My First-Ever Book Review: CREEP

             I am going to attempt something I’ve never done before:  A book review.  Now, I have no skill in this department whatsoever, but what I lack in aptitude, I think I more than make up for with enthusiasm.

As an avid reader, I am constantly on the prowl for the next novel that will truly grab and shake me to my roots, something so good, I simply cannot put it down.  I rarely come across books that hit me on a visceral level and stay with me for long periods of time.  I think the last time a book affected me this way, I was reading my friend, Lisa Regan’s, book, Finding Claire Fletcher, but until some wise publisher out there picks it up, most of you will never know. 

I can, however, share a book with you that everyone has access to because Jennifer Hillier’s debut novel, Creep, is now widely available.  I won a copy of this book and Jennifer was kind and gracious enough to send me one personally signed, something I will always treasure.  I was very anxious to get started and did a happy dance when it finally arrived.  And let me tell you, it did not disappoint. 

In case you haven’t had the pleasure, here is the inside jacket copy:

IF HE CAN'T HAVE HER . . .

Dr. Sheila Tao is a professor of psychology. An expert in human behavior. And when she began an affair with sexy, charming graduate student Ethan Wolfe, she knew she was playing with fire. Consumed by lust when they were together, riddled with guilt when they weren't, she knows the three-month fling with her teaching assistant has to end. After all, she's engaged to a kind and loving investment banker who adores her, and she's taking control of her life. But when she attempts to end the affair, Ethan Wolfe won't let her walk away.

. . . NOBODY ELSE CAN.

Ethan has plans for Sheila, plans that involve posting a sex video that would surely get her fired and destroy her prestigious career. Plans to make her pay for rejecting him. And as she attempts to counter his every threatening move without her colleagues or her fiancé discovering her most intimate secrets, a shattering crime rocks Puget Sound State University: a female student, a star athlete, is found stabbed to death. Someone is raising the stakes of violence, sex, and blackmail…and before she knows it, Sheila is caught in a terrifying cat-and-mouse game with the lover she couldn't resist—who is now the monster who won't let her go.

*

            Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?  Well, it is.  Very much so.  I love a good villain, probably more than the average protagonist.  I think they’re juicy and fascination, and Hillier’s Ethan did not disappoint.  From an older woman’s perspective, I found it intriguing that the nearly forty-year-old protagonist, Sheila, has a torrid affair with a hot twenty-something collegiate.  (Hey, one can dream, right?)  And I didn’t find fault that he reacted badly when Sheila dumps him after getting engaged to someone else.  But Ethan is a very bad boy and just can’t handle the rejection.  So he decides to get even.  And things heat way, way up.

I don’t want to give anything away because it’s the not-knowing-what-comes-next that kept me up way past my bedtime and sitting inside on the first beautifully sunny, warm day Seattle has seen is nearly a year.  Creep is loaded with sexual tension that grips and holds you in place, yet it is masterfully executed without being crass.  It’s both scary and sexy.  So unsettling and terrifying.  And it’s a thrill ride right up until the very surprising end.

You will definitely not regret picking this book up, except for the fact that once you do, you won’t be able to put it down.  So make sure you have a good long day to put everything else aside.