Review by Booklist Review
Alex Hutchinson, aka UnapologeticallyAlex, is an Instagram influencer who just broke a million followers. Her twin 12-year-old daughters don't love that she makes her life so public, but her husband, Patrick, the girls' stepfather, is proud. Then someone posts a controversial video on UnapologeticallyAlex, one of Alex bashing a popular teen actress, and her assistant AC is nowhere to be found. Internet trolls descend, but losing followers is the least of Alex's problems. She is doxxed, fake photos appear online, and a dead body shows up in her carriage house office. The narrative alternates between Alex and Patrick each narrating their troubles and the story of Anna Claire, a motel maid who meets a man who promises to make all her money troubles go away. Soon it becomes clear that AC and Anna Claire are not the same person, leaving readers to wonder what the connection between the two stories is, which Belle (Stranger in the Lake, 2020) reveals in an explosive climax. This taut and twisty domestic thriller will keep readers guessing until the very end.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of this riveting thriller from Belle (My Darling Husband), Alex Hutchinson, an Instagram influencer known to her legion of fans as Unapologetically Alex, is overjoyed when the number of her followers hits one million. In a celebratory mood, she and her personal assistant, AC, whip out the tequila, and one drink leads to too many. The next morning, Alex finds that a vitriolic post denigrating a former Disney star-turned-scandal magnet has been uploaded to her social media platform. While Alex has indeed dissed the former actor in the privacy of her own home, she can't remember posting these thoughts for all to see. Within minutes, the trolls are out in force, and Alex and her family become the target of death threats. She calls AC to help with damage control, but the young woman has disappeared. As Alex searches for AC, every new piece of information suggests unexpected possibilities that leave readers reexamining what they have accepted as the truth. As Alex says, "perception is reality." This twisty, multilayered tale should win Belle new fans. Agent: Nikki Terpilowski, Holloway Literary. (Nov.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An Instagram influencer living in Atlanta finds herself at the center of a revenge plot--but is it aimed at her or her husband? @UnapologeticallyAlex is many things: She's Alex Hutchinson, 39; mother of twin 12-year-olds Penelope and Gigi; a cheerful, supportive Instagram influencer who's proud of herself, pregnancy stretch marks and all; and wife to Patrick, 46, a "self-made moneyman" and nightly news personality. She is also very, very fake, from her perfect photos to her bleached teeth, false eyelashes, and plastic surgery. The night she hits a million followers on Instagram, she gets extremely drunk with AC, her personal assistant, and her husband has to put AC into an Uber and pour Alex into bed. When she wakes up the next morning, she's unexpectedly gone viral with a post she made while plastered. @UnapologeticallyAlex has done the opposite of what her fans have come to expect: She's called out a 16-year-old celebrity for being a "two-bit whore" with the "brains of a dodo bird." When she starts thinking about damage control, she realizes that AC is missing. And then her life starts to unravel--the death and rape threats against her and her girls begin and then get worse, she is doxxed, and her husband gets more and more evasive as the police look into him in their efforts to find the missing AC. Alex's and Patrick's stories parallel another: Anna Claire is a maid in a divey motel, picked up and delivered to work one day by a rich, sunglasses-clad stranger in a BMW when her car is put out of commission by a flat. He wines and dines her, and she ends up pregnant and laundering money for him--moving enormous amounts of cash through the motel where she works. The stories touch on murder, torture, implied rape, and violent threats without glorifying graphic details. A thoughtfully written, suspenseful story of intertwined lives that draws the reader quickly along to an unexpected ending. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
