From T.M. Logan, the bestselling author of Lies, comes 29 Seconds, a sensational new thriller that explores what happens when a split second thought of revenge takes on a life of its own. “Give me one name. One person. And I will make them disappear.” Sarah is a young professor struggling to prove herself in a workplace controlled by the charming and manipulative Alan Hawthorne. A renowned … and manipulative Alan Hawthorne. A renowned scholar and television host, Hawthorne rakes in million-dollar grants for the university where Sarah works–so his inappropriate treatment of female colleagues behind closed doors has gone unchallenged for years. And Sarah is his newest target.
When Hawthorne’s advances become threatening, Sarah is left with nowhere to turn. Until the night she witnesses an attempted kidnapping of a young child on her drive home, and impulsively jumps in to intervene. The child’s father turns out to be a successful businessman with dangerous connections–and her act of bravery has put this powerful man in her debt. He gives Sarah a burner phone and an unbelievable offer. A once-in-a-lifetime deal that can make all her problems disappear.
No consequences. No traces. All it takes is a 29-second phone call.
Because everyone has a name to give. Don’t they?
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Being a good Samaritan is usually something you are proud of not frightened of, right?
Sarah saved the daughter of a prominent man from being kidnapped, but she was rewarded in a very unusual way and in a way she actually couldn’t accept until she knew she needed to.
The reason Sarah made this decision was because of an ongoing problem with her boss, Alan, who harasses women, steals their ideas, and lies about it all. Sarah had to do something about him, but will it backfire?
Sarah knew it would backfire and make her look bad and lose her job at the university, but this harassment couldn’t continue. She knew, though, that she wouldn’t win or could she?
If you want to hate a character, Alan would be your man.
29 SECONDS is a book you literally will not be able to put down. The tension keeps building and doesn’t stop. The evilness of Alan doesn’t stop either.
I have never finished a book this quickly – that is how good this book is.
If you enjoy edge-of-your-seat thrillers, this book needs to be on your reading list…an absolutely terrific read. 5/5
This book was given to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
29 Seconds brought out all the crazy in me and the wish for revenge was strong! This is a wonderfully exciting ride through a short period of time in Sarah’s life. Sarah’s boss is one of the lowest of the low, a sexual predator who happily uses his position of authority to use and abuse women sexually.
Haven’t we all dreamed of revenge or the perfect way out of an incredibly difficult situation? I know I have and when Sarah is offered the chance to “disappear” anyone – 1 name – that is when the crazy starts. There are cat and mouse games played, lots of drama and definitely some tighten your seat belt moments.
Sit down, cozy up and have snacks and drinks nearby because you will NOT want to stop reading this until the end. I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen and if Sarah would ever have a decent chance at furthering her career.
If you haven’t read T. M. Logan, do so now! 29 Seconds is one of the best books I’ve read this year.
I was thrilled to receive an ARC at my request and thanks go to the author, publisher and Netgalley. All thoughts in this review are my own and happily given.
29 Seconds is a fast-paced thriller with a fabulously fulfilling twist of an ending!
Sarah is a young wife, mother, and professor wading through university politics, trying to honestly work her way up under a man who has quite a reputation with the female professors. Alan Hawthorne is powerful, wealthy and holds the key to large amounts of funding for the University. While his reputation is well known throughout the office, every woman that has ever spoken up is suddenly removed from her post, her career ruined. When he sets his sights on Sarah, she has no choice but to consider his advances or decide if she’s willing to fight. After a moment of impulse leaves her in the debt of a man with dangerous connections and an offer of repayment, she has to make a choice. A chance to make all her problems disappear… with one 29-second phone call. Would you take it?
T.M. Logan blew me away with his debut novel, Lies and I was beyond excited to dive into 29 Seconds. His writing style is fast-paced, every chapter leaving you hanging on edge, making it impossible to put down! Quickly becoming one of my favorite authors – I can’t wait to see what he shares next!
29 Seconds is a slow starter with a considerable amount of time spent on setting the stage. In fact, I almost set this one aside as I kept waiting for Sarah to be presented with the choice that is described in the blurb. After a little more of the mundane than I thought absolutely necessary, we do eventually get there, and by this time the author has achieved the goal of making us really hate Hawthorne. The only problem is I didn’t much like Sarah either. She comes across as weak and incapable of taking action against her despicable boss. But, yes, there is a but, take action, she does, in a moment of desperation? Exasperation? Infuriation? Whatever ‘ation’ she feels in that moment, it was enough to finally do something. This is where the story took a turn for the better for me. Sarah is still whiney to the point of tedium, but she does have reason for some of it. Anyone with a shred of morals would have at least had second thoughts. But the twists and the way things play out saved this one for me. I can usually see the twists coming, and there were a couple that didn’t take me by surprise, but they were still done excellently. That said, there were also a couple of twists that snuck right up on me and had me sitting up in my chair and paying attention, and the conclusion was perfect for this crazy, twisted story. Looking back and thinking about it all, I would say this book really starts at almost halfway through, but from there, it has a steadily rising tension and explosive twists that kept those pages turning.
