Perfect Strangers

by Tasmina Perry

[Leah]

I’m a recent convert to Tasmina Perry’s books, having previously assumed they were 500 page novels about rich, pretty people who do what rich and pretty people do. That’s not the case at all – at least not with the two novels I’ve read of hers, Private Lives and this one, Perfect Strangers. Instead, what Perry does is put her heroines in difficult situations – the kind of situations you normally see in a crime novel rather than a Chick Lit novel – and then sends them on an adventure around the world in a bit to clear their names/find out the truth. It’s very entertaining, let me tell you. Much like Private Lives, Perfect Strangers, tells an intricate story that is hard to explain in writing, but is easy to understand once you’re reading.

Private Strangers is all about Sophie Ellis. She is the glue that holds this book together. After her father loses all of his money in a Ponzi scheme (