Every Last Secret by A.R. Torre – Book Review

Initial Thoughts

I am always on a lookout for a good thriller. Though I love the genre, I sometimes find it hard to find ones that really are thrilling and, more importantly, well written. If you know any that is really good, please recommend it to me in the comments.

I’ve heard about Every Last Secret by chance. I didn’t even realize that A.R. Torre and Alessandra Torre are the same person. Apparently, she uses the pseudonym when she writes thrillers and her full name for her romances.

And I’ve been meaning to check out Hollywood Dirt for quite a while now. But all in all, I am more interested in her thrillers. The Ghostwriter seems to be getting most love, so I’ve got that one and will probably read it this month or the next.

Especially after my first experience with A.R. Torre’s writing through Every Last Secret, which has been very much positive…

What It Is About

“All I had to do was remain innocent in his eyes. The sane to her crazy. The calm fun to her neurotic paranoia. A safe haven for his thoughts and fears. A support system who made him feel valued and protected. I’d be a better version of her, doused in the tempting light of the forbidden.”

Cat Winthorpe has a life people would kill for. She has money, she has style and she has a handsome, successful, wealthy husband. Life is pretty when you are at the very top of the social elite.

Neena Ryder has dreams. Though she also has a lot going in her favor, she is nowhere near having a life she thinks she deserves. But if there is one thing she is determined to get, that should help with everything else as well, it would be Cat Winthorpe’s husband.

Both women think they know what they are dealing with. They are both wrong…

Every Last Secret by A.R. Torre – My Review

See, this is why I hate reviewing thrillers. I wanna tell you what I liked the most about this book, but I can’t because it could be considered a spoiler. I also wanna tell you the one thing I really didn’t like, but it’s also kind of a spoiler.

So, tiptoeing around the interesting things, let’s just say I really enjoyed this read. I think it would be a great summer/beach read, since it has short chapters, nice quality writing and natural flow. The story is easy to follow, but it is also easy to read only short chunks at the time.

This book was not one of those thrillers that are intense the whole time. It was more like a light suspense that still manages to make you keep turning the pages, wondering what is going to happen.

“But that was what made this game so fun to play. I had the cards. I knew the hands. And she . . . she didn’t even know the game.”

Because in the beginning, there was just something slightly off about these people, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint what. I mean, there were things that were very clearly off. But there was also something subtle that seemed way more menacing than what we did know.

And for the longest, it is a story that could be just a typical neighborhood intrigue, a will-he-won’t-he-cheat and wondering what might happen if he does.

It is the glimpses of the present day, when there is obviously a police investigation going on, that frames your perception of the story from the start and makes you think in terms of potential murder instead of potential divorce.

“Blurred lines. Smear enough of them together, and you could change the color of everything.”

The story is told through two perspectives – Neena’s and Cat’s. The cat fight between the two over William’s time and attention was relentless, everlasting, calculated and unputdownable. Each day was a new challenge. And no won battle meant won war.

It was so interesting seeing the two women judging each other from such different points of view – Neena from a standpoint of a motivational coach who’s used to looking for people’s goals and weighing how far they would be willing to go to see them through. And Cat looking at everyone through what they are able to afford and how that may reflect on the other aspects of their lives.

“…addicts were a very predictable breed who followed a standard pattern. Act. Enjoy. Regret. Push away. Yearn. Obsess. Justify. Obsess. Turn against those who keep them from their addiction. Obsess. Act.”

The characters were manipulative, obsessive, wicked and selfish. Occasionally stepping on the line of psychotic but rarely doing something completely unimaginable, which kept them real and… not relatable, but you definitely have a clear picture of where they stand. Their motives were easy to understand, if not the lengths they would go to to get what they want.

They were likable and unlikable at the same time. For every thing that makes you wanna root for them there are two other things that make you wanna slap them. You will love to hate them while they are doing well. But you’ll also somewhat sympathize with them when you see them down.

And then, the difference between what they wanted and what they needed was also done really well. And what I really liked was that their contrasting sides and inconsistencies only made them even more real and nicely fleshed out.

“That was the secret to success in this town. Presenting a picture of effortless perfection with behind-the-scenes ruthless hard work. Everyone thought I woke up as Cat Winthorpe one day, but I had clawed and scraped for every piece of this life. Still did.”

I also loved that for once the ending didn’t feel rushed. And that we got a few glimpses of the after. Glimpses that offered yet another intriguing layer to the story.

Every Last Secret doesn’t take a ton of guesswork to get a fairly good idea of where the story is headed. But it was more that I saw it as one of the options than that I knew knew. So it still made me wonder the whole time. And luckily, this was not one of those books where kind of sort of figuring it out spoils the rest of the read.

I’m not sure, though, how people who read a lot of thrillers would feel about this one. There was nothing groundbreaking about it. And if you’ve read several similar stories in a row, I can see how you might end up feeling somewhat resentful about Every Last Secret.

But I liked it. Was it mind-blowing, eye-opening, the most amazing thing I’ve ever read? It was not. But I enjoyed it quite a bit and wouldn’t mind at all reading something with similar vibes every now and then.