I Trust You

by Katherine Pathak

Marisa Coleman lives the perfect life. She is strikingly beautiful and married to a successful man she loves. They live in a stunning house that faces the sea. But when Marisa’s husband leaves her stranded on a boat in the rising tide, the trust she once took for granted in their relationship begins to slowly ebb away. Desperate for a child and with the details of her own early life shrouded in mystery, Marisa resolves to find out more. Little does she realise, that by disturbing the past, her perfect existence will be shattered. Everything she believed to be true about herself and the people she loves begins to unravel before her eyes. Can she still trust the man she married? Have Marisa’s adoptive parents been telling her lies all these years? Can she hold onto anything certain in her life? Or will the secrets of the past drag them all down into their dangerous, murky depths. I Trust You is Katherine Pathak’s first standalone psychological thriller. She also writes the DCI Dani Bevan detective series and the Imogen and Hugh Croft Mysteries.

223 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 17, 2016

About the author

Katherine Pathak lives in rural north Essex with her husband and two young children. She has worked as a History teacher for over ten years and before that she worked in the book trade in London. Aoife's Chariot is her first novel. Katherine has lived in the south-east of England for most of her life, but her father's family come from the Isle of Arran in Scotland and this has been the inspiration for the fictional Island of Garansay, which is the stunning backdrop to this novel. Katherine's life-long interest in History also plays an important part in her writing and she tries to weave historical narratives into her imaginative and ingenious plots. Katherine is currently working on the second in the series of 'Imogen and Hugh Croft mysteries', which should appeal to readers who enjoy her well observed characters and gripping storylines. Katherine feels that a good psychological thriller should explore the quirks and eccentricities of human nature, but that they should always be believable and the plot should reward the reader with a deeply satisfying conclusion. Katherine enjoys writing the sort of novels that she likes to read herself and very much hopes that her readership feels the same!

Reviews

[Danielle (The Blonde Likes Books) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Am I the only one who feels bad rating books poorly? I can’t help it, but I always do! I know that authors put a lot of time, effort, passion, and hard work into the books they write, but not every book is for every reader, and I think this was the case here.

The description of the book sounds really good, but I found almost everything else lacking.

The book follows Marisa and her husband Eliot as they struggle with infertility issues. The first third of the book is non-stop inner narrative from Marisa about how she’s meant to be a mother and how much it pains her to not be able to get pregnant. Personally, I can’t relate to that, as I don’t want children. I know the summary mentions her being “desperate for a child”, but I wish I’d known going into the book that it was going to be so heavily focused on the infertility issues, because it probably would have turned me off as a reader. That said, let this be my “trigger warning” for anyone who that may be a hot topic for. It was very sad for me to read, and I can imagine it would be incredibly difficult for someone who was struggling to conceive to read at that moment.

Anyway, I digress. Marisa and Eliot are out on their boat when it breaks down and Eliot tries but fails to restart it. Eliot goes for help, but never comes back. Marisa attempts to start the boat, and it works with no issue, planting the first seeds of doubt into her head about her husband.

I’ll leave out the events that precede this next piece so I don’t spoil anything for anyone, but Marisa eventually goes to visit her foster mom who took her in as a child before she was permanently adopted. Through that meeting, she gets back in contact with Lee, another child who was at the foster house around the same time. She goes to meet him (and lies to her husband about where she’s at, mind you).

Here’s where the story starts getting unrealistic for me. I’m going to spoiler tag the next part, so read at your own risk if you haven’t read the book yet! Conveniently, Lee used to work with Eliot’s father, and they shortly find out that he lied about his past, claiming that he was “old money”, when in reality he started working on fishing boats and worked his way up. Now, to me this doesn’t seem like the end of the world. To Marisa, it was grounds to question her entire marriage. She goes home and calls her father, who also used to work as Eliot’s father’s lawyer (small world? How do all of these people know each other independently of Marisa?) and starts asking questions about Eliot’s father, rather than asking Eliot himself. She meets up with Lee one more time and they end up kissing. Wait, what?! How did that happen? They haven’t seen each other in decades and now she’s cheating on her husband with whom she’s been trying for 8 years to have a baby, all because his dad lied about the fact that he wasn’t born into money? I can’t imagine anyone ever doing that in real life. I honestly almost stopped reading when I read that.

To cut to the chase, I feel like this book could really have benefitted from an editor. There were a number of grammatical errors that detracted from the story (“too” instead of “two”, “in” instead of “is”, “effective” vs “effectively”, sentences that didn’t flow well, etc.) It felt like a great outline for a book, but like it was missing a lot of the middle section to move the characters from point A to point B. It felt to me like the characters jumped there without any logical reason as to why, or without any natural progression. It felt forced, and so did a lot of character behavior. Marisa’s reaction (or lack there of) to the outcome of what happened with Eliot seemed not at all believable. I did like the twist about Marisa’s past, but as previously stated, I didn’t like how we actually got there. It felt very choppy and unnatural.

You may read the book and totally disagree with me - others have, but as a reviewer, this is my opinion. If there were half stars, I’d rate this 1.5 stars.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something to keep you guessing.

If like me you think yourself a bit of a super sleuth, then this is a thriller that will test just how good you are.

I was completely lost in the story and it was quick reading from cover to cover. There is so much going on and there are so many potential bad guys that my detective abilities were stretched to the limits, in the end I gave in to the story and just let it unfold, with so many twists and turns when the truth is finally revealed I consoled myself that not even Sherlock Holmes would have seen that coming.

A really enhoyable read and completely different from the authors DI stories. X

[Mary F. Schultz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have just finished wished this book. It was the last I found by the author. I can't wait for her next book. I must say of all of them... this has been my favorite.

Of all her books... and I think I have read everything published so far... this has been my favorite. Keep writing

[Tim Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was not expecting a sex scene in the first chapter. I also was not expecting the end. At all. I love detective stories and this one had me completely stumped. A very original crime yet when I thought about it later there were plenty of clues that perhaps could have pointed a better detective than me somewhere in the right direction.

[Lyndall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this a really easy read. The plot moved along quickly and enjoyed a shorter book.

[Helen Lancaster Lancaster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable read

It was a good read (Wont give any spoilers) . Liked the twists and turns in it even if some were predictable. My only flaw was it was romanticized especially on a touchy subject and I didn't like the Marissa or Elliot.