One Last Secret: From the Sunday Times Number One bestselling author of Both Of You comes a gripping psychological crime thriller

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Her fiancé shows up at the murder house. Dora explains little about what happened and her fiancé is confused about his dad. He leaves the room, seeing to agree to MURDER HIS FIANCÉ because his dad says so. Her captor gets drunk and explains everything while her fiancé is out of the room. She stabs dad, who falls into the pool and drowns because she and fiancé can’t swim. Fiancé has overheard drunken dad confession. Dora and fiancé cover up murder and/or self-defense homicide by burning down mansion which was also fiancé’s family summer home. The story is told in the first person for the most part, which might have helped readers better understand some of Dora’s foolish choices but the author doesn’t use her narration to good effect. Rather than allowing us to sympathize with our heroine falling into trap after trap by giving us reasons for her to be that naïve, we instead are simply given a front-row seat to Dora behaving stupidly. This was disappointing since at the start of the novel, Dora is presented as a tough, savvy, worldly-wise woman who knows what’s what. Once she joins Daniel on his trip, she becomes an ingénue style of character, which really doesn’t fit with her previous persona.

One Last Secret (Audio Download): Adele Parks, Kristin One Last Secret (Audio Download): Adele Parks, Kristin

This was an intriguing read. I was pulled in right from the start. I found it easy to follow and though at times it felt over the top, I still enjoyed it and couldn't wait to read what would happen next. Lots of good twist and turns.

I would argue the best way to approach One Last Secret is without much insight to the plot so that one can fully experience reading about the heart-racing events that Dora, a high-end escort, gets into during her one last job in the field at a glamorous chateau in the south of France. Adele Parks MBE is one of the most-loved and biggest-selling women's fiction writers in the UK. She has sold over 4 million books and her work has been translated into 30 different languages. If you want an engaging and wild story, One Last Secret is for you. A thriller that will keep you guessing, until the very end. This book took too long to catch my attention. The beginning is a primer to sex work. I think it’s an honest one – and a respectful one – but the ABCs of sex work do not an exciting thriller make. As for the plot, you don't want to read too much into that at all, best to go in as blind as possible. All you need to know is this:

One Last Secret: A Domestic Thriller Novel: Parks, Adele One Last Secret: A Domestic Thriller Novel: Parks, Adele

Well, I really want to scream at Dora as soon as she said yes to Daniel. And when they arrive at the château, she meets with Daniel’s eccentric friends who act like they see an exotic creature as soon as they say hi to her. And one of them is a very dangerous man! Dora absolutely knows who he is! I can honestly say I got very flabbergasted after getting blown away by several twists. Some of them are unnecessary! It was abrupt but absolutely necessary! I was about to give 2 stars to this book! But last third changed my mind: at least so many of my questions answered even though they were far fetched explanations! I saw the big reveal coming a mile away, but it didn’t take away from my enjoyment. It is slightly OTT, which I know some readers don’t like, but it worked fine for me. I wasn’t really sure about this one at first but the more I read the better it got. Not at all what I normally read but once I got into it I really enjoyed it.I really hate books with gaslighting and I didn’t realize how prominently it would feature here. I couldn’t wait for Dora to catch up with what the reader already knows. The pacing is all off in this book and the first reveal isn’t even a reveal because we have no idea who this person is or why we should care.

One Last Secret by Adele Parks (Review by Kelly Glecoff) One Last Secret by Adele Parks (Review by Kelly Glecoff)

Dora goes on one last girlfriend experience (without the sex) to a super secluded mansion in the south of France. She is gaslit, drugged, and raped while drugged. She does not figure out that her “naps” right after politely eating or drinking something forced on her mean she was drugged even though it happens multiple times. The guy who beat her up is an employee of her daughter’s father who has brought her out there to be murdered by that employee.When taken as a whole, the storyline isn't all that surprising in the end. I pretty much called everything that was going on. That said, it's still a uniquely told story from an interesting point of view. I don't typically like first person storylines because it's too much "I did this and I did that" rather than letting us in on the action, but in this case it really works.