Review: Every Step She Takes

I've been making up for lost time after years and years of never reading a Kelley Armstrong book - since the beginning of 2019 I've read four, including two by her alter-ego, K.L. Armstrong. The latest, just published on Tuesday, is Every Step She Takes, a thriller that kept me turning the pages until I discovered the answers I needed. I ended up finishing the book in one sitting.

Here's the synopsis:

Sometimes there's no use running from your past. . . .

Genevieve has secrets that no one knows. In Rome she can be whoever she wants to be. Her neighbours aren't nosy; her Italian is passable; the shopkeepers and restaurant owners now see her as a local, and they let her be. It's exactly what she wants.

One morning, after getting groceries, she returns to her 500-year-old Trastevere apartment. She climbs to the very top of the staircase, the stairs narrowing the higher she goes. When she gets to her door, she puts down her bags and pushes the key into the lock . . .

. . . and the door swings open.

It's unlocked. Sometimes she doesn't lock it because break-ins aren't common in Rome. But Genevieve knows she locked the door behind her this morning. She has no doubt.

She should leave, call the police. What if someone is in her apartment, waiting for her? But she doesn't.

The apartment is empty, and exactly as she left it, perfectly tidy and not a thing out of place . . . except for the small box on her kitchen table. A box that definitely wasn't there this morning. A box postmarked from the US. A box that is addressed to "Lucy Callahan."

A name that she hasn't used in ten years.

The book's description doesn't give the reader a whole lot to go on. I think that's intentional but I also think it would have been best for the reader to know going in that the main suspense isn't, actually, who sent her the package. It's what happens to that person. I think that would help the set up of the novel because I found myself just waiting for the big moment and for the suspense to truly start. Speaking of the set up...it and beginning of the novel was a tad...clunky? I guess? and didn't seem to flow as well as the rest of the story did. Maybe it's just because I was invested in the thrill and suspense by that point that I stopped worrying about word choices and how certain things were described.

Without giving anything away, I'll say that I didn't figure out the whodunnit. I had a suspicion about part of it and I was correct there but who committed the final, actual, permanent crime? Didn't even cross my mind. I did, however, guess the identity of a certain mysterious character. (And that was even with my e-galley not being formatted properly and missing a number of important instant messaging conversations.) Are you confused yet? What I'm getting at is, there were some predictable, to me, moments and others that completely surprised me. I consider that a win for a thriller.

The story itself really interested me. I was totally invested in Genevieve/Lucy, her past, and how she was going to get out of the situation she found herself in. I think it helped that we were the same age so I could kind of get into her head (both then and now) a little bit easier. I also really appreciated that Armstrong didn't use the unreliable narrator trope. That can be done well, of course, but I like when a story, especially a mystery or thriller, doesn't rely on a trope that I've been reading a lot of. 

Sure, there are some issues with Every Step She Takes. It's not what I'd call a great book but I got a lot of enjoyment out of it and didn't want to put it down, so that should tell you something about the entertainment value of it (and let's be real here, we mostly read for entertainment). I'm going to continue to check out K.L. Armstrong's books (and those she writes as Kelley, too) because she's clearly getting stronger with her thrillers and I'm curious to see what she writes next.

*An e-galley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Doubleday Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*