The Book of You by Claire Kendal
Clarissa made one mistake, she was too polite and has paid for it ever since. When she was invited to Rafe’s book launch she was still struggling to come to terms with a painful breakup but after he had given her three invites she just couldn’t say no. That evening they had a drink together and as they leave Clarissa becomes so disorientated she hardly knows where she is and relies on Rafe to get her home. She remembers him trying to undress her and then her memory fades to black.
Since that night Rafe just won’t leave her alone. It’s gone beyond simple admiration and after consulting some leaflets on stalking she realises that nothing he’s done so far will be enough for the police to act on. When she’s called up to jury service she thinks it’s a perfect escape from him but when she meets someone there she really does start to have feelings for, Rafe’s action goes from unnerving to truly terrifying.
Claire Kendal has a great skill for creating repressive and claustrophobic situations and you do really start to relate to Clarissa’s situation. Rafe is an unnerving character that really does get under your skin, even with the simplest of statements. There were, however, a couple of occasions where you feel any normal person would have definitely approached the police. She calls them when Rafe tries to sit next to her at work but she doesn’t even consider it after she’d been drugged and raped or attacked in her local park. It was a tense and intriguing novel but the holes in its logical progression stopped it being great.
Buy The Book of You by Claire Kendal