The Book:
Don’t Turn Around by Jessica Barry, 2020
The Characters:
Cait and Rebecca
Get it on Amazon.
The Plot (from Goodreads):
Midnight. Cait Monaghan and Rebecca McRae are on a desolate road that slices through the New Mexican desert. They’ve never met before tonight. Both have secrets to protect. Both of their lives are in danger.
When a truck pulls up fast behind them, they assume it’s punk teenagers or run-of-the-mill road rage, but it soon becomes clear that whoever is driving the truck is hunting them for sport—and they are out to draw blood.
As the miles unspool and the dangers mount, the pasts they’ve worked so hard to keep buried have come back to haunt them. Someone wants one of them dead. But which one? And given the lives the two women have been leading, that someone could be almost anyone.
If Cait and Rebecca are going to survive, they’ll have to learn to trust one another—and themselves. But trust is a costly business, and they’ve both paid the price before.
The Twist:
The person following them wasn’t after Rebecca, but Cait. He was her neighbor, an incel that was out to get her because she had written an article about how a famous person raped her.
The Review:
This one wasn’t for me. Yes there was the mystery of who was chasing down Rebecca and Cait, but it was just a very long road trip where not much interesting happened. It took me longer to read this book than it would have to make the drive.
I didn’t like how every single man was painted as creepy or a villain, even someone as innocuous as a gas station attendant. However, I do like how Cait and Rebecca banded together and became instant friends, knowing the one would always support the other.
Overall, it was a fine plot. I just felt there was too much buildup for not much reward.
