The Closer You Get

Ruby and Emma may just be my two favorite people, but it took the whole book before I decided this. Ruby is married to a very controlling, manipulative, and just plain mean man named Tom. For a couple of years now, she has been unhappy, wanting very badly to get out from under his thumb. She started a new job, and on her first day of work, she and her boss fall in love. Over the next eighteen months, Ruby and Harry become close and then ultimately plan their escape from their loveless marriages. They plan it all down to the last detail, and on that Friday night they are both to leave their spouses and start their new life together. Ruby is packed, informs Tom she is leaving, and she goes to the motel she and Harry are to meet at. Except Harry never shows up. Ruby is fired from her job, she has no money (except what Tom now generously decides to give her), and she cannot find decent employment to support herself. As The Closer You Get goes on, the tension also rises. We get to know Ruby very well, and then we meet Emma and her side of this story. As the light bulbs go off for both Ruby and Emma, the most awesome happening takes the book to a whole new level. The conclusion was so satisfying, and it leaves the reader to decide what is next for both Emma and Ruby.

Ruby is married and having an affair with her boss, Harry. They keep this secret arrangement for a year until they both decide to leave their spouses. Together, they select a date and location to begin their new lives. When that day arrives, Ruby goes to their hotel but Harry never shows up.

Harry is not answering her phone calls and Ruby begins to panic. She no longer has a home and money is dwindling after losing her job. Tom is surprisingly understanding with kind words and offers her money . Ruby’s resolve doesn’t waver while she scrambles to find temporary work and a meager apartment. While she tries to put her life back together she develops a feeling of being watched and her job interviews are sabotaged. Ruby begins to suspect that her bad luck is connected to her affair.

The Closer You Get is the second novel that I have read by Mary Torjussen. This book is filled with betrayal, jealousy, scorned spouses, and desperation. I enjoyed the story with its fast pace and dual narrators.

The inspiration for The Closer You Get came when author Mary Torjussen heard about a woman she knew who had an affair with a married man. He left his wife and moved in with her, but the relationship did not last and he ultimately returned to his wife. Torjussen says she pondered what would happen if two people who were both married began having an affair, contemplating whether one could “ever trust someone enough to be the first person to leave home?”

The Closer You Get challenges readers to consider the question that propelled Torjussen to write the book . . . and other troubling questions, through the eyes of Ruby, a woman who endured disapproval and harsh judgment from her mother while growing up, and has seen the man she married become increasingly dogmatic, controlling, and cruelly critical as the years have passed. During the early days of their marriage, Tom was loving and attentive. Now he insists that everything be in accordance with his wishes and desires, and even demands that Ruby pay half of the household expenses despite the fact that he earns far more money than she does. He demands that she wear the FitBit he bought her, using it to check up on her activities. Ruby tells her friend and coworker, “He kept a check of everything I did, Sarah. Every step I took. I couldn’t bear it.” In contrast, she and Harry had undeniable chemistry from the moment they met when Ruby began working at his company eighteen months ago. They had long conversations, and he valued and respected her. Eventually, they acknowledged their feelings for each other, and vowed to leave their unhappy marriages, making a pact to launch a new, happier future together.

So when Harry doesn’t show up at the hotel where he booked and paid for the room they would share, Ruby is understandably shocked and devastated. She realizes she left a beautiful home and financial security for a man who didn’t even bother to tell her he changed his mind and decided to stay with his wife — after she trusted him to keep his word. As the days pass, she resents and is angered by Harry’s behavior. “In the pit of my belly was a growing fury that he thought so little of me that he couldn’t even be bothered to tell me it was over.” To make matters worse, she is summarily and humiliatingly dismissed from her job when she arrives at the office on Monday, and discovers that she has been blackballed so her prospects for securing another job are bleak. She confides in Sarah, and writes a letter to Harry when she is unable to reach him by telephone. Sarah vows to deliver the letter to Harry.

Torjussen takes readers on Ruby’s journey to make a new life for herself. Returning to Tom and the home they shared is not an option, although his sudden consideration and kindness, coupled with requests that she come home, tempt her. Determined, she rents a dilapidated apartment and accepts a temporary position that will barely pay enough to cover her bills until she can secure suitable employment. Ruby quickly discovers two things. First, she does not know herself. She acceded to Tom’s wishes so consistently that she no longer even knows what kind of food she likes. She permitted Tom to make decisions for her, just as she allowed her mother to make decisions because her family “either did things her way or we suffered. . . ” Ruby enjoyed only a few years on her own before she met Tom and went right back to permitting someone else to manage every detail of her daily life for her. Now she is overwhelmed by the choices available to her, even while performing the simple task of shopping for food. Second, she quickly figures out that someone is stalking her. She returns home to her apartment to find that things are not as she left them. She can’t remember, for example, hanging her dresses in the closet. She thinks she may simply be forgetful until someone tails her in a vehicle she doesn’t recognize as she is walking home one evening. And she observes that vehicle pass by her apartment as she peaks out the window. But who is slipping into her apartment when she is away? And why?

Alternating with Ruby’s first-person narrative is that of Emma, Harry’s wife, who openly declares that she is going to “blow up” Ruby’s life. With that mindset, Emma sets in motion a series of events and circumstances that have lasting repercussions for all concerned. She has no intention of letting Harry leave her, but also wants to ensure that Ruby is held accountable for her role as the “other woman.” Emma has no idea, of course, of the lengths to which Tom will go in order to get what he wants.

Torjussen propels the story forward at an unrelenting pace. As it progresses, it is apparent that the characters are neither aware of the information that the other characters possess nor how they will use their knowledge in order to plot and scheme to achieve their own goals. Each character proceeds in accordance with assumptions that frequently turn out to be horribly inaccurate. And when they discover the truth and are forced to pivot, they continue to make choices that lead them in unplanned, unforeseen directions.

At the outset, Ruby is a woman with no confidence or voice who is wooed by a man with his own flaws. Emma is calculating and confident, but is forced to deal with the consequences of her own actions. The Prologue reveals that someone will end up dead and Torjussen gradually intensifies the action leading up to the revelation of how that death came about, as well as the aftermath. But in the process, she injects red herrings and shocking revelations that make The Closer You Get a first-rate thriller with a surprising, but satisfying ending.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.

Um, hello! Stalker!! But who is the stalker? Is it Tom? Is it a stranger? I had so many guesses and I’ll tell you that by the end there was no one who was not in question of being the stalker.

I felt bad for the way Ruby’s life was going but after reading how Tom was treating her, I know that she needed to getaway. There was probably a better way to do it but sometimes circumstances force your hand. She took the steps to start her life over and became reliant on herself. She found a place to live, a way to make money, and a way to be her own person.

This wasn’t a new style of a thriller, but it was a fun thriller. It kept me entertained, it kept me turning pages, and I’ve already recommended it to a couple of friends. If you are needing to escape into a book that will keep you reading The Closer You Get is the book you are looking for.

The Closer You Get by Mary Torjussen had a different plot twist and it drew the reader in almost immediately. Imagine having an affair only to get “ghosted”. Then alliances form from the most unlikely of possibilities. A good story and I zipped right through it. I would definitely recommend this contemporary mystery.

The Closer You Get the faster you should run !

What could wrong, an affair with your boss, a jealous controlling husband, lies and deceit around every corner.

Loved it !! The pages fly by. Some characters you give advice to , yell at and others well, they are just nasty people.

Twists and turns will keep your attention to the last page.

Thanks to Net Galley and Canelo Mystery and Thrillers for a fun read !