Trashy Suspense Novel

Jacqueline E. Smith’s Trashy Suspense Novel tells the story of Eloise Keller, owner of Blue Ridge Books in the small town of Cedar Ridge, North Carolina. Life with her six-year-old son Isaac is pretty routine and uneventful, until the local legend of the Bogman rears its head and a well-known horror novelist moves to town and sweeps her off her feet.

Like Smith’s other book, Trashy Romance Novel, this book is the exact opposite of what the title implies. That is to say, it isn’t trashy at all. Because Smith is the Queen of Realistic fiction —fellow authors John and Hank Green share the title of King, of course — her characters instantly come to life from the pages, and they feel like the reader’s best friends.

Characters aside, however, this book definitely has more depth to it. It’s not just the drama that comes with being best friends with The Kind of September, as in Smith’s series Boy Band, or trying to hide behind a pseudonym while your novels are being made into a TV show, as in Trashy Romance Novel. Sure, there’s the usual romance and famous-person-in-hiding themes, but Trashy Suspense Novel also flirts with the True Crime genre.

And that’s what makes it great. It’s so subtle the reader doesn’t see it coming. The story seems to be predictable until, all of a sudden, it isn’t. It’s the kind of thing that keeps a reader turning pages while they’re on their toes.

That being said, there was definitely room to add more to the story. Eloise’s backstory, to be precise. The audience knows she’s a single mom with a six-year-old, but that’s about it. She doesn’t like to open up about her past, which is understandable, but it does leave the reader curious. It was also kind of hard to pin down the creep. One of the other characters, Courtland Hill, does show up wherever Eloise and Isaac are, but the reader might not immediately share Eloise’s apprehension that he might be dangerous.

The excerpts of books, written by D.H. Whittaker — the same author who shows up in Cedar Ridge — within the book are good too. So good that they could be their own books if Smith wanted to do that. Come to think of it, maybe they should be their own books. This reader definitely wouldn’t complain, but Jacqueline E. Smith can do whatever she wants without answering to anybody.