“Everyone has a name to give. Everyone. Whether they admit it to themselves or not.”
Given the chance, do you take the opportunity to make an adversary, someone making your life miserable by threatening your livelihood, your career, all that you’ve worked for, simply disappear? In 29 Seconds T.M. Logan creates a psychological thriller with this interesting and unique premise and kept me captivated from start to end and made me wonder, does everyone have a name to give?
Sarah is a female professor trying to make it onto the roster as a permanent member of the faculty. She’s stressed by the dissolution of her marriage and trying to protect her young children from the fallout. Worst of all, she’s contending with very inappropriate advances and misdeeds of her boss. When she witnesses and thwarts the near abduction of a young girl, she finds herself in an ethical dilemma. But when her boss goes too far, takes credit for her work, and threatens her livelihood, she finds herself contemplating what seems like her only way out.
The story is fast-paced with never a dull or extraneous moment. The twists and turns are well orchestrated and all the secondary characters cleverly influence Sarah in her choice and help to bring about vindication. 4 Stars and recommendation.
Loved this book. A great thriller that caught my attention and kept me hooked and reading until the end. Sarah is a well written character that goes through a bad time with her boss that is very believeable and real to life. Plenty of twists in this story very engrossing and interesting. will look for more books by this author.
I’m tired of people not taking sexual harassment as a serious issue. It is. – Eva Gutowski
I am 63 years old and I can honestly say that I don’t know any women who are close to me over my lifetime that haven’t experienced sexual harassment, including myself, at least once if not multiple times.
When I was in my 20s and 30s it was rampant in the workplace and just about anywhere you went.
I don’t think it’s much better nowadays, maybe just a bit more hidden from public view.
This is a story about Sarah, working at Queen Anne University in England, and sexually harassed by her boss every chance he gets. I wasn’t a huge fan of Sarah for putting up with it as long as she did…but her boss was a total pig.
This is a story of “what ifs.” What if you were given the chance to have someone disappear totally without your name being involved? What if you finally got tired of the harassment and the threats and decided to fight back?
This was a fast-paced enjoyable thriller with a great ending. It brought a lot of bad memories flooding back to me that I thought I’d covered pretty well but I think it’s time all of us remember the harassment we’ve suffered (and it’s not just women) and it’s time for change.
I received this book from St. Martin’s Press through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.
A spellbinding rea! Sarah has a problem with her supervisor Alan. This story will hold your attention all through to the end. What do you do when you feel trapped with no where to turn. Sarah is facing harassment and discrimination at work. At home she has problems with her husband. She only wants to do her job and support her children.
When the chips are at there lowest she finds the people she can trust are her dad, best friend and a stranger who owes her a debt. You will be surprised and mesmerized as the story unfolds and she finds the perfect solution to her problem. Something you definitely read more than once without skipping any words or pages and still feel highly satisfied.
After being sexually harassed by her superior, Alan, for two years, Professor Sarah of Queen Anne University in London has had enough. But, when she’s confronted with the ability to make him “disappear” for good, will she take it?
“Give me one name. One person. And I will make them disappear.”
After reading this author’s debut, Lies (3.5 stars), a year ago, I was very excited when I received an advance copy of 29 Seconds in the mail. Luckily, this extremely suspenseful psychological thriller was even better than the first, and the short chapters allowed me to devour it quickly. I loved the #MeToo theme and was angered and disgusted by Alan’s behavior towards Sarah. There were so many surprising twists and turns, and the ending was absolute perfection making me laugh out loud in glee. Now, I can’t wait for next summer’s release, The Vacation!
Location: London, England (Queen Anne University)
I received an advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
29 Seconds by T.M. Logan sounded like a book I would devour from the moment I read the blurb. I was expecting a fast paced, suspenseful, addicting thriller.
Unfortunately, this one fell a bit flat for me. I felt like there were more slow moments in the story than not. There were several moments that felt fast paced and suspenseful, but they were only short moments sprinkled throughout the book. Sarah’s inner monologues were a huge part of what slowed this book down and made me lose interest a few times. I frequently felt like her thoughts were rambling more than necessary.
