By: Rebecca Kelley
Narrator: Merritt Hicks
ISBN: 9781542038829
Publisher: Lake Union
Publication Date: 01/01/2023
Format: Audio and e-book
My Rating: 4.5 Stars
In this gripping novel about obsession, control, and self-preservation, a woman desperate to provide a new life for her sister enters a compromising arrangement with an entitled tech billionaire.
Rosemary Rabourne is already struggling to pay the bills when her recently orphaned half sister, Wendy, shows up at her door. Rosemary will try anything to provide for the traumatized teenager—including offering her services as a high-end escort.
Leo Glass is the billionaire CEO of a revolutionary social app. He wants the “girlfriend experience”—someone contractually obligated to love him—and he thinks he’s found the perfect match in Rosemary. His proposition has its perks: a luxury apartment and financial security. And its conditions: constant surveillance and availability whenever Leo calls. It’s not the life Rosemary wants, but she’s out of options.
Then she meets her new neighbor, Sam, a musician with whom Rosemary shares an immediate attraction and a genuine intimacy she’s never felt with anyone. Falling in love makes it possible to imagine a real new life. But Leo won’t let go of her that easily, and his need for control escalates. So does Rosemary’s desperation—to protect Wendy, to protect herself, and, at any price, to escape.
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My Review
Rebecca Kelley's NO ONE KNOWS US HERE is an addictive, binge-worthy suspense thriller that would be perfect as a movie or tv series.
Emotionally powerful, and packed with page-turning suspense, NO ONE KNOWS US HERE delves into the sordid, all-too-real world of relationships between wealthy, powerful men and the young women caught in their web.
The novel also explores the domestic lives of young girls caught in tragic dysfunctional home-life situations with abusive men who take advantage of young girls when their moms are not paying attention.
One woman's desperation to help care for her younger sister turns deadly, engrossed in a dangerous game of obsession, control, and deception.
Rosemary Rabourne left home after her stepfather sexually abused her. She left her half-sister in the home, thinking the girl's father would not harm her.
When her thirteen-year-old half-sister, Wendy, shows up at her door, she will do anything to protect her. She is a college graduate with a low-paying job at a kitchen retail shop.
She already lives in a smaller studio apartment with other people. She wants to go to law school and has put her dreams on hold. Her sister is her top priority.
When one of her roommates, that seems to be doing very well, offers her her entire contact list to pull her out of her financial situation, she feels like this may be her answer. Her roommate has made so much money she is now a dentist and has lots of nice things, from clothes to furnishings.
How bad could it be to become a well-paid escort? Things would be better. She is not sure she can do this after the first time.
After lunch with one of the contacts, Leo Glass, a good-looking, rich tech billionaire and CEO of a social app, wants to hire her. She thinks she will be getting a high-powered job.
However, he wants a girlfriend. He travels all the time, and he thinks Rosemary will be a perfect match. How bad could it be?
When she hears the amount she will make monthly and is wowed with a beautiful new luxury apartment to sweeten the deal, she is in. Plus, she would have enough to take care of her sister and go back to law school, and quit the kitchen dead-end job.
However, she does not anticipate the constant surveillance and demands she is on call 24/7. He knows her every move. He turns into a stalker, a control freak, and a monster.
They say when things look too good, watch out.
She feels she has no other choice, but how far will he push her to her breaking point? She must get her sister into rehab after trying to slit her wrist and her eating disorder.
Then she meets her neighbor, Sam Ferguson, a viola player for the symphony. They click immediately. A musician with a tragic past of his own. They fall in love, but then she must tell him she has a boyfriend because Leo will find out. She must break it off with Sam to protect him. She must stick with Leo despite being paid to be a girlfriend.
When things turn even more dangerous, Rosemary must protect herself, and her sister, while trying to escape.
How will this end? Will she be able to break free and care for her sister? He keeps her locked in for days. Will she have to commit murder before he kills her? What about Sam? Has she lost him forever?
INTENSE! I listened to the audiobook (and e-book) and Merritt Hicks delivered an engaging and gripping performance. I listened in one sitting and could not wait to see how this would turn out.
A Pretty Woman tale turns toxic and deadly in this provocative thriller of sex, obsession, and murder. I enjoyed the highly satisfactory conclusion. A perfect book title and cover.
My first book by the author, and I was impressed! For fans of B.A. Paris's The Prisoner and Robyn Harding's The Arrangement.
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4.5 Stars
Pub Date: Jan 1, 2023
From the Publisher
An electrifying story about two sisters, desperation, and what we’ll do to take care of our own, this novel grabbed me and didn’t let go until the hopeful end. Rosemary Rabourne is an immensely likable narrator who gets herself in a bad situation with the best of intentions—to take care of her in-need younger sister.
Rosemary works at a retail store in Portland, Oregon, and is just making ends meet living with multiple roommates when her younger sister shows up unannounced at her door, asking to be taken in. Rosemary feels an overwhelming sense of responsibility for her sister, who has escaped a situation at home that Rosemary knows all too well, and will do anything to provide for the two of them. Soon she is presented with the opportunity of a lifetime by Leo Glass, local tech billionaire and creator of a revolutionary dating app whose main feature is high-tech surveillance. It is an arrangement she can’t resist, one offering good money and a place to live, but at what cost? Things quickly turn dark as Leo wants to control more and more.
This novel has so much to love—a heartwarming tale of sisterhood, gripping suspense, even a love story. The fictional surveillance technology and dating app that’s featured in this novel is at once relatable and terrifying. Between that and other timely topics in this book, book clubs will have a lot to talk about!
—Melissa Valentine, Editor
About the Author
Rebecca Kelley is a fiction writer from Portland, Oregon. Her first novel, Broken Homes & Gardens, was published in 2015. She also coauthored The Eco-nomical Baby Guide with Joy Hatch. When Rebecca isn’t writing, she is conducting elaborate baking experiments, designing book covers, and keeping up her thousand-plus-day streak in Duolingo.
Find her at www.rebeccakelleywrites.com.
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