Name: The CoWorker
Author: Freida McFadden
Description from Amazon: "Don't start a Freida McFadden book late at night. You won't be able to put it down!"― Natalie Barelli, bestselling author of Unforgivable.
Two women. An office filled with secrets. One terrible crime that can't be taken back.
Dawn Schiff is strange. At least, everyone thinks so at Vixed, the nutritional supplement company where Dawn works as an accountant. She never says the right thing. She has no friends. And she is always at her desk at precisely 8:45 a.m.
So when Dawn doesn't show up to the office one morning, her coworker Natalie Farrell―beautiful, popular, top sales rep five years running―is surprised. Then she receives an unsettling, anonymous phone call that changes everything...
It turns out Dawn wasn't just an awkward outsider―she was being targeted by someone close. And now Natalie is irrevocably tied to Dawn as she finds herself caught in a twisted game of cat and mouse that leaves her wondering: who's the real victim?
But one thing is incredibly clear: somebody hated Dawn Schiff.
Enough to kill.
The Coworker is a tense, unputdownable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden that explores the dark ways the past can echo through the present―with deadly consequences.
REVIEW AS A READER: This book was very enjoyable. The suspense and mystery started from the beginning and kept up the entire way through. There was a twist or two throughout the story, enough to keep me guessing the entire way through.
The writing was great. The pacing was consistent and the story moved the entire way through. With over 39,000 reviews, and a 4.1 rating, the book deserves every 5-star review it received.
REVIEW AS AN AUTHOR: Before I read this book, I looked through the reviews as I'm always curious what the 1-star people have to say. The only 1-star I remember is someone who got annoyed that the turtles were mentioned too much. That rater missed the whole point. I didn't feel that way at all. I loved the character with the turtles and the mentioning of the turtles was crucial regarding the autism of the character. The author did a great job in capturing and showing this autism, which is not easy.
The narrative and descriptions were very good. I never lost track of who was talking, which means there were plenty of dialogue tags where needed. As a fellow author, I was watching for foreshadowing and it was very, very subtle in this book. I always feel like the foreshadowing needs to be a big flapping red flag, but I learned reading this book that subtle foreshadowing is okay. It works.
There was a twist in the end that I was not expecting. I had a feeling that one of my favorite characters wasn't going to have a good ending, but I was pleasantly surprised.
The best lesson and take away as an author was the psychological aspect of the suspense as well as how well the autism was handled in a narrative as well as the dialogue. There was a lot to learn from the book pacing as well. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who likes a psychological mystery suspense.