The House Guest
A Novel
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
An aspiring chef finds she has bitten off more than she can chew when her gig as a private cook to a bestselling author turns deadly in this propulsive, whip-smart suspense novel.
“Emma Cline’s The Guest meets Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid in this sexy, edgy, singular story."—Ashley Winstead, author of The Future Saints
Brett Novak is a young upstart chef, with real, raw talent—if only she could catch a break. After getting dumped by her married girlfriend and losing the perfect job offer, Brett accepts a temporary position as a live-in, personal chef of a reclusive, bestselling author, Carson Smart, who resides in a mansion on a secluded beach in Cape Cod.
Carson immediately seduces her, but things get complicated when Carson's wife, Vera, arrives home from her trip, and the love/hate relationship between the two spouses erupts, leaving Brett caught in the middle. Brett, starved for attention, craves Carson's affection and yet is oddly drawn to Vera's seductive and destructive charms.
As Brett becomes an unwitting pawn and weapon, she questions how far husband and wife will go to wound the other. With nowhere else to turn, she has no choice but to stay—even as her hold on reality begins to slip. Can she survive her employers’ dark appetites?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This engrossing psychological thriller from Pashley (The Watcher) finds 25-year-old budding chef Brett Novak heartbroken, out of work, and down to seven dollars in her bank account. She's delighted and relieved when a former colleague recommends her for a temporary job as a personal chef for bestselling mystery author Carson Smart. She arrives at Smart's beautiful, secluded beachfront property on Cape Cod in high spirits, but nothing prepares her for his offer of $20,000 for two weeks of preparing meals while he rewrites his latest manuscript. Elated, Brett endures his flirting and overlooks his more eccentric demands. Then Carson's wife, Vera, returns from a visit to Brazil, and the psychosexual tension in the house heats up, leading Brett to wonder if she's been hired as a pawn in a perverse marital game. An unexpected death raises the stakes, and Pashley's subsequent dives into the backstories of her three principals keeps the tension almost unbearably high—with each new detail, readers' loyalties shift. It's a riveting ride.
