TRIGGER WARNING: this book deals with mental health, suicide, self harm and child murder
Emma-Jane Glass is a psychotherapist and has recently written a paper on mothers that kill their children. She begins to receive threatening letters at home and work. Can she stay safe?
Doctor Glass is a psychological thriller which deals with some pretty big issues involving mental health.
Emma-Jane’s character develops over the course of the book. I feel that she loses her confidence as she becomes personally involved in a situation that derives from her professional status. There is plenty of danger and tension as Emma-Jane fears for her safety. However she remains committed to wanting to help people including the person who is threatening her.
There is a sub plot involving Lucy, a nutritionist who shares an office with Emma-Jane. I liked her character much more as she had a vulnerability from the start that I found easier to relate to. This sub plot also had a mental illness angle as the line between an eating disorder and a fetish blurs.
The writing style is incredibly sensuous and sensual at times. The descriptions are vivid with imagery that is a feast for the senses. It also has the effect of creating an emotional response in the reader especially when they relate to the scenes of suicide and child murder. There is a lot of physicality including some sex scenes and deaths. I found the dialogue to have a realistic feel which helped to bring the characters to life.
Doctor Glass is an intense novel about damaged people.
Book blurb:
THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW.
Psychotherapist Emma-Jane Glass has prioritized work over leisure for far too long. She does whatever it takes to help her clients, and it’s bordering on professional obsession. When she publishes a controversial article about unstable mothers murdering their children, an anonymous letter arrives on her doorstep:
I will expose you.
Then, I will mutilate you…
Wait for me.
After she is abducted into the night, Doctor Glass finds herself at the mercy of a dangerous sociopath. But being a relentless doctor of the mind, she feels an urge to help her fragile captor, even if it might shatter her sanity—and her life. It becomes a game of survival, and only one mind can win.
For fans of deeply layered thrillers by Ruth Ware, Tana French, and Alex Michaelides comes the newest voice in psychological fiction.
About the author
Louise Worthington writes psychological fiction for fans of deeply layered thrillers and horror.
She has a passion for exploring the complexity and darker side of the human heart in psychologically-layered tales imbued with strong emotional themes and atmospheric settings from poisonous gardens, and medieval dungeons to an isolated property by the sea. Common themes are mental health disorders, family, motherhood, murder and revenge.
After gaining a degree in literature, she taught English in secondary schools and studied psychology. More recently she runs a farm with her husband in Shropshire and tutors teenagers in English.
She is the author of six novels, including the psychological thrillers Rachel’s Garden and The Entrepreneur, and the gothic horror, Rosie Shadow.
Doctor Glass came out on 11th April 2022, the first book in the Glass Minds series.
You can sign up to her newsletter and blog here: https://louiseworthington.co.uk
