Book Stop Corner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


”Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.”
----Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, one of the most influential philosophers of the French Renaissance

Ali Knight, an English author, arrested our minds and hearts with her latest psychological thriller, Until Death which shows us that how marriage can be the biggest curse or flaw in a person’s life as well as it can be the greatest boon in one’s life.

Synopsis:
Marriage is a prison for Kelly. Her controlling and manipulative husband Christos videos her in the house, has her followed and tracks her every move. She may be desperate to leave, but she's not stupid. If she runs, he'll make sure she never sees her children again. Christos has a mistress, Sylvie, keen to pander to his every whim and even keener to step into Kelly's shoes, should she ever vacate them. Kelly thinks it's stalemate for their twisted threesome, but one of Christos's container ships is about to dock in London with a secret cargo that will change all their lives forever. If Kelly is to escape, it will be in a way she never imagined, and people will" get hurt . . .


Kelly is like that desperate bird trying to get away from the odds of her marriage, but tell me which marriage doesn’t have its odds. But if you would have stuck in a marriage with a controlling man, then you might also go at any ends to break-free from the marriage. Christos is a man who is perfect in every way and wants to keep his broken marriage like a showpiece on a mantle.

Well that was the underlying story in Until Death, and honestly the thrill in the book is not that rewarding or promising, nothing comes out of it- only a broken marriage and how a broken marriage can be saved.. that’s all! The plot is one hell of a twisted and complicated ride. Even at times, I found myself so clueless as to where this author was taking me with her story. All the while, the author constantly hinted that there would be a murder on the very next page and I felt myself gripped to the plot out of anticipation, instead in the middle, I got lost and felt myself from stop reading the book for a while, since there is too much thrill that I couldn’t handle, but there was no such thrilling event except, stalking.

The narrative style is what got me hooked into the story. The mood that she set in with her exquisite prose was brilliantly dark, scary and in one word, exciting. Every time Kelly opened her mouth, a thrill ran down my spine, although Georgie, the detective and the Wolf’s part of the story did not impact me that much. The twists that the author created, (I must warn you that so many twists can get on your nerves and you might feel like throwing away the book…) are striking enough to fall for them and moreover, the way she delivered them into her story is really brilliant. And the more I tried to find out who’s the culprit behind an age old crime, the more I got twisted up in knots and puddles of mystery. So the mystery part was pretty engaging.

The characters were messy, flawed, psychologically paralyzed by fear, inheritance, money and status and will make you feel like you’re standing right in the middle of some asylum. And maybe that was the whole point to make the story more psychologically thrilling and gripping. The emotions portrayed by Kelly and her fears can be related by those women who know the distaste of a failing marriage. Christos character is realistic and  he is more like a guy  who is hiding behind the warmth of his meek and helpless wife. Sylvie is another character whom you would love to hate.. perfect in every possible ways and she is the epitome of a nightmare in every woman’s lives. Her spunk and bitchiness made me fall for her.

Verdict: I’d suggest you to go for this book, if you have enjoyed reading Gone Girl and if you are a big fan of psycho thrillers featuring the latest victim- marriage!

Courtesy: All thanks to the author, Ali Knight, for sending me over a copy of her book, in return for an honest review. 
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Author Info:
Ali Knight has written three psychological thrillers, Wink Murder, named by The Independent as 'One of their best commercial reads of 2011'; The First Cut, 'One of the top ten crime books to take on holiday,' according to The Telegraph; and Until Death, 'A gripping read,' The Sunday Mirror.
Before writing books, Ali worked as a sub-editor and journalist on several national newspapers, including The Guardian and The Observer and she also set up websites for the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard.
She grew up in Bedford with an American father and an English mother and lives in London with her family.  
Visit her here

Book Purchase Links:

• Amazon US
• Amazon India
  

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