Fool Her Once (A Novel) by Joanna Elm
Category:  Adult Fiction (18 +), 416 pages 
Genre:  Thriller
Publisher:  CamCat Books
Release date:   Feb, 2023
Content Rating:  PG-13 + M. There’s adultery, language, some sexual content, and violent crime, but no explicit descriptions of the crimes.

 

Some killers are born. Others are made.

​As a rookie tabloid reporter, Jenna Sinclair made a tragic mistake when she outed Denny Dennison, the illegitimate son of an executed serial killer. So she hid behind her marriage and motherhood. Now, decades later, betrayed by her husband and resented by her teenage daughter, Jenna decides to resurrect her career—and returns to the city she loves.

When her former lover is brutally assaulted outside Jenna’s NYC apartment building, Jenna suspects that Denny has inherited his father’s psychopath gene and is out for revenge. She knows she must track him down before he can harm his next target, her daughter.

Meanwhile, her estranged husband, Zack, fears that her investigative reporting skills will unearth his own devastating secret he’d kept buried in the past.

From New York City to the remote North Fork of Long Island and the murky waters surrounding it, Jenna rushes to uncover the terrible truth about a psychopath and realizes her own investigation may save or destroy her family.

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My Review

I chose to listen to this book after receiving a free audio copy from iRead Book Tours. All opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.

Fool Her Once is a book that is difficult to put down. There are secrets from the past that Jenna, an experienced investigative reporter, starts to uncover. She wants to know what happened to the son of the serial killer she reported about years ago. She has always felt she needed to look over one shoulder and she wants to end that. But now, she uncovers things that make her scared about the future for her and her family.

The story switches from the past to the present. At times near the beginning, I didn’t feel it was necessary, but the longer I listened, the more I realized that it was necessary.

Along with the thriller aspect of the story, there are intertwined relationships that are all somehow a part of Jenna’s life. I’ve learned to keep notes on the different characters in books, thank goodness, or I may have gotten confused.

I enjoyed listening to the narrator, Rachel Fulginiti. Her pace and timing were very good.

I’m used to books with surprises, but there were one or two that had my jaw dropping! This is the first book I’ve read by Joanna Elm, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.

About the Author

Joanna Elm is an author, journalist, blogger, and attorney. Before the publication of her first two suspense novels (Scandal, Tor/Forge 1996); (Delusion, Tor/Forge/1997), she was an investigative journalist on the London Evening News on Fleet Street in the U.K. She also wrote for British magazines like Woman’s Own.

Then, she moved to New York where she worked as a writer/producer for television news and tabloid TV programs like “A Current Affair.” She was also the researcher/writer for WNEW-TV’s Emmy-award-winning documentary “Irish Eyes.” In 1980, she joined the Star as a reporter, eventually becoming the magazine’s news editor and managing editor before moving to Philadelphia as editor of the news/features section of TV Guide.

After completing her first two novels while living in South Florida, (Nelson DeMille described Scandal as “fresh, original and unpredictable”) Joanna returned to New York, enrolled in law school, graduated summa cum laude, passed the NY Bar exam, and worked as a principal law clerk for an appellate division justice in the prestigious First Department. She has been married to her husband Joe for 35 years and has one son.

connect with the author: website ~ instagram ~ twitter ~ bookbub ~ goodreads

Giveaway

Enter to win a copy of FOOL HER ONCE
(2 winners/USA only)

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