Precious You by Helen Monks Takhar ★★★★★

Updated: May 15, 2020

Published : 11th June 2020

Publisher : HQ

Format : Kindle, Paperback, Audio, Hardback

Genre : Psychological Thriller

Synopsis

She’s got your job. She wants your life…

At first Katherine dismisses her early twenties intern as a millennial ‘snowflake’: entitled, moralistic, soft. Yet as Lily’s youth and beauty increasingly remind Katherine of everything she once had, she begins to develop a dark fascination with her new colleague.

But is Lily as perfect as she seems, or does she have a sinister hidden agenda?

As Katherine is drawn into an obsessive power struggle with the intern, a disturbing picture emerges of two women hiding dark secrets – and who are desperate enough to do anything to come out on top. . .

My Review

I want my plan to be painfully drawn out. They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but it also tastes the sweetest when its cooked slow...

Thank you HQ and Helen Monks Tasker for this absolutely gripping read!

This book has it all, Obsession, deceit, secrets, lies and more. What else do you need in a book?

This is like an extreme modern day single white female in the journalism world, dark, disturbing and nail bitingly brilliant and those twists at the end!!!

If this is Helen's debut then I cant wait to see what her next book will be.

The story is told over two different perspectives, Katherine and Lily.

Katherine is a forty year old editor living in London working for a failing magazine, she used to be amazing at her job but after a bout of depression the previous year she finds she is constantly treading to keep her head above water, writing pieces that are not even a hint of what they used to be.

Her life isn't bad though, she has a partner Iain who are both in love after more then twenty years together and they own their own home. Both love a good drink and have chosen life over children.

On the morning that Katherine needs to be on time as the magazine has been taken over by a new company to save it from further failure she finds herself having to hail a taxi as the bus is non existent. This is when she meets lily, a young, beautiful millennial who approaches and asks if she can share her cab.

Katherine is in awe of her youth and beauty and feels a pull that she wants to get to know this girl, wants to befriend her so agreeing to Lilys route which will take longer she starts to ask questions to find out a bit more about her. During the cab ride Katherine discovers that lily is in fact the niece to the Katherines new boss and the one she is currently late for a meeting with. This is where it all starts to go wrong.

Lily is beautiful, clever and extremely manipulative. She has spent her entire life being pulled between her mother and her aunt and has learnt at a young age that if your kind enough and manipulate enough then people will do just about anything you tell them to.

Lily has had a troubled youth, after her father died when she was only little her mother had no choice but to move in with her sister as she had no money and no job. Her aunt Gemma looked upon her as her own but with that came a huge pressure to always be the girl that Gemma wants her to be.

She was kicked out of a few schools for one thing or another but eventually was offered a chance as an intern by her aunt at her new take over, it's her last chance to sort herself out.

For reasons that are not quite clear at first Lily wants to ruin Katherine, she starts with her job, picking up all the things that Katherine does wrong but always under the guise that she is helping her out because lily wants them to become good friends, Katherine is so desperate for this that she believes her at every opportunity, even when it starts to feel very wrong.

Not happy with ruining her career, lily then goes after her life, she wants her partner, her house and everything that she holds dear and she will stop at nothing to get it. Katherine starts to see what she is up to but every time she voices her concerns to Iain he just puts it down to her paranoia because by this point he is besotted with lily, her young sexy body and vivacious energy, she reminds him of who he used to be.

Instead of backing away completely, Katherine goes along with what ever lily says because even though a small part of her craves Lilys attention she really wants to find out why she is hell bent on ruining her life. But lily is very clever and has spent most of her teenage and young adult life manipulating people to get what she wants and she won't let Katherine stop her, not even the fact that deep down there is a part of her that likes Catherine, admires who she was and what she became in the industry.

But Katherine is old school and her upbringing was far from normal. What lily doesn't realise is that Katherine has had to fight before, fight to survive and fight for what she wants.

She won't give up her life, her Iain or her career. She has never been one for rolling over and quitting.

I literally devoured this book in almost one sitting. The way the story unfolds itself is so clever, so enticing that even when you do put it down, you are left processing what it is you have just read. I did not guess the twists at the end. My favourite character was by far Katherine, she was once a powerful female editor in a world where power is usually given to men. Owning where ever she went in her black biker jacket you can see why someone would want to be her but her lifestyle and her past have damaged her to the point where she was clouded with a depression, then struggled to find her voice that made her writing so great. But she wasn't weak and I adored her strength throughout this book.

I did not like Lily at all. But I repeated her cleverness, she could manipulate just about anyone and as much as I didn't like her character I did love reading about her.

This has most definitely became my Book Of The Month and I urge you all to preorder this fantastic read.