Escaping Pretense

Another good read by Deb Jean Miller! Pretense Abdicator is a clever woman and very good at her job but when passed over for promotion, something snaps inside her and she makes the decision not to get mad, but to get even. She sets in place a plan which will see her enjoying the rest of her life in the kind of place we would all like to live and with a healthy enough bank balance to see out the rest of her days. However, even the best laid plans can go awry and Pretense finds herself rumbled but, as luck would have it, she finds a way out. The question is, will her conscience allow her to enjoy her spoils? Having enjoyed The Essence of Shade – this author’s previous novel – very much, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to read and review this one. From the very beginning I had a fondness for Pretense and as her story developed so did her character, although her past is revealed only in a timely manner. This is a tale of a realistic scenario and clever writing keeps the reader engaged throughout. I really enjoyed reading this one but I did wonder, upon reflection, what are the chances of things all working out so well? That, of course, was just my thoughts and doesn’t take anything away from an excellent story. I appreciated that the epilogue tied everything up nice and tightly, leaving no unanswered questions to niggle at me in a quiet moment. A well-written, interesting novel and one I’m happy to recommend. 4.5*

According to the blurb, Escaping Pretense is a heist crime thriller, but I'm inclined to disagree with that. I'd say it's more contemporary or women's fiction. It certainly has its share of drama. That said, I don't particularly care about the genre so much as the content, and this one's content makes it a thoroughly compelling read. Depending on the story, I don't always need to like the main character to like the book, and to be honest, I wasn't sure which way this one was gonna go in the beginning. I did not like Pretense at all for quite a way into this one. I felt like she may have had a bad start in life, but she had overcome it to find success. Then, we find out exactly what her life was like as she was growing up, and then she started to grow as a person, and my opinion started to change. Other than a couple of unfortunate names that had me rolling my eyes a few times, this whole book held me in its grip. In my opinion, Deborah Jean Miller is a gifted storyteller, and she has a talent I don't see as often as I'd like. She's taken a character who isn't a good person, one who isn't even a remotely nice person unless it suits her purposes, and shown some tremendous personal growth, and she's made it feel real. Yes, it's a little farfetched at times, but when you're in the midst of it, the story doesn't feel that way. By the time I got to the last quarter or so of the book, I was team Pretense all the way, and I genuinely wanted her to find that happiness she'd been so long without. I feel like I need to explain something here - there were so many things about this book that led me to rate it so highly, but the thing that convinced me was the writing. Even when I didn't like Pretense and felt like she needed a great big attitude adjustment, I couldn't just set this one aside. I mentioned the word compelling earlier, and it's really the most accurate word to describe this whole story. I just felt like I had to know what would happen next and how things would all play out.