Title: Hold Your Breath
Author: Wendy Walker
Narrator: Dylan Baker
Published: October 2020, Audible Originals
Length: 2 hours 31 minutes
Source: Personal copy
Summary:
From the best-selling
author of All Is Not Forgotten and Don’t Look for Me comes a sharp,
compulsive thriller about a young woman who narrowly escapes a violent
crime and the psychiatrist helping to recover her memory of the suspect.
Gabby
Ashford has just survived an attempt on her life. Detectives have
connected her story to two other cases in the area: Professional women
drugged at a bar, brought to their homes, and drowned in their bathtubs.
Gabby, who miraculously woke up in her own bathtub unharmed, could be
the key to finding a serial killer on the loose – but she has no memory
of the attack.
Gabby admits herself to a high-end rehabilitation
center to recover and to seek the help of a psychiatrist renowned for
his work with memory recovery. As Dr. Forrester works with Gabby –
interviewing not only her but her overbearing fiancée, her emotionally
fragile brother, and the local detective working the case – questions
about Gabby’s story, her past, and the ethics of memory recovery emerge.
Dr.
Forrester, the central voice of Walker’s breakout debut All Is Not
Forgotten, is a fascinating and deeply complicated character, barreling
toward the truth of the case at hand while wrestling with the demons of
his own past. Shocking and succinct, Hold Your Breath will have you on
the edge of your seat from the first minute to the last.
My thoughts: It’s no secret here that I am a HUGE fan of Wendy Walker, so of course when I heard she had a short story coming out, I knew I would be getting my hands on it. And even better that it was only available as an audio…I love audiobooks!
Let me just say, there is a reason Wendy Walker is one of my favorite authors. Even with this short story, she still managed to give us quite the edge-of-seat, twisted little psychological thriller I can come to love and expect from her and this one was nothing less than brilliant. I absolutely loved that a familiar face from one of my favorite books, that of Dr. Forrester from All is Not Forgotten, is central to this story. In fact, because I read that story so long ago, I have such an urge to pull it out and reread it…that might be happening soon!
And let’s just talk about that ending…what a great surprise twist that I wasn’t expecting at all. I’m telling you, if you haven’t picked up a Wendy Walker book yet, I don’t know what you are waiting for. This one is only available as an audiobook, but given it’s short length, it’s such a good introduction to her work. I highly recommend it.
Audio thoughts: This was such a great audiobook. Dylan Baker is a new-to-me narrator and I thought he did a great job with this audio. The pacing and intonation were just right and kept me on the edge of my seat. And I loved that as an Audible member, this book was included with my membership.
