Catherine leads a life of long nights of debauchery and good times. When she meets Lee, an obnoxiously beautiful man in an equally beautiful suit, at a night club, a passionate relationship begins that seems too good to be true. Lee, however, slowly begins to spend more and more nights out and shows signs of increasing aggression. Catherine doesn't realize his harmful potential until it's too late. Told between the past and present, Catherine looks back on a relationship with a man she hardly knew and presents the struggle to live afterwards.
Into the Darkest Corner originally interested me because I enjoyed Before I Go To Sleep and Gone Girl, which seemed in line with what Haynes was offering. The novel is definitely very similar to the two and offered an equal amount of shock, sex and violence. However, unlike Gone Girl's complex narrative, Into the Darkest Corner was a bit more to the point without many of the twists fans of Flynn have come to expect.
The novel pretty much dives right into the story and gives the reader a good sense of Catherine's character. We follow her along to parties, to work functions and on the night of her fateful meeting with Lee. Fast forward, we see a highly disturbed Catherine, much different from the carefree, and at times, completely careless, woman Haynes has first introduced. I don't know much about individuals who suffer compulsive disorders like Catherine, an exercise that forces her to check the locks of her home repeatedly, exhausting herself in the process, but felt that the symptoms seemed realistic. While I found these made the story much more believable, I do feel the scenes of door checking and so forth could have been cut down without taking anything away from the reading experience.
I'd recommend this title for those who love the genre, are looking for a quick read and can stomach intense scenes of violence and sex. Some readers may have trouble understanding Catherine's character from the start. I felt that she made terrible decisions and a lived a life on the edge, and often grew frustrated when she repeatedly allowed Lee to lie and hold details (such as his occupation) from her (surely this would raise eyebrows). Furthermore, her friends are absolutely deplorable and I had a hard time believing they would have made the decisions they did. However, these obviously keep the novel together to make it the train wreck you can't stop looking at.
A title sure to keep the reader engaged Into The Darkest Corner is a thrill-seekers delight.
I received a copy of Into the Darkest Corner from TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review of the title.
