Closer Than You Think by Lee Maguire

Author: Lee Maguire
Published: October 21, 2018
314 Pages

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: June 9-16, 2019
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Book Description:

Meet Bryce Davison, a gifted psychologist who can heal any troubled mind-except his own.

You see, Bryce’s life is falling apart. His marriage is crumbling. His insomnia brings only half-sleep and troubled dreams-visions of dark and buried memories he’d rather forget or ignore completely. And the new female patient in his psych ward just might be more trouble than he’s able to cope with.

…and now he has a stalker.

Somebody’s been watching Bryce for a long time. Somebody who knows his life inside and out-his fears, his regrets, his greatest longings and deepest despairs. Somebody with access to his most private places-his workplace, his home, his family…anywhere Bryce might have felt safe.

They do their dirty work in the shadows… and they want Bryce Davison dead.

So Bryce has got to get his life together. To save his patients. To save his family. To save his marriage…and his life.

Because no matter how close Bryce gets to the deadly truth, the enigmatic stalker is always closer than he thinks.

Jessica’s Review:

Closer Than You Think is the first novel in the Broken Minds series by Lee Maguire. Maguire takes what he knows from his occupation and brings us the main protagonist of Dr. Bryce Davison.  Dr. Davison is far from perfect himself, as his personal life is in chaos and now he is dealing with a stalker….  Or could it be something more, or does Dr. Davison need some psychological services himself?

Despite some grammatical and spelling errors in the arc copy that I received, which were hopefully corrected by the publication day this past October, I really enjoyed this novel.  It was definitely suspenseful but not so much a thriller.  I wondered how far things were going to go with Davison’s situation.  Who is going to get hurt next and in what way?  Who is behind everything that is going on? And is somehow Davison himself responsible for what is going on?

My only negative thought as I was reading was: “If you kill the dog, I’m gonna riot!” I worried for Max the whole novel; I did not want anything to happen to her.

At first Dr. Davison was not very likeable nor came off as professional as he was supposed to be.  He just seemed to be too much of a troubled man to be a psychologist. Eventually, I did grow to like and root for him: I wanted a good ending for him.  The last 20 or so pages of the novel were totally unexpected!  Everything was put together and wrapped in a nice bow. 

Some may see the totality of the novel a bit far-fetched, but I enjoyed it. As this is the first in the series, I look forward to reading more of Dr. Davison’s stories.  

Special thanks to TCK Publishing for sending me an arc copy to read and review. 

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