“A twisty, jet-fueled thriller… Don’t miss it!” – Lisa GardnerPacked with the electrifying pacing and pulse-pounding suspense of Harlan Coben and Lisa Gardner, a thrilling debut about a mother desperate to find the connections between her missing husband and a deadly stalker who knows too much about her own dark family history.Driving home one rainy night, Cassie Larkin sees a man and woman … history.
Driving home one rainy night, Cassie Larkin sees a man and woman fighting on the side of the road. After calling 911, she makes a split-second decision that will throw her suburban life into chaos. Against the dispatcher’s advice, she gets out of her minivan and confronts the attacker. That’s when he turns on her and spits out a chilling ultimatum: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.”
A veterinarian trained to heal, Cassie can’t let the woman die. But while she’s examining the unconscious victim, the attacker steals her car. Now he has her name. Her address. And he knows about her children. Though they warn her to be careful, the police assure her that the perpetrator won’t get near her. Cassie isn’t so sure.
The next day—Halloween—her husband disappears while trick-or-treating with their six-year-old daughter. Are these disturbing events a coincidence or the beginning of a horrifying nightmare? Her husband has been growing distant—is it possible he’s become involved with another woman? Is Cassie’s confrontation with the road-side attacker connected to her husband’s disappearance? With these questions swirling in her mind Cassie can trust no one, maybe not even herself. The only thing she knows for sure is that she can’t sit back while the people she loves are in danger.
As she desperately searches for answers, Cassie discovers that nothing is as random as it seems, and that she is more than willing to fight—to go to the most terrifying extremes—to save her family.
more
Great debut!
I thought this was a pretty good debut. It started off really great!! The first chapter really draws you in and sets the tone for this wild, fast paced, hairpin turning story. It frustrated me that Cassie was running around, implicating herself more and more by hiding things from the police. The author kind of lost me a few times here and there with this and I wasn’t sure what I was thinking or where this story was going. There were some nice twists and surprises, however, there is a super crazy reveal that comes out of the blue and I think it may have been too much, maybe gone a little too far. The ending was wild and frantic and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.
WOW! No Bad Deed by Heather Chavez might be a debut novel but it sure doesn’t read that way. It was super twisty and suspenseful, and I never saw the end coming!!
I was really in the mood for a fast-paced thriller and I found that in No Bad Deed. I loved Chavez’s writing style and the way the book flowed, and I found myself on the edge of my seat for much of it. My mouth dropped open for a couple of revelations and I think this will be a hard one to guess before the end, even for some die hard thriller lovers!
There were a bunch of lines that made me laugh out loud, and I even read one to my mom. I really loved this about No Bad Deed! I think this is a really good one to go into mostly blind so I will spare you any details, but if you love thrillers and want something fast-paced then reading No Bad Deed is an absolute MUST! I already can’t wait to see what Chavez comes up with next and I am an instant fan of her.
Thank you to the publisher for my advance review copy via NetGalley. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
This is a recent publication and a real good read! Read it in less than two days. Unusual plot twists.
“I read the message: If no good deed goes unpunished, the consequences of the bad ones should be even worse, don’t you agree? So it’s time to make a choice.”
Realistic, intense, fast-paced and so very twisted! Prepare yourself for a wild ride through this mind-blowing debut.
Cassie stops on the side of the road to help a woman in need…now her husband is missing. Coincidence? Or could the two events be connected?
The world can be such a messed up place at times, it’s hard to say when and if you should stop and help a stranger…especially if you’re a woman.
The plot was clever, original and full of action. And once the secrets and twists started popping up towards the end…OMG! I could not stop reading! Harlan Coben is one of my favorite authors, so when I saw him mentioned in the book blurb, I had to grab this one. Congrats to Ms. Chavez on her wonderful debut!
Thank you to NetGalley / Willam Morrow / Heather Chavez for this digital ARC, in exchange for my honest review!
My Rating: 4.5 ’s (rounding up)
Published: February 18th 2020 by William Morrow
Pages: 320
Recommended: Yes!
#NetGalley #NoBadDeed
@iamHRChavez @WmMorrowBooks
My review can be found on: Goodreads, Twitter, Amazon, BN.com, Pinterest and BookBub.
When Heather Chavez’s debut novel was being compared to Harlan Coben and Lisa Gardner — and had an advance blurb from Lee Child — I knew I wanted to get my hands on it as soon as possible. My request was answered when they were giving advance copies out at Bouchercon in October, a fitting month, which we’ll get to later.
It took me a while to get to No Bad Deed — a mistake I instantly regretted.
Chavez sucks readers in immediately with a “What would you do?” moment. As veterinarian Cassie Larkin is driving home to her increasingly disappointed-in-her-long-work-hours husband and two kids, she sees a woman being beaten by a beastly man on a hiking trail near her house.
Cassie does what we all hope we would do in that situation: step out of the comfort of our vehicle and try to chase away the bad guy. As she confronts the man, whom she later identifies with the police as Carver Sweet (what a name for a villain!), he tells her that she will live if the poor woman is allowed to die.
Again, Cassie does the right thing and saves the other woman’s life. But at what cost?
Heather Chavez
I’ll leave the rest of the story for you to read, but it’s a thrill ride that only lets up in the right spots to develop Cassie’s character. The wonderfully paced novel is told in first-person throughout, so we get 300-plus pages to get to know Cassie, even as she’s getting to know herself through an intense situation and equally intense revelations about her past.
It’s a bit incredible to think No Bad Deed (William Morrow/HarperCollins, Feb. 18) is Chavez’s first novel.
Like me, she was a longtime reporter and editor (she worked at The Press Democrat for 17-plus years), which may explain why I loved her writing style so much. Her story flowed, the prose was incredibly well-written, and she stuck to the so-and-so-said formula for dialogue attribution. (It still grates when I read “I love you,” said so-and-so. It will never sound right to me.)
