Desperate

I wasn't familiar with Daniel Palmers's novels until I won a copy of his latest, Desperate (#401), on Goodreads.  Suffice it to say that this thriller kept me guessing until the very end, and I've already put three of his previous books on Hold at my local library.

A couple who have bonded over the loss of a child from their previous marriages decide to adopt a child together.  When they bump into Lily, a pregnant single young woman who agrees to become the birth mother for their child, it seems that fortune has smiled upon Gage and Anna Dekker.  Gage has some reservations about the arrangement, nothing he can quite put his finger on, but Anna seems whole-heartedly committed to this new baby.  Little things begin to bother Gage, and it isn't long before the wheels come off the proverbial cart...

I really thought I had things figured out in this thriller, and I sort of did, but not at all the way I expected; the twists to this story just kept on coming.  What made it especially enjoyable for me was the Boston area setting of this book.  The neighborhood in Arlington where Gage and Anna live is within walking distance of where I grew up, so the menace in these quiet streets was even more real for me.  You don't have to be familiar with the area to appreciate how cleverly Mr. Palmer weaves his tale around such ordinary seeming folks.

Just one recommendation if you read this book: set aside a block of time when you won't be interrupted (a nice, sunny beach comes to mind).  It will be hard to put down once you get started on this roller coaster ride.  Or, as my husband said to me, "You finished that already!?"  What can I say?  I didn't have a choice but to find out what happened next as fast as possible.