Good Evening All,

Happy Saturday. I hope you’re all having a fabulous weekend and enjoying some down time. We had the delight of waking up to snow this morning which was very exciting. It definitely gave me the opportunity to have a nice chilled day and get some cosy reading time.

Book 📖

I realised this week that I very rarely take advantage my Kindle Unlimited account and therefore decided to pick a book from there for my next read. That is what lead me to The Apartment by K. L. Slater.

Description 🔖

Freya and her daughter Skye are about to lose their family home and the life they have made there. Freya is close to being in trouble financially and knows she cannot afford to stay in the same area. Her luck changes when she has a chance meeting with the very pleasant Dr Marsden who just so happens to have an apartment available to rent in an affluent area, but at a shockingly reasonable price.

Dr Marsden is certain that Freya and Skye are a perfect fit for the vacant apartment at Adder house and blinded by panic for their future, Freya is not in a position to turn down what appears to be a fantastic opportunity. However as soon as they move in, strange goings on start to happen and Freya starts to question her decision. When people say something is too good to be true, it usually is. Will Freya realise this in time?

General Thoughts 🤔

This is the first time I have read a K. L. Slater book though I feel like I have seen her books around on the internet quite a lot. This meant I went in with no preconceptions and didn’t really know what to expect. What I found was a book that I found to be ok, but I can’t say that it rocked my world.

I had my suspicions about where the book was going to go (which ended up coming to fruition) so I can’t really say that I felt like I was in suspense. However I did carry on reading because I needed to know that I had gotten it right. I didn’t feel invested in the storyline because I unfortunately didn’t find it to be believable. I know that people make bad decisions when they’re desperate, but I just can’t get my head around someone truly going this far down a rabbit hole when something doesn’t feel right from the very start.

With all that said, it’s not like I stopped reading, I was obviously somewhat interested as I carried on through until the end. I’m getting through a lot of books in a short space of time at the moment (for me) so the fact that this book was relatively easy going and not super tense was a nice break for me.

Characters 👭👬👫

The story is focused on Freya and I struggled with her character. She wasn’t a character to dislike, I just couldn’t understand her. She had every single warning sign she could have had and failed to do anything about it other than make more bad decisions. I found her to have absurdly bad judgement and even when she did start to have doubts, she flip flopped back so easily.

I would have liked to have known more about the other residents of Adder House. They were kind of hinted at and a couple of them were introduced into the story in small ways. I think it would have been interesting to have read about them and their personalities.

Writing Style ✍️

It’s a mostly linear story however there are small sections of the book that go back to the 1920s. I think that these sections are what made the story predictable. I felt like they gave away a little too much in order for sufficient tension or suspense to be built. Other than this, I don’t have much else to say about the writing style other than it was easy to follow and I don’t feel like I had any unanswered questions at the end.

Conclusion & Scoring 🏅

Unfortunately this book didn’t hit my excited spot. I would have liked a little more mystery and a little more of a challenge. That said, if you prefer to read thrillers without a super shocking twist and real shock moments, this may be for you. This hasn’t put me off this author and I’d definitely give K. L. Slater’s other work a go. Maybe this particular book and I just didn’t get along. As we all know, it happens!

😍😍😩😩😩