Being a ghostwriter was not what Maddy Wright had envisioned her career would be. However, this is what she does and she just may have landed an opportunity that might open even more lucrative doors in the field. She has been hired by the famous and private cosmetic surgeon Dr. Angela Reynolds. She is to conduct research at the doctor's remote estate in the Scottish Highlands. She soon learns this position will be much more complex than she could have imagined. Perhaps even more than that, it might be life-changing.
While the setting is spectacular, the happenings while Maddy is in the stunning house are troubling. Is she imagining that she is being watched? Why will Angela not reveal anything about her personal life? Is food really disappearing? What about the unexpected and perplexing changes in Angela's partner Scott with whom Maddy is inexplicably drawn? When her contract ends prematurely, she returns home and shortly afterward she learns about a heartbreaking tragedy. Soon afterward, she comes face to face with a shocking surprise. Can she believe her eyes?
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, by Emma Bamford, was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. It is a dark and thought-provoking story whose characters are not who they seem. There are lives and careers built on smoke and mirrors. It stresses the differences between "looking and seeing, surface and depth". For those who enjoy a profound psychological thriller packed with tension and twists and turns, I highly recommend reading EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.
Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Vertigo, the author of the “subtle and ominous” (Lee Child) debut Deep Water returns with a wholly original and sinister novel about the beauty industry, a ghostwriter, and the reappearance of the lover she thought was dead.
When Maddy Wight is hired to ghostwrite the memoir of world-renowned cosmetic surgeon Dr. Angela Reynolds, she thinks it might just be her chance to get her career back on track. She travels to Angela’s remote estate in the Scottish Highlands to hunker down and learn everything she can. But the deeper she digs, the more elusive the doctor becomes. Is there more hidden beneath the surface of the kaleidoscopic beauty industry than Angela wants to reveal?
Sharing the estate is Angela’s enigmatic business partner, Scott, whose mercurial moods change as quickly as the conditions on the darkening moors outside. Confined to the glass-walled house, Maddy can’t shake the feeling of being watched. As objects go missing, handprints appear on the windows, and a stranger lurks in the grounds, she finds herself drawn ever closer to Scott. Returning to London once the book is finished, Maddy is excited for their future together. But her dreams are shattered at the book launch when Angela learns that Scott has leapt to his death from the Scottish cliffs.
Which is why, months later and lost in a fog of grief, Maddy is completely blindsided when she sees Scott entering the Tube station just in front of her. It can’t be him, can it? After all, Scott is dead...or is he?
In exploring the differences between looking and seeing, surface and depth, and the power of the female gaze, this tribute to Hitchcock’s 1958 film masterpiece asks: If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how much can you trust what you see?
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