Brilliantly deceptive, breath-takingly intense, and twistier than a corkscrew, The Elevator by Claire Cooper is nothing like you expect. It’s at least 100x better!
About the Book
My whole body is shaking, my breath catches in my throat. I’m stuck here. Trapped. With the one person who will do anything to destroy me…
When I step into the Elevator that sweltering morning, I barely notice the woman standing next to me. She seems out of place, with her floaty linen clothes in a building full of suits. But that’s none of my business.
A minute later, there’s a sudden jerk. The elevator stops. The lights go out.
The other woman’s face is deathly pale. She’s breathing noisily, clearly panicking. As we sit slumped against the mirrored walls, we start talking to try and keep calm.
I tell her I moved halfway round the world to start again where no one knew what I was hiding. I tell her my darkest secrets, because she seems to understand, and we’re never going to see each other again, right?
But I’m wrong.
We’re not strangers.
None of this is an accident.
And when the truth comes out, there’ll be nowhere to hide.
My Review
It’s a sweltering morning in New York City. Cerys walks into the Pearl Associates office building, hot from the sun and grateful for the instant relief the A/C provides. Now if only she could get relief from her nerves! As the HR director, she’s headed upstairs to conduct a meeting. It shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s part of her job. However, the last time she held a similar meeting, the results were devastating. She’s still in therapy trying to work through the trauma it caused.
Maeve is at the front desk when Cerys walks past her. Not wearing a corporate uniform like everyone else, she stands out and captures Cerys’ attention. There’s agitation in her voice as she talks to the receptionist in an attempt to get upstairs. She has an appointment, she says. She has an appointment, she insists. Even though Cerys doesn’t recognize her, she pauses to eavesdrop on the drama.
In front of Cerys, employees line up to get through security. A man in front of her swipes his badge at the gate. A red-light flashes, and he’s denied. The same thing happens to all the others — and to Cerys too. It’s obviously a glitch. Seeing their badges, the security guard waves them through to the lobby, along with Maeve. When Cerys grabs an empty elevator moments later, Maeve jumps in with her. Both are going to the 26th floor. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. But then the elevator jerks to a stop. The power goes out. They’re trapped together.
As the minutes slowly turn to hours with no sign of rescue, Cerys tries to calm a panic-stricken Maeve by sharing her darkest secrets. It feels good to unburden herself and, since Maeve’s a stranger she’ll never see again, no harm can come from it. Or so she thinks. However, before the two women are rescued from the elevator, they’ll realize they’re not strangers at all. They’re enemies. One is hell-bent on revenge. The other is determined to be the only one who walks out of the elevator.
Brilliantly deceptive, breath-takingly intense, and twistier than a corkscrew, The Elevator by Claire Cooper is nothing like you expect. It’s at least 100x better! Jam-packed with suspense, if you didn’t bite your nails before you picked up this book, you will once you start reading. A strong sense of foreboding starts as soon as the elevator stops and doesn’t ease up until the end. The same is true for the tension. Every page of The Elevator is brimming with it. You already know from the cover that the two women aren’t strangers, but their connection to each other will rock you down to your socks and bring the story to an unimaginable conclusion. Be careful what you think is the truth as you read. It’s probably not.
Very well written and perfectly paced so that it doesn’t move too fast or slow, The Elevator traps you inside with Cerys and Maeve. But you won’t mind. It’s hard to put the book down, because you want to figure out what happened to make them enemies — and what’s going to happen when they realize they are. It’s intriguing and addicting.
Both women are well-developed and complex characters. Dual timelines take you back and forth between each woman’s present and past. You get to know them through their thoughts and conversations in present-day while also uncovering their darkest secrets through snippets of their past. It can get a little confusing going from Cerys in the past and present, then Maeve in the past and present too, but only a little early on. Each character has a very unique, distinctive voice that you’ll quickly come to know. Differentiating between them becomes easy after a few chapters.
When you read a lot of psychological thrillers, it becomes a challenge to find one that stands out. When you find one, you reach for your thesaurus to find every synonym you can to tell everyone how great it is. Take Roget’s word for it. The Elevator is one of those great books.
Thank you to Claire Cooper and Bookouture for the complimentary eARC in exchange for an unbiased review — and for inviting me to join the blog tour for such an amazing book.
About the Author
Claire Cooper grew up in a small village in south Wales before moving to London as a student. She graduated with a degree in Ancient History and Egyptology and spent seven months as a development worker in Nepal. On her return to Britain she joined the civil service, where she worked for 17 years on topics ranging from housing support to flooding. She hung up her bowler hat when she discovered that she much preferred writing about psychotic killers to Ministerial speeches. She lives in London with her husband and a pond full of very cute newts. She also writes as C. J. Cooper.
