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To his whole community, Aidan Thomas is a highly respected citizen. He’s a dad and recent widower. He helps others regularly. You couldn’t ask for a better person to live in your town.
To the woman who has been held captive for five years in a shed at the far back of his property, Aidan is a monster. He keeps her handcuffed and rapes her every night. He’s done all he can to make her submissive to his will, including insisting she use a name he chose for her.
“Rachel” also knows he is a serial killer. For some reason, he hasn’t killed her yet. So she holds on to a glimmer of hope that someday she will break free.
When he is forced to move out of his longtime home with that shed, Aidan takes Rachel with him to his new rental home. He puts her in a bedroom and tells his teen daughter, Cecilia, that Rachel is a family friend who needs a place to stay.
Life has now changed dramatically. It may be almost time for Rachel to find freedom.
The Quiet Tenant switches viewpoints between Rachel, a woman in town named Emily who falls for Aidan, and Cecilia. As the story progresses, bonds form between them in different ways, and Aidan’s carefully curated life veers toward toppling.
This book slowly builds suspense as readers wonder how/if Rachel will escape. But it’s not just a story of suspense; it’s an exploration of the effects of trauma on the women in the story. Each has been hurt in different ways. Each has an opportunity to find inner strength and reclaim who she is. Like its namesake, the book is often quiet, even as the tension ratchets up a bit at a time. I was definitely curious about how things would play out, but I wanted just as much to know how these women would survive what they went through.
A gripping book.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 47 uses of strong language, around 20 instances of moderate profanity, about 10 uses of mild language, and a few instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes kissing and one or two sex scenes with some detail past kissing. Violence includes brief mentions of various women a serial killer has killed; regular understood rapes of a kidnapped woman; frequent injuries.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