29 Seconds was overall a thriller with an interesting concept that just fell a bit short of the mark for me.
I voluntarily received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
29 Seconds is a book that can be read on multiple levels.
1. The plot level
As a suspense novel, this is excellent. Logan surprised me at several points, which is a bit difficult to do, and the plot takes us to several unexpected places. If you’re looking for a riveting, tension-filled suspense novel to devour, here you go. But if you dive deeper, there’s more than simply a rollercoaster plot.
2. The emotional level.
I don’t have a doctorate, but I do have a master’s degree and seriously considered getting my doctorate in English literature. (I had two kids instead!) I’ve also spent a fair amount of time around people with Ph.Ds in the so-called “impractical” liberal arts. I’ve watched professors spend countless hours teaching, grading, planning, researching, writing, submitting, and cross-their-fingers hoping to get another publication. All in hopes of getting a position. Getting tenure. Getting some semblance of job security. Because, let’s face it, if you have a doctoral degree specializing in literature from several centuries ago, what can you do with that degree besides teach? Not much.
Here’s what I’m getting at: Sarah had my sympathy.
She’s highly educated and a hard worker. She’s struggling to maintain a balance between being a single mom to two young kids and her job, where coworkers believe her priorities are wrong. Then Hawthorne, the powerful and popular professor, sexually harasses her. Repeatedly. Relentlessly.
Logan did an excellent job laying out all the available options, then tearing them apart. Every time she thinks (and we think, too) that oh, yay! an escape route, he rips it apart. Every. Single. Time. I could feel Sarah’s desperation grow. Tension mounts.
Logan nails the dynamics between abuser and abused. Hawthorne whittles away at Sarah’s world, narrowing it down until he is the world and there is no escape. He is all that she can see. He consumes all her thoughts. I’ve been there, as have countless other people. Under those circumstances, Grosvenor’s offer looks like salvation.
I said that this story can be read on multiple levels. There’s the external plot. There’s the emotional arc. But if you dive even deeper, this book has an ethical, possibly even spiritual, level.
3. The ethical level
This isn’t a story about revenge. No matter what anyone else might think, I can’t read this as a revenge story. It’s much more than that. Revenge is petty and vindictive and unnecessary. That’s not the case here. She’s trying to protect those she loves and her achievements.
Don’t discount how difficult it is to work that hard, for that long, sacrificing, dreaming, striving, persevering in the face of opposition–only to watch a powerful, heartless man threaten to tear apart that dream and one’s family overnight. Fighting back isn’t revenge. It’s protecting this achievement against the threat. But if the weapon of protection is evil, then what?
This is a Faustian tale; it’s about a battle for the soul. I thoroughly enjoyed the references to Marlowe and his most famous (infamous?) work. Faust and his devil haunt this story.
This is a story about ethical choices.
There’s the choice that Grosvenor gives her. Give him a name, or not. What does “disappear” mean? He doesn’t say it. But it’s understood that to disappear in Grosvenor’s world is to die. It’s also understood that, by us and Sarah, this man is powerful enough to make it happen. He’s devilish, if not an actual devil.
She understands what this means for her ethically. She’s a Marlowe scholar; she knows how Faust’s bargain ends. Like Dr. Faustus, she’ll be apart from everyone else who has not made a bargain with the devil. She knows she is slipping closer and closer to selling her integrity and her soul. It frightens her.
But there’s also the choice that Hawthorne gives her. He’s made it clear that she’ll have to sleep with him (also selling her integrity) or else she’ll never get a permanent contract, leaving her unemployed and unemployable.
Damned if she does. Damned if she doesn’t.
This is a universal story. It could take place in many fields. Law. Politics. Business. Entertainment. Religion. I’ve heard stories like this in all these fields. Many of these fields are dominated by the good old boys network. Harassment and assault are common. Complaints are ignored or dismissed. People turn a blind eye, either refusing to believe the truth or too afraid of the negative ramifications for themselves to speak out. Outsiders are blissfully ignorant. Meanwhile, those with power gain power and those without power have even what little they have stripped away.
How many people have lived this story? How many are living it now?
29 Seconds is haunting, deeply disturbing, and compelling. I couldn’t stop reading it. I highly recommend it.
Thanks again to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read 29 Seconds in exchange for an honest review.
