Eliza Curran is an unhappy housewife pretending she has it all: A household, 2 beautiful children, a French au pair, and a wealthy and loving husband. Working on the new apartment and getting it ready to sublet, is all that makes her happy. Little did she knew her new tenant in this apartment, would change her life forever.!
Invite Me In by Emma Curtis is a Suspense Thriller revolving around Eliza and Martin Curran, and their tenant Dan Jones. After working for weeks on the new apartment, Eliza isn't ready to let go of her apartment as the renovation is the only thing keeping her sane. This changed when she meets her new tenant 'Dan', who is a handsome guy and knows how to charm people. Martin, her husband, on the other hand, is always suspicious about people and can't be easily fooled. Although Dan has his ways of charming people into submission. With Dan as a tenant and their au pair's boyfriend, and now a close friend to Martin, would it be easy for Eliza to control her feelings or would she break all the sacred bonds of her loveless marriage? Can Dan even be trusted or is it more than just a coincidence that he came into their lives?
This book is a perfect blend of budding new romance, pain, psychological illness, the ugliness of domestic violence, murder mystery, misogyny, loss, past secrets, and what not.! I loved Emma's writing so much that I really wanted to hit some of the characters. They made me sooo mad.! Needless to say I loved the ending of these characters. They probably deserved it. Dan is a "too good to be true" kinda guy and I had my suspicions since the very start. Eliza is a strong character who although tolerates her abusive husband because of the dirty secrets he knows, still has her ways of finding happiness and doesn't give up. Martin is a misogynistic pig who one might debate pretends to be an a$$, so people don't look down on him or feel sorry for him for being disabled. But in reality, he has always been like this and he probably got what he deserved. Isabel, the french au-pair is perfectly written as an immature bitchy teenager, who gets plainly annoying as the story progresses. She was still a surprise by the end. As I said, all the main characters have been written so perfectly that I loved that I hate them.
The constant tension between all the characters is really intriguing. All the characters are deeply flawed. From the main protagonist Eliza, who has been dealing with monsters within, as well as in her life, to the very sweet and noble Ali, who throughout her life idolized her misogynistic brother Martin, and chose to look the other way at his shortcomings whilst worshipping him as a perfect human being. That's what made the book so real. People are flawed and that's what's real. And that's exactly what makes you mad while reading about them.
The storyline as I said earlier is a blend of multiple elements. There's a story regarding Eliza's secret that Martin uses to keep her in an abusive marriage. There's another secret that only Eliza, her twin brother, and her best-friend's/sister-in-law's husband knows, that can destroy her marriage. The main storyline revolves around another past story that led to multiple unfortunate events. Although halfway through the book and I was able to deduce the connection between Dan and his sudden appearance in Curran's life. It was still interesting to see how the story unfolds and the secrets were revealed.
Without giving any spoilers, I would say I loved the ending and all the characters got what they deserved. I really loved the book and would definitely read more from Emma Curtis in the future.
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