9 January 2017

Review #579: Rebound by Aga Lesiewicz



My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Like some wines our love could neither mature nor travel.”

----Graham Greene


Aga Lesiewicz, a British author, has penned a terrific and gripping debut psychological thriller, Rebound that revolves around a young career-oriented woman who has a perfect life with perfect boyfriend and a cute pet dog, but not long before she calls it off with her boyfriend, and one day she meets a total random stranger in the park while walking her dog but an encounter with the man makes the woman pay heavily for her perfect life and career. An obsession she can't let go, yet the obsession is eating her up like a slow poison along with the gradual increase in the body count of random women in that very same park.


Synopsis:

Rebound is a dark and gripping psychological thriller from debut author Aga Lesiewicz.

I'm not a bad person, but maybe I did a bad thing . . .

Life is good for Anna Wright. She's a successful media executive working for one of the UK's largest TV corporations. She's got a great boyfriend, some close friends and a lovely home. She adores her dog, Wispa, and she loves to run to help her de-stress.

But Anna's perfect life starts to crumble from the moment when, out jogging on the Heath one day, she meets a handsome stranger. She takes a route into unfamiliar territory, and then she has to face the consequences.

There's a dark, growing creepiness as the atmosphere becomes unsettled and, as Anna's professional life becomes increasingly pressured and poisonous, her obsession with the intriguing stranger intensifies.



Anna Wright has a successful career in a media house with an equally perfect life that consists of a perfectly handsome boyfriend. But Anna is not happy in her personal life thus she breaks her relationship with her boyfriend, James. And soon she falls into the trap of rebound one day after the breakup when she goes to a park in Heath to run her dog where she encounters an extremely sexy and intimidating stranger. Gradually her encounters become sexual and her job becomes a nightmare for her, followed by the death of random women who visit that park. Anna questions on whether she should tell anybody about that total random strange man she met in the park. But the murder of someone close to her, shakes Anna up, and that makes her doubt anybody and everybody close to her. Will she become a victim or a pawn to this game?

While reading the book, I couldn't guess that this is the debut book by the author, as the story is highly absorbing enough that kept me hooked on to it till the turn of the very last page. Right from the very beginning itself, the story pulled me into an unpredictable and extremely complicated universe of the protagonist, Anna whose constant wrong-doing feels right at every step of the way and the more she indulges herself, the story turns more darker and irresistible.

The concoction of the mystery in this book is done quite strikingly as the story mystery gradually deepens and darkens with its course. And the darkness is so addictive that even though the readers get lost in such a complex maze yet somehow they will find it intriguing enough to not to dare to turn away their heads from the book. The mystery is tightly packed under layers of unforeseeable twists and turns that will come out of nowhere through out the entire length of the story and that will keep the readers anticipating till the very end.

The author's writing style is perfect and extremely polished laced with both emotions and deep mystery that gives an intense edge to the overall story line. The narrative is equally engaging although at times, it felt like they lost momentum, thereby making it difficult for me to stay focus to the story. The pacing is really fast and edgy as Anna's life take a downward spiral course o destruction.

The characters in the book are extremely well developed although at times their demeanor felt a bit superficial. Anna is a mentally strong woman who then falls for a stranger, and the author has vividly captured Anna's distressed and confused mind. The readers will feel the strong desire to stick with Anna and the mystery surrounding her. The dog, Wispa plays an excellent role in the backdrop of the story line, that makes the story delectable. The rest of the characters are not so memorable as they are not created with so much depth, especially the stranger in the park.

In a nutshell, the story is a brilliant and captivating enough to keep the readers glued to the pages of this book till the end, and a mystery so well developed that even the seasoned crime-readers won't be able to figure out the whodunit easily.

Verdict: A promising debut psycho thriller!

Courtesy: Thanks to the publishers from Pan Macmillan India for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book.
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Author Info:
Aga Lesiewicz has lived in London for over thirty years. She worked as a radio presenter, voice-over artist, interpreter, screenwriter and a TV producer and director. A freak knee injury in 2013 led to a change in her career and prompted her to write her first psychological thriller ‘Rebound’. Her second London-based psychological thriller, 'Exposure', will be out in January 2017.
Visit her here


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