Introduction
Verity by Colleen Hoover was first published on 7th December 2018, making it one of the only thriller books released by Colleen to the present day. This book is a thriller romance, combining mystery, psychology and love to create this amazing, intense story that will have you grabbed from the first sentence. This book is a 336 page emotional rollercoaster that will make you question everything you thought you knew about the characters by the end of the book.
Storyline/ plot
We start with struggling writer, Lowen Ashleigh, on her way to a very important meeting in which she is not fully clear on who with or what for. Lowen recently lost her mother and has been financially struggling since and is at risk of evictions, with no savings and no plan B, this meeting is her last hope.
The meeting happens to be with Jeremy, crime/ thriller author Verity’s husband, offering Lowen a good sum of money to complete a series already started by Verity, due to Verity recently being in an accident. The series is already halfway done with the publishing company needing to find an author similar to verity to write the final three books. The money offered was enough to cover Lowen for a long while after as well as helping to launch her career in the future it seems stupid to turn down such an offer, as well as invite to Verity’s house to study her more and seek out more material that may help her to write more mirrored to Verity.
The home is just what you would expect from a successful thriller writer, dark, eerie and yet oddly inviting. Upon arrival Lowen soon gets to work and decides the best place to start would be Verity’s office, and to go through any old books, transcripts, any writing that may be in there, until Lowen finds what seems to be a manuscript. Lowen decides the best way to get inside Verity’s head and produce the best versions of the novels she can, she has to learn everything about her through her own eyes.
After little time Lowen realizes this manuscript is not going to be as easy to read as she first anticipated, with all of the dark thoughts and intrusive visions throughout Verity’s life, Lowen quickly finds out what makes Verity so successful in her dark themed books. These books are her true thoughts.
As things heat up Lowen finds solstice in Verity’s husband Jeremy, which seems to trigger strange happenings around the home that make Lowen doubt whether Verity is really as injured as she seems.
Writing style
Verity is one of Colleen Hoover’s more unconventional books, as she doesn’t often explore the world of thriller and mystery. This book is a fantastic story considering that Colleen doesn’t write this style often, it has so many different plot twists and so many different switches between the characters it will have you gripped from the very beginning and the ending will leave you wanting more.
Pros/ cons
I personally really enjoyed this book, Ioved Colleen’s interpretation of thriller and her take on a more psychological book as opposed to her usual safer romance novels. I also really enjoyed the characters in the book and how well thought out everything to do with them was, the plot was so intense and really well written. The only cons I can think of are the very sensitive topics that are mentioned within the book that could be triggering to a lot of readers.
Conclusion
I gave this book five stars, I loved everything about it and was hooked the entire time. It was nice to read something different by an already familiar author whose writing I was already confident I enjoyed. I really liked this book overall and would definitely recommend it, but check the trigger warnings.