Chavez’s website says she’s working on another novel.
Count me in.
4 stars
I saved this book to read on vacation. It did not disappoint. I was raised to help someone who was in trouble. Cassie, a veterinarian, was on her way home one night. She stopped to help someone on the side of the road. Thus starts this fast-paced novel and the consequences of stopping to help someone. The author delivers just enough hints to keep the reader reading. Fast paced! Look forward to reading another Heather Chavez novel. Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Cassie is driving home one night and sees a man beating on a young woman by the side of the road. She makes the decision to get out of her car to stop the man from killing the woman. He pulls away but has an ominous threat for her …. “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.”
The next night.. which is Halloween night… Cassie’s husband takes their two kids trick-or-treating. Hours later and they haven’t returned. Cassie takes off and finds her young daughter in the care of two women that she doesn’t know. But where did her husband go? Reaching home, she finds that her husband’s car is gone. Looking at the surveillance tape, she sees a man opening the car door and leaving.
The man she sees is the man who was assaulting the woman by the side of the road.
And then the text messages start … but she doesn’t believe they are from her husband. Someone has been in her house … the man or someone else? What do they want? And most importantly … where is her husband?
This debut novel is full of suspense and surprises. The plot is nicely paced and this begs the question ..how far would you go to protect your family? The characters are deftly drawn and quite memorable.
Many thanks to the author / HarperCollins Publishers / William Morrow / Netgalley for the digital copy of this psychological thriller. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
No Bad Deed by Heather Chavez is my first book by this author and it was a great thrill ride for most of the book. I’d definitely recommend this story.
Chavez writes a fast-paced thriller that had me at the edge of my seat wanting to find out what would happen. I love these types of books and settled in for a quick read.
The characters were well done and helped pull me in and kept me wanting to know more about them.
Unfortunately, around the 75% mark things got a little convoluted, but overall this book was a very good read and I will be looking for more by this author in the future.
Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for approving an ARC at my request. All thoughts in this review are my own and freely provided.
Driving home one night, veterinarian Cassie Larkin sees a woman and man fighting on the side of the road. She calls 911, but against better judgment, she gets out of the car hoping she can stop the violent man from attacking the woman. The man escapes before the police arrive and steals Cassie’s car including her purse with identifying personal information. Wonderful, now this violent man knows where she lives, knows about her family… her children. So the next day when Cassie’s husband disappears while trick-or-treating with their daughter, it has to be connected, right? Cassie is not ready to give up so she dives in searching for the truth. Is she ready for the truth? We’re never ready for the truth in a high action thriller when family goes missing. It’s never as it seems!
Hold on folks, this was an intense ride! It isn’t very often I’m able to rate a debut author a 4-star rating. Heather Chavez’s novel doesn’t read or feel like a typical debut story. It’s really one of those gripping thrillers that hold tight the entire time… just when you think you can put the book down and get some chores finished, Chavez’s pulls out another surprise right at the perfect time. If you’re a frequent follower of my blog than you’ll know that I’m not easily surprised nor do I have a hard time predicting the twists most thrillers pull out. Let me just say Miss Chavez was an absolute delight! The plot is so very cleverly created so the reader really never has a clue until piece by piece the puzzle is put together. Sure, there are clues but it doesn’t click until it does! I so enjoyed the twisted woven story and was beyond tickled that a debut author created such a rare treat.
Now, there may be areas that some readers find… too much we will say. The content is dark, it is a suspenseful thriller. However, some might find it certain aspects a push too far. The story is packed full of characters and it was slightly hard to keep up with everyone. Once I got to the ending, I did have to reread a few pages to keep up with all the characters. The author does push the limits of what is possible and what is not but anything is possible in fiction! Nonetheless, it isn’t enough to make this any less fantastic than it truly was. Chavez gives us this fresh take and a unique voice on a compulsive story. Her excellent writing accompanied by the fast-paced story will keep you entranced.
I seem to be in the minority with my opinion of No Bad Deed so maybe it’s just me. But I found much about this book that left me unsatisfied. A number of authors I like and respect provided favorable advance reviews and the premise was very interesting, so I was looking forward to a fast-paced read with some twists and turns and a lot of action. I attributed some of the early gaps in logic to a debut author, and some clever phrasing like, “I had spent so much time with the police lately I wondered if I should whip up some friendship bracelets,” relieved the tension of the story and showed promise as a writer, balancing out the deficiencies a bit. However, I soon came to feel that if there were many more fortuitous links or connections and the story got much more complicated I would need to draw a chart to keep track of everything. This wasn’t six degrees of separation but more like one degree, where everybody knows the next person who knows the next person who knows the next person who has done or seen or heard or been to the very thing or place that conveniently provides the perfect answer or piece of the puzzle Cassie needs. It didn’t feel like Cassie was necessarily so clever or resourceful or brave but more like when author Chavez had written herself into a corner she just wrote herself a door so Cassie could walk out. And the bad temper she had as a child seems to have made her into some kind of invincible superhero at this point in her life.
Despite the flaws, I was still invested in the story – new author, maybe unstructured and undisciplined and trying a little too hard, but the mystery of who was pulling the strings had me turning pages. Until the last 50 pages of so, that is. It seemed as if someone else had taken over. The writing was dismal, like bad fan fiction or the author had no idea how to wrap things up and threw in every possible scenario. I would not have finished reading the book if I hadn’t been so curious about what Sam was really up to and if he would survive. Turns out that by the end I didn’t really care anyway.
Thanks to LibraryThing and William Morrow Books for providing an advance copy for my honest review. All opinions are my own.