Book Title: This Is Not Over
Author: Holly Brown
REVIEWED BY: MARY
Series: None
Genres: Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Fiction
Date Read: 03/27/17
Pub Date: 01/17/17
4 STARS
“You’ll have your deposit within seven business days, just like it says on Getaway.com. I’ve put through a refund to your credit card for the full amount, minus $200 to replace the sheets. I couldn’t get the stain out despite professional laundering and bleaching. . .
Miranda”
All Dawn wanted was to stay in a beautiful beach house with her husband, to live like money’s no object, for just one long weekend. Then Miranda, the home’s owner, has to send an e-mail like this, full of lies and the suggestion that Dawn’s so dirty, she needs to throw out her sheets. Someone needs to teach Miranda a lesson.
Beware of your “host”
I wouldn’t leave a review on Getaway.com at all, if I didn’t feel it was my civic duty to warn others . . .
Dawn
Miranda cannot believe her eyes. Yes, she may be a doctor’s wife, but she needs the rental money from the beach house desperately. Someone needs to teach this Dawn a lesson.
Two very different women with one thing in common: Each one knows she’s right, and each is determined to win this battle of words and wills and (eventually) worse. Neither will yield, not before they’ve dredged up hidden secrets, old hurts, and painful truths that threaten to shatter the foundations of their lives.
Because it’s never really just about the sheets, is it?
This is not over.
This is so not over.
We’ve all been there. Something irks you, it really gets under your skin and you find that you cannot let it go. Try as you might, it festers and you find yourself devoting anger you didn’t know you had to this seemingly inconsequential event. Maybe it was someone that cut you off in traffic, or a judgmental look you got that rubbed you the wrong way, or an email from a colleague that had a biting tone to it. You get frustrated, you complain to your BFF, you reiterate the story to your spouse prefacing it with, “Listen to this!” Then, after you’ve vented that frustration away, you move on. But what if you couldn’t? What if you continued to let that nasty look, or that maniac driver, or that passive aggressive email get under your skin? What if you did something about it? Is that a can of worms worth opening?
THIS IS NOT OVER is the story of 2 women that refused to let it go. A curt email leads to a nasty review, leads to a biting rebuttal, leads to a character assassination of epic proportions. What starts as a small matter, an inconvenience, a disagreement, gradually morphs into an obsession of reactionary anger and resentment for Dawn and Miranda. But is it really about some dirty sheets and a bad review, or is there more to the story?
One thing is for sure, the Getaway.com event is the catalyst for both parties undoing. As things around them that were once stable begin to falter, both Dawn and Miranda seem to take unhealthy refuge in the on going war between them. As more skeletons escape each woman’s closet, the lives they have worked so hard to build up, start to crumble around them. The desperation they feel while trying to cling to the end of their rapidly fraying ropes only fuels their anger toward one another. The more things fall apart, the more they pour themselves into their feud, their anger propels them forward when nothing else will.
Refusing to see things from the other’s perspective, their petty war of words escalates, crossing into frightening territory. When neither woman will back down, words become threats, and threats become action. Two women that were once strangers have now managed to dismantle each other, exposing their darkest secrets to the people that they have tried hardest to keep them from. But, to what end? Neither can prevail, so is the fight worth everything they will lose? Or, are they on an inevitable collision course with their own secrets, regardless of their paths crossing?
I loved this story because it is so genuinely relatable. We all know what it’s like when you’ve had a DAY. When you’re perpetually late, you spill your coffee, the garbage bag breaks, dinner doesn’t turn out and you’re out of frozen pizza, the laundry is piling up, the baby spikes a fever, deadlines are looming, essentially, all domestic hell breaks loose. If in the pandemonium you throw in a poorly worded email with a touch too much sass, it’s enough to make any of us lose the little patience we have left in the tank. Most of us just grab a glass of wine and expertly weave together a string of curse words while we search for a take out menu in the junk drawer.
But, if you add to that day an ever-growing pile of secrets, an unstable mother to care for, and a marriage built on lies, well, wine and swearing might not cut it. You might feel as though you had to react, respond, retaliate…open that can of worms. But once you throw yourself down that rabbit hole, you might regret the results, or perhaps you won’t.
I highly recommend opening THIS IS NOT OVER and reading it cover to cover while enjoying a bold red like Cardinal Zin. I give the book and the wine 4 stars.
*Many thanks to the author, publisher, and Get Red PR for providing my copy; it was a pleasure to provide an honest review.
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