#BookReview Best Intentions by Erika Raskin @erikaraskin @StMartinsPress Title: Best Intentions

Author: Erika Raskin

Published by: St. Martin's Press on Aug. 15, 2017

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 288

Format: eBook, ARC

Source: St. Martin's Press, NetGalley

Book Rating: 8/10

Marti Trailor—social worker on hold, mother of three, wife of a successful obstetrician, daughter of a Congressman—is ready to go back to work. She’s thrilled when the perfect opportunity falls in her lap. The catch? The job is at her husband’s hospital and he seems not to share her enthusiasm. Undeterred, she takes the position counseling vulnerable young women as they prepare to give birth.

Marti quickly begins to feel like she is making a difference in the lives of her clients. Soon, though, she finds herself caught up in the dark side of the medical center—with its long hours, overworked doctors and entrenched practices. When she witnesses something she can’t unsee, Marti, who has always done her best to keep a low-profile, finds herself thrust under a dangerous spotlight with all of Richmond, Virginia watching.

In her captivating domestic suspense novel Best Intentions, Erika Raskin weaves together high stakes hospital politics, the pressures of family life, and the consequences of trying to do the right thing.


Review:

Intense, ominous, and engrossing!

Best Intentions is a character-driven thriller that highlights how easily someone’s behaviour can be misconstrued, manipulated, and used against them.

It is, ultimately, a story about marriage, motherhood, friendship, social work, greed, deception, adultery, medical politics, and the legal process.

The writing is well done. The characters are complex and multilayered with some being loving, supportive, and kind and others being pompous and self-centered. And the plot, although sometimes a little hard to follow as it flips from the past to the present, has a nice balance of suspense, tension, character development, and surprises.

Overall I would have to say that Best Intentions is a compelling, well-written read that once started will keep you entertained and invested to the very end.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                                            

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Erika Raskin

Erika Raskin grew up to the sound of typewriter music. Her mother, bestselling novelist Barbara Raskin, was a rollicking story-teller who could turn mundane trips to the grocery store into readable high drama. Marcus Raskin, Erika's dad, was an author of non-fiction but still delighted in getting his daughter to make up back-stories of unsuspecting passers-by. She learned at an early age to collect details, catalog interesting behaviors, and then put them on paper.

(In short, she joined the family business.)

Erika has written essays for print and radio, articles and short stories. Her fiction has been recognized by the Reynolds Price competition, Glimmertrain, and the Virginia Commission on the Arts. She was a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Erika's first novel, CLOSE, was published by Harvard Square Editions in October of 2014. CLOSE was a finalist in the USA Best Book Awards.

Erika and her husband Keith have three (grown-up) offspring and a peculiar dog with a fondness for lingerie. They live in the mountains outside of Charlottesville, Virginia.