After helping to stop a young girl from being kidnapped, Sarah is given a twisted offer. Give the man a name, and he will make that person disappear. It’s perfect timing really because Sarah’s disgusting boss, Alan Lovelock, has once again stopped her promotion. He’s so bad that Sarah and her friend have made Rules around his behavior because no female wants to be left alone with him. He uses his position to take advantage of women, manipulating them for sexual favors, or destroying their career and lives in the process. But will Sarah take the man up on his offer, to get rid of Lovelock?
So this story and the premise was really good, but I really hated Sarah. Her husband, a repeat cheater, has left her again, for the second time in under two years and she repeatedly pines for him to come back. I get that at her age, it’s hard to start over, to find a new job, but she took this job knowing the rumors about Lovelock. Then knowing what he’s like, she stays, keeps hoping it won’t happen to her. She’s not destitute, so there’s no reason to stay in this job, at all. She’s not very bright at times because she legit was thinking that this guy making people disappear would mean they were “…sent away, far away, and never came back?” I just can’t get on board with how weak of a main character she was for the majority of the book.
The good thing about the book is that it’s intense and fast-paced, so you do find yourself anxiously reading to find out what happens. Sarah isn’t always weak, and she does find her moments of being the strong character you so hoped she would be all along. It’s well-written and I think if Sarah were a stronger, more assertive person who held her cards a bit closer, I would have really loved the book.
5 starts isn’t enough for this one!! I was absolutely blown away by this book. I didn’t read too much about this book so I basically went in blind and I’m so glad that I did. It was an edge of your seat thrill ride from the very beginning all the way to the ending, which I didn’t see coming at all!! Once you start this book be prepared to not being able to put it down. How could 29 seconds change your life?
29 Seconds. Less than half a minute to make a decision that will change your life forever. Could you do it? Sarah, a young professor, has to make that decision. She inadvertently stopped a kidnapping and the child’s father offers her a reward…he can make one person disappear from her life forever. There is one person, Alan Hawthorne, who is making her life miserable. But will she make the call. What she ultimately decides and how it impacts her life will have you unable to put this book down. I highly recommend this book!
T.M. Logan is the breakout star of twisted psychological thrillers. Slowly burning into an breakneck entertaining ending, I cannot wait to read the next thrilling tale of one of my new favorite authors.
29 Seconds was an insanely simplistic book about a woman who was being sexually harassed at work and felt helpless in confronting the issue. She happens into an unrelated situation where she kinda, sorta does the right thing and her reward is the proffered option to get rid of someone, anyone, and we’re all thinking “yeah, duh –the sleazebag terrorizing your worklife.”
“You give me one name. One person. And I will make them disappear. For you.”
“I don’t have a name to give you. There isn’t anyone.”
“Nonsense. Everyone has someone they would like to punish. To have just a little bit more just in the world.”
“Maybe I’m the exception.”
He considered her for a long moment. “Are you sure?”
Of course she’s sure. The a**hole she works for, Professor Hawthorne, deserves to be taken down. But she’s too scared and pathetic to own her own feelings or her own success, so she second guesses everything ten times over.
I could not stand Sarah as a character. We’re supposed to like her and root for her in 29 Seconds, but we don’t. We can’t. She wasn’t brave, she wasn’t strong, she wasn’t a leader. Any thoughts of greatness she held were never turned into action. She stumbles through life, and feels like injustice just keeps finding her.
A woman would not have written this book, and *this* woman wishes she hadn’t read it.
Fast paced psychological thriller. Read it through in a day. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. A few good twists that keep this one going until the very end.
Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the ARC
I have read a number of really great books so far this year and this book ranks right up there with the very best of them. It was unputdownable! Sarah is a PhD working in college education and is learning that she will not be advanced up the ladder unless she sleeps with her sleazy boss, Alan Hawthorne. After some unforeseen circumstances occur, Sarah is offered a chance to make someone disappear with no questions asked. This book takes so many twist and turns with a big surprise ending. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of this super fantastic book in exchange for an honest review. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is seeking a fantastic thriller.
Wow!! What a page turner! This book ask the question if you could make someone disappear, would you do it? I wanted to reach into the story and choked Hawthorne for Sarah. The whole story of sexual harassment was really making me mad.
I had a hard time putting this book down, I really enjoyed it Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy
What would you do if someone offered to take care of any problem you had and all it took was a 29 second phone call? Sarah saves a little girl from being kidnapped but has no idea who her father is. He is a rich powerful man and offers to take care of any problem she has if she calls a certain number. Sarah’s boss, Dr. Hawthorne is an awful horrible man. Should Sarah call the number and have her boss “taken care of” or can she continue as she is. This was quite a thrilling ride and I liked Sarah but I absolutely hated her boss. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.