Honeytrap

by Kanika Batra

What should have been a casual summer day at Lake Sammamish State Park soon became a nationwide manhunt, inducing mass hysteria.It's the year of 1974 in Seattle, Washington. Young women are vanishing in the city and its surrounds at an alarming rate, and they all bear a striking resemblance to one another. Panic seeps into the community and women fear leaving their homes alone. Pretty coeds are being snatched, but it's seemingly impossible to understand why and how.It's assumed that only one killer is at work until the bodies of young decapitated males start appearing in ravines and wild bushland, with their hands and feet dismembered. A reign of terror has seized the Pacific Northwest, but those responsible for the gruesome crimes are the least likely suspects - nobody is on their trail.It's hard to fathom that two killers are hunting on the same grounds, and almost inconceivable that they're soon to strike up a relationship. Maris Caldwell is a vivacious 23-year-old woman, an heiress to the Caldwell Hotels dynasty, with the world at her fingertips. An exquisite beauty with intelligence and magnetism, on the surface Maris is the perfect daughter with a bright future as a doctor. She ought to fear for her life, but the violence seems so far away from her manse in Bellevue.Her world rapidly begins to unravel when her closest friend Carol disappears, along with another pretty, young blonde, leaving behind her car and a plethora of unanswered questions. All the police have to go on is a physical description that could mirror half of Seattle's population, and a Ted.

Genres: Thriller, Historical Fiction

322 pages, Paperback

Published November 30, 2020

Reviews

[hevuschka · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I love how the way I felt about the characters drastically changed with the change of narrator, despite the fact that the plot did not change but was just present from a different perspective.
The novel was, all in all, beautifully structured with a fitting writing style.


Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Murder, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Bullying, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Self harm, Blood, Death, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Body shaming, Hate crime, Sexual harassment, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Alcohol, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Drug use, Fatphobia, and Classism

Minor: Lesbophobia

[Christopher Adams · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a steaming pile of dog shit.
Do something else with your life.
This book will make you regret you read it.
Id rather bang my head against the wall.

[Alvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honeytrap is set in 1974, Seattle and features 2 serial killers. We follow Maris Caldwell - a daughter and heir to the Caldwell Hotel dynasty as she navigates events following the disappearance of a friend. Maris must serve her family's interests by day, whilst simultaneously satisfying her personal nefarious desires at night.

It's an easy read and the plot is generally easy to follow. There were a few surprising plot twists and an interesting shift in perspective. Maris' character is particularly well written. I enjoyed uncovering more about the Caldwell family's dynamic and their interactions with others.

However, in order to enjoy the novel, it requires some suspension of reality. Certain events and information (that were relevant in order to provide motives, reason or context) were just suddenly dropped, and followed by an explanation dump. The depictions of several acts of violence in the novel were highly graphic and brutal and may unsettle readers.

The book also lacks polish, where certain sentences don't flow and the grammar doesn't work (eg. there're as a contraction for there are). Dialogue was also a bit janky and it was difficult to follow the different speakers at times.

Overall, I enjoyed the book - despite the lack of polish and unrealistic nature of the certain events.

[C. · Rating 1 out of 5]

aside from the author being a racist and zionist pile of shit who romanticizes ted bundy (this book is clearly and quite literally fanfiction she wrote wherein she imagines herself being in a relationship with the serial killer - maris, on top of being a blatant mary sue, is so pathetically her own self-insert it's insane) and jeffrey epstein, and believes in the latter's innocence? this book was so qualitatively horrible i can't decide whether it's terrifying or hilarious that it was actually allowed to be published.

this book is rife with anachronisms, plot armor, plot holes / contradictions / retcons and shoddy explanations for such within the story as though kanika had forgotten what she'd written previously before writing something else, grammatical and formatting errors, characters who are caricaturistic in nature and do not seem like real people (especially how literally every. single. character, even her own family, is just spellbound by and feels the need to emphasize the protagonist's unimaginable beauty!!!), both outright and subtle racism (a black character was both used for sex, treated disposably, and given the name 'lilith' as in the literal demon...), ridiculous shit like the notion that a student with terrible undergraduate grades and extensive substance abuse as well as a juvenile record for murder gets admitted into medical school and a 5'7" woman is 95 pounds without looking like eugenia cooney and keeling over (while also somehow being a size 4... that weight at that height is consistent with somebody being a size 00...), these British sounding names for supposedly American characters in an American setting along with British English and British spellings used throughout (for the record the author is Australian)... also how the fucking MC is clearly based off Paris Hilton, from being a hotel heiress to her goddamn first name. L O L. also a 23-year-old in the 1970s absolutely does not talk like this, like a chronically online gen-Z tiktok user.

and kanika naming her fictional murder victim 'carol' after real life Ted Bundy survivor Carol DaRonch is fucking repulsive. especially since Kanika reportedly harassed Carol for her story while conducting "research" for this drivel of a novel. Carol even called Kanika out on Facebook for an op-ed she did romanticizing Ted.

also, all these reviews praising this book from newly-joined goodreads accounts whose sole reviews are of this story are clearly Kanika herself using sockpuppets to try and inflate her ratings. pathetic.

[Jozie Jewelz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and well-written

I don't usually read serial killer books and the graphic violence was hard for me to get through at times. I absolutely would not recommend that anyone who is very sensitive to violence read this book. However, I found the story to be interesting and well-written, despite some formatting mistakes that made the dialogue somewhat confusing. To say the characters are unforgettable is an extreme understatement! I learned about this book through the author's YouTube channel and I look forward to reading more from her in the future.

[Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic book! I couldn't put it down, and devoured it within a day. It's exciting, fast-paced and well-written. The plot is interesting, with great plot twists, and the author has obviously done extensive research on Ted Bundy. I also appreciated the author's dry, dark humour. The descriptions of violence are quite graphic though, so this book is not for the faint-hearted.

[peter merccado · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book. Well written.

[Daniel Watchorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kanika Batra decided to take on a side project to her modelling/Instagram influencer career by writing a book about a sociopathic young woman who has become caught up in a murder crisis in the city of Seattle in 1974.

Batra's protagonist Maris Caldwell is well crafted as an individual who must focus on keeping up appearances in her family's business empire whilst maintaining her devilish interests by night. The regular plot twists throughout the novel keep the reader on edge and the gradual revealing of her character is well timed. However, I believe that the graphic violence that occurs during the book can make it unsettling to read at times, which did make me feel somewhat uncomfortable however, I became accustomed to this as the book progressed.

Overall, I enjoyed the book but considering my slight distaste for the graphic violence means that this novel has not been rated higher.

[Joe Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book! Well written. Some crazy plot twists as well. I would highly recommend this book