January 2019

I always approach an author’s --- in this case authors’ --- second book with some trepidation. THE WIFE BETWEEN US by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen was a huge success, thus setting a high bar. I liked AN ANONYMOUS GIRL even more! I had no idea where the story was headed at the beginning, but I was completely pulled in. And whoosh, from there it was page-turning. I was not sure who to believe as the story twisted round and round.

Jessica Farris is a makeup artist who travels around the city doing makeup in women’s homes, working for a service called Beauty Buzz. She’s scraping by, barely. Her mom and dad live in Pennsylvania with her sister, who has cognitive difficulties due to an accident that Jess holds guilt about. Thus, when she is at a client’s job and hears about the opportunity to make some extra money answering a survey, anonymously, she is all in.

What starts with a few questions that she may or may not answer honestly escalates into a meeting with the doctor who is running the survey. Dr. Shields gives her a number of assignments, which seem puzzling, but the money is good and Jess needs the cash. Suddenly she finds herself in way deeper than she planned, and what was once a game now seems to have some wicked consequences. Just what is going on?

As I said, it’s a page-turner that has some whiplash plotlines.

Last year, I heard Greer and Sarah speak at an event about how they write together long distance sharing a single document. As I read, I pictured them working together ramping up the plot...and tweaking their dialogue for maximum effect. It paid off.