Genre:
Mystery & ThrillersPublished 24 February 2015 by Thomas & Mercer
Number of pages: 305
My rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ I really liked it
About the author"Jo Atkins’ sixteenth year was disastrous: she lost her dad, was assaulted by a stranger, and then had her heart broken. For the last twenty-five years, she’s believed that nothing could ever be as bad again.
She was wrong.
Now, still smarting from her recent divorce, pretty, self-effacing Jo finally gathers the courage to enter the dating scene. She meets Claudio, whom she vaguely remembers from her youth, but after a few dates decides he’s creepy and politely tells him ‘thanks but no thanks’.
But Claudio has no intention of letting her go.
Instead of never seeing him again, Jo wakes up sick and terrified, handcuffed to her own bed. She is given a week to prove her love for Claudio—or he will kill her.
Claudio, it turns out, is a man with nothing left to lose.
The Venus Trap tackles the emotional impact of divorce, the perils of modern dating and the age-old powers of lust and obsession."
"The Venus Trap" is a tense psychological thriller by Louise Voss, and the blurb for this title says it all very accurately.
I utterly enjoyed this book and the tension and retrospective analysis the main character, Jo, goes through during her captivity.
The story is narrated through the point of view of Jo, in the present, and further explored through one of her old diaries and her recollections - all of the complex events that have led to her current situation, with Claudio.
It was very easy to identify with Jo; a flawed human being who is forced to evaluate her life, the mistakes she made and what she lost - hindsight is definitely 20/20!
Louise Voss's writing is impeccable and thoroughly engaging.
[ARC received via Netgalley]
Louise Voss was born and raised in Salisbury, England.
She began her writing career in the mid-1990s when, while living in New York, she enrolled in a creative writing course. Her first novel, "To Be Someone", was published in 2001 by Transworld, and was the first book to come with its own CD soundtrack. This was followed by three more contemporary women’s fiction novels until she switched to writing thrillers with Mark Edwards in 2011.
She and Mark were the first UK self-published authors to reach #1 on the Amazon charts with "Catch Your Death". Their fifth co-written novel, "From the Cradle", was published last year (2014) by Thomas & Mercer.
Louise currently lives and writes near Hampton Court, UK.
She is an avid tennis player, knitter, singer, upcycler and jewellery-maker, and adds that she can stand on her head and write backwards. Although not at the same time.
She can be reached at @LouiseVoss1 on Twitter or on Facebook
Her website is www.vossandedwards.com
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