I finished reading Colleen Hoover’s Verity a couple of days ago and somehow I can’t quite seem to stop thinking about it. Whether that means it’s a good book or not, I still can’t quite decide. It’s a bit like seeing The Sixth Sense, where I can’t help but wonder if the story is really as strong as I believe it was or if it’s just that the ending so completely gob-smacked me that I’m having problems seeing past it to decide about the overall quality of the entire experience.
Either way, give Hoover credit for crafting an entertainingly page-turning novel that, quite frankly, lured me in completely.
Like a lot of authors, Hoover explores the implications of being a writer with Verity. Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer whose bank account and writing career are coasting on fumes. When her agent says she’s been requested to meet with Jeremy Crawford, the husband of best-selling author, Verity Crawford, Lowen is intrigued but hesitant. Lowen has been chosen by Verity to finish her best-selling series after a car crash has trapped Verity within herself.
Moving into the Crawford home, Lowen begins to research Verity’s works and notes to try to put together the final three novels in the series. One of the selling points of Verity’s novels was their perspective — the villain’s point of view. When Lowen discovers Verity’s hidden autobiography, she begins to suspect that Verity’s characters may not exactly be fictional. The autobiography is filled with explicit descriptions and details of her relationship with Jeremey and growing feelings of antipathy and resentment toward her children.
The deeper Lowen gets into the mind of Verity, the more she starts to question things. Add in that Lowen is becoming attracted to Jeremy and you’ve got a potential powder keg just waiting to blow up.
Like any good suspense thriller, Verity feels like a ticking time bomb with things just waiting to explode. The game keeps getting ratcheted up a notch as Lowen suspects Verity is observing her flirting openly with Jermey (and he back) and that she is somehow haunting them both, even though she’s confined to her bed.
And then, we reach the final quarter of the novel with relations coming fast and furious and the Hoover pulls the rug out from under readers completely.
To say more would be to spoil the entire ending of the novel, but it’s that ending that has kept with me. I’ll give you a few moment to decide if you want to read more or not.
For her first Father’s Day, my daughter gave me an engraved keychain that says, “A girl’s first love is her father.”
Nashville Book Worm 