The Perfect Fraud by Ellen LaCorte (ARC Review)

The Perfect Fraud by Ellen LaCorte
Publisher: Harper Books (June 18, 2019)
Description from the publisher: 

Motherhood is tough. But then, so is daughterhood. When we first meet Claire, she’s living in Sedona, Arizona with her boyfriend Cal and ducking calls from her mother. Her mom is a world class psychic on the East Coast and Claire doesn’t want her to discover the truth. Claire works in the family business and calls herself a psychic, but she doesn’t really have “the gift” and hasn’t for a long time. She’s a fraud.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Rena, a young mother, has family issues of her own. She’s divorced and her four-year-old daughter, Stephanie, suffers from mysterious, seemingly incurable stomach problems. No matter how many specialists Rena drags her to, no matter how many mommy-blog posts she makes about her child’s health issues, trying to get help and support from her online community, Stephanie only gets sicker.

When Claire and Rena meet by chance on an airplane, their carefully constructed lives begin to explode. Can these two women help each other and can they help Stephanie before it’s too late?

I think it's a pretty well established fact that I'm rather picky about suspense or thriller novels. I have to be really invested in the plot, or really invested in the characters. I would say that this debut novel from Ellen LaCorte definitely grabbed my attention with her plotting. Even though it's pretty clear what's going on early in the novel, with some unreliable narration, I breezed through this book curious as to how she'd bring the two women together.

Dual narratives are a favorite of mine, especially when they seem like nearly unrelated accounts that dramatically collide in the final pages of a book. The author was a little heavy handed with Rena's unbearable personality and grammar (if you are a grammar nerd, it will make you CRINGE), and Claire's character felt somewhat wooden and cliched. However, I couldn't help but turn the pages in their increasingly fraught, increasingly sinister, cat and mouse dance.

If you're looking for a quick and easy thriller that doesn't require a lot of brain space for the beach this summer, this would certainly fit the bill. Trigger warning, though, for child abuse. Many thanks to Harper Books for a complimentary advance copy for my honest review!