Alyssa wants to be seen. Less wants to be someone. She takes two buses to class, posts pictures of her lunch, and pretends it’s all effortless. He hides his privilege beneath thrifted clothes and a sketchbook full of impossible designs. Together, they are inseparable – two outsiders constructing a version of themselves the world might finally applaud.
Then Alyssa stumbles upon the hidden world of phrogging – living unnoticed inside other people’s homes. She and Less slip through Los Angeles’ glossy veneer: influencers, producers, pop stars, all so busy performing their perfect lives they don’t notice the shadows in their attics, the scratching in their walls. An act of rebellion. A harmless thrill. A social experiment.
Until they choose the wrong house. Until the influencer they idolise catches them in the act. Until the cameras, already rolling, capture everything. What begins as a reckless adventure becomes a nightmare of lies, power … and murder…
Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series and the cri cally acclaimed, mind-blowingly original Detective Pace series, which includes Good Samaritans (2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (2019) and Hinton Hollow Death Trip (2020), all of which were ebook bestsellers and selected as books of the year in the mainstream international press.
Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for both the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2020 and the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize, and was followed by the literary thrillers, The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous, The Daves Next Door, Suicide Thursday and Upstairs at the Beresford, and his highly regarded speculative thriller debut, Kill Them with Kindness.
Will spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He and his partner run their own fitness and nutrition company, and live in Reading with five children and a tortoise.
My thoughts: Will Carver is back, and now giving us his take on influencer culture and celebrity, and it is very good.
Alyssa and Less are trying to find their places in the world, addicted to social media, fascinated by the influencers they follow, famous only for the content they produce.
When they start breaking into people’s homes and pawing through their things, they don’t see it as harmful or dangerous, until they break into the wrong house and things go horribly wrong….or do they?
Keeping the reader guessing is a Carver speciality, is everything as you think or is something else going on? Who are the people who really make the influencers go viral and can you trust everything you see online?
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 