The Perfect Nurse #1
By: Daniel Hurst
Narrator: Lauryn Allman
Hachette UK - Bookouture (Publisher)
ISBN: 9781835256084
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: 07/01/2024
Format: e-book
My Rating: 4 Stars (ARC)
‘My name is Darcy, I’m your nurse and I’m here to help you.’ I repeat the words I’ve said so many times. Except this time, I don’t mean it…
If you saw me walking down the street, you’d think I was pretty ordinary – I wear the typical crisp, white nursing uniform, my hands are scrubbed clean and you’d have no reason to believe I was anything other than a good citizen. A good nurse.
But looks can be deceiving. You shouldn’t trust me – because I don’t even know if I can trust myself.
Now I stare at the reflection in the mirror – dark smudges under my eyes and blood on my hands – listening for the sound of police sirens.
Because the truth is I had to do something terrible. I broke all the rules a nurse should follow. I wanted someone gone so badly. And now they’re dead because of me.
I’m looking over my shoulder everywhere I go because I’m sure someone knows my secret. Then when my home is broken into I know one simple truth: this isn’t over yet…
It’s only the beginning.
The police are the least of my worries now. But to save myself, am I going to have to kill again?
My Review
Daniel Hurst returns following The Family Trip and the Doctor's Wife series with THE PERFECT NURSE (#1), the first installment in a new series that promises to deliver the same suspense and mystery that fans have come to love.
Set in Chicago, Darcy, a troubled nurse, seems in a daze with no clue about her past. The plot thickens as she gets glimpses and flashbacks of a frightening past, certain people, a traumatic event, and secrets she possibly needs to keep buried. This twisty new series is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat, craving for more.
Who wants to keep her quiet? Does she know too much?
About...
Darcy, the perfect nurse craves sleep, but she is afraid of the nightmares. She is not sure why she has to rely on sleeping pills every night, which leaves her groggy the next day.
Her co-worker Pippin is lovely, energetic, and always there to help. She arrives at Darcy's house to make her coffee and makes sure she has on her scrubs and is ready for the day.
Darcy and Pippin, two friends and nurses, have a new assignment. They are to provide in-home health care for a woman, Scarlett, who was injured in a fall at her home and left with some brain damage. Her husband, Adrian, cares for her, but he needs a break and thus hires the in-home care nurses.
However, soon, Darcy feels something is off about the couple. Did her husband push the woman? Is the woman scared of her husband? Did she really have an accident? Can she trust her husband? She can never get the patient alone without the husband being around to question the woman. Pippa thinks she is worrying uselessly.
Then Adrian asks her if she would be interested in overnight shifts for extra money. She thinks this might be a way to investigate further and see what is going on behind closed doors. She really gets suspicious when Scarlett tells her to lock her door at night. Then she starts sleuthing. Things are strange? What is going on with this couple? Who are they?
NOTHING OR NO ONE IS AS IT APPEARS.
Just when you think you have it figured out, the author takes a 180-degree turn, and the storyline takes a different direction. This unpredictability gives readers a jaw-dropping twist leading down a secret past that becomes even more sinister. You'll be left in awe, eagerly turning the pages to uncover the next twist.
My thoughts...
Daniel is the king of revenge plots, and in THE PERFECT NURSE, a suspenseful, twisty kickoff to a new series, where you have unreliable narrators, nurses, an estranged best friend, a doctor, a neurosurgeon, a patient, an unknown family, memory issues, flashbacks of a haunted past, secrets, and an accident?
What happened in the past that haunts Darcy? She cannot remember, but she gets glimpses, and she is afraid she has broken her duty as a nurse. Or maybe she simply knows the truth, which may be more frightening than death. She is worried this is not over when things begin to surface. She must escape.
Who is Pippin, Adrian, Scarlett, Eden, Melissa, and Laurence?
Is Darcy innocent? Does she know things? Did she witness something terrible? Is forgetting a gift? Instead, she is desperately trying to remember every single detail of her life before the accident.
Who was she trying to run from? Had she left the hospital to work for private in-home care? Getting back her memory may be worse than not knowing. These characters are so intricately woven into the plot that you'll be deeply invested in their stories.
Who is the villain, and who is the victim? Was she a witness and a co-conspirator? Did she participate in a murder? She only knows she is a nurse, an everyday woman, not some evil, callous witch. Is she a perfect nurse?
What is Darcy's dark secret? She needs to run, but she cannot remember half of it. Is she a murderer?
Read to find out, get the cliffhanger, and continue the mystery in this fun and twisty maze of questions in book #2, The Nurse's Lie, coming August 1, 2024. I will be anxiously awaiting to learn more about Darcy and Pippa!
Recs...
THE PERFECT NURSE is recommended for fans of Daniel Hurst and authors Valerie Keogh, Teri Terry, Leslie Wolf, K.L. Slater, and Freida McFadden.
Thanks to Bookouture for an advanced reading review digital copy via NetGalley for an honest opinion.
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
Pub Date: July 1, 2024
My Rating: 4 Stars
THE PERFECT NURSE SERIES
Daniel Hurst was born in the northwest of England, a part of the world famous for its comedians, pasties and terrible weather.
He has been employed in several glamorous roles in his lifetime, including bartending, shelf stacking and procurement administration, all while based in some of the most exotic places on the planet, like Bolton, Preston and South London.
Since following his lifelong passion for writing in 2020, he has amassed a loyal and devoted set of readers, and regularly has several books in the top 100 of the Psychological Thriller Charts on Amazon. His title The Passenger became the #1 selling psychological thriller in the UK in October 2021, and his bestselling book to date is his title The Doctor’s Wife, which topped the Amazon UK Kindle Chart on February 16th 2023. He remembers that date because he stayed up all night celebrating. WEBSITE
