One Last Secret by Adele Parks #BookReview #Thriller

Hey book lovers! I’m here with a book review for the first book I read in 2023 – One Last Secret by Adele Parks. After giving Lies, Lies, Lies four stars I jumped at the chance to request an ARC of One Last Secret. It took me a long time to get into it, but am I glad I stuck it out. I feel like I should never DNF a book again because you never know what can happen in the last quarter of the book. A couple twists had my jaw hit the floor.

About The Book 📚

Title: One Last Secret

Author: Adele Parks

Publication Date: December 27, 2022

Publisher: MIRA (Harlequin Trade & Publishing)

Suggested Reader Age: Adult

Genre: Thriller

Triggers: Drugs, physical abuse, rape, child abandonment, extramarital sex, violence, murder, animal injury/death

Pages: 368

Synopsis

“One last client
A week at a beautiful chateau in the south of France—it should be a straightforward final job for Dora. She’s a smart, stunning and discreet escort, and Daniel has paid for her services before. This time, all she has to do is to convince the assembled guests that she is his girlfriend. Dora is used to playing roles and being whatever men want her to be. It’s all about putting on a front.

One last chance
It will be a last, luxurious look at how the other half lives before Dora turns her back on the escort world and all its dangers. She has found someone she loves and trusts. With him, she can escape the life she’s trapped in. But when Dora arrives at the chateau, it quickly becomes obvious that nothing is what it seems…

One last secret
Dora finds herself face-to-face with a man she has never forgotten, the one man who really knows her. And as old secrets surface, it becomes terrifyingly apparent that one last secret could cost Dora her life…

From the Sunday Times number one bestseller Adele Parks comes a blisteringly provocative novel about power, sex, money and revenge.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60099651-one-last-secret

About The Author

Born in North Yorkshire
First Novel Playing Away (2000)
22 Best-selling novels in 22 years
Ambassador for the National Literacy Trust and The Reading Agency
honorary doctorate of Letters from Teesside University in 2009
Her Majesty the Queen gave me the honour of M.B.E for Services to Literature in the New Year Honours List 2022
Lives in Guilford, Surrey with husband and son

https://www.adeleparks.com/biog

My Review

› One Last Secret is mainly told in first person from the perspective of thirty-year-old TeoDora (aka Dora). Her mother moved back to Serbia after her father died suddenly when Dora was 17. Through flashbacks, we learn a lot about Dora’s life after her mother left. Her resilience and ambition got her through the hard times and now she’s an experienced sex worker/escort, making really good money. She is NOT ashamed of her profession and there is great commentary in this story about societal views on sex workers. Her closest friend is Evan, a trust fund baby whom she met while working as an escort at a party.

Evan convinces Dora to quit her job after she is traumatically abused by a man while working. He proposes and she says yes. She promises that she will never take another escort/sex worker job, but when a trusted client calls with one last job she figures Evan is away for work and will never know. Plus, the client Daniel promises there will be no sex. He simply wants her to pretend to be his girlfriend so he can impress a woman he likes. Dora agrees to accompany Daniel on a getaway at a chateau in the South of France with a group of his friends from college. Things seem okay until one of his friends is a man she knows…a man she could never forget.

What begins as a fun week quickly turns dark. Dora feels like she’s losing her mind, and she’s desperately trying to find a ride away from this nightmarish chateau in the middle of nowhere.

› I use the CAWPILE method to rate books.
0-3 Really bad
4-6 Mediocre
7-9 Really good
10 Outstanding

› Characters: 6
There is some diversity. Dora is from Serbia, Chen is from Singapore, Liling is Chinese-American and Sisi is black. The characters felt really flat and forgettable.

› Atmosphere: 5
I would have liked more description and world-building. I also had a hard time connecting with the intended emotions.

› Writing Style: 6
I didn’t enjoy the critical commentaries about only female bodies. Some cliche writing, weird dialogue, and some repetitiveness.

› Plot: 5
25% I was thinking…Crap. This is my first book finished in 2023 and it’s gonna be a bad book for me. But it’s an ARC, so I really wanted to finish.
50% I start wondering what in the world is going on. I’m as confused as Dora.
70% I’m kind of bored…this is so predictable.
Then BOOM, BAM, right in my gut. Jaw to the floor at least twice. The last quarter of this book is one twist after another that I did not see coming.

› Intrigue: 4

› Logic: 5
The tree climbing was super weird. Why not use Find My Phone on Fitbit? Why go with the person into the maze after what they did to you?! In what world would a woman do that?!

› Enjoyment: The last third bumped this up from a 2 to a 7.

Average 5.4

1.1-2.2 = ★
2.3-4.5 = ★★
4.6-6.9 = ★★★
7-8.9 = ★★★★
9-10 = ★★★★★

My Rating ★★★

› Final Thoughts
• One Last Secret is a suspenseful and shocking thriller about secrets, lies, deception, murder, and revenge. It left me wondering if doing terrible things makes you a terrible person? In a way, it reminded me of Knives Out Glass Onion. I’m looking forward to Adele Parks’s next book, Just Between Us, expected to be published in July 2023.