterly unhinged.

However, I will say that this book fell a little flat for me in terms of the plot direction and the writing. The book is written in first person and I did not mind the use of the word ‘you’ to refer to the husband, however, I would’ve liked it if it wasn’t this way. This is just my personal preference. Moreover, the dialogue got very repetitive after a while. I’m not sure if the author meant to signify how immersed the main character was into her relationship and her husband, and saw nothing else, but it was tiring to read the same things constantly. Overall, I liked what the book was trying to explore but I just wish the author did something more with it.

Ophelia, an academic woman finds out that her husband Andy is cheating on her: Andy chose Amber over Ophelia and left Ophelia for Amber.
The reason for the severity and cruelty of Ophelia's reaction to abandonment is that Ophelia was abandoned by her mother at a young age. The trauma of being trekked is re-triggered by Andy's abandonment. And the problem from her childhood puts Ophelia in a terrible mood. I really mean that, teribble.
She begins to follow Andy and Amber obsessively; she forgets her own life to watch their lives closely. Obsession takes over Ophelia. As a result, something happens that she did not intend, even though she dreamed of it: An irreversible finale for three of them.
The novel reflects the sick mind of the Ophelia character well. Her reaction to being cheated on gives some background as to why she becomes violent: The woman abandoned by her mother.
This is a novel of psychological destruction. On the other hand, I sometimes had difficulties while reading. For example, the scene where Ophelia kills the dog or her flashbacks, where love looks normal but we know that it was not...
I can recommend it to those who like psychological thrillers. If you have fears of abandonment, you may have difficulty reading.

Thanks to #NetGalley and Regal House Publishing for the ARC.

A copy of The Vixen Amber Halloway was provided to me free for review through NetGalley on behalf of Regal House Publishing.

The Vixen Amber Halloway is narrated by Ophelia who is recalling the events that lead to her psychologial breakdown. Written in an almost stream of consciousness style, we see the complete undoing of a woman after her husband leaves her for another woman. Ophelia is a complex character having been a university professor or lecturer on Dante's Inferno, but also coming from a trauma-ridden past filled with abandonment and loss. This past trauma festers and her husband's betrayal is the final catalyst to her complete undoing.

This book was very different for me, as it was not a suspense-laden, edge of your seat type of thriller. It read to me more like literary fiction. I was a little thrown off by the use of some Latin terms and abbreviations that were used with no explanation as well as some rather obscure vocab.. I guess the author gives us readers mor credit than we are due, assuming we have all brushed up on our Latin and ancient phrasing. I think this was done to build up the background of the character being a Dante scholar, so I understand its use, but I did do quite a bit Googling/referencing my dictionary with this book.

Overall I think that this book will certainly not be for everyone, but if it finds the right audience it will be enjoyed.

While I would categorize this novel more as literary fiction than a thriller, I still quickly devoured the story, despite it not quite being the genre I was expecting going into it. I found the main character Ophelia to be complex and utterly unhinged, yet her trauma of being abandoned by a parent at a young age is unfortunately very relatable to many, myself included. Throughout the course of the book, these unprocessed abandonment issues are only compounded upon when she catches her husband engaging in acts of adultery. It's this that ultimately consumes her, the reader watching her unravel and develop a fierce obsession with vengeance towards those who have scorned her. I found the writing and word choice to be somewhat repetitive, but not overly so that it detracted significantly from the story. I'm not jumping to reread this one any time soon, but I still enjoyed the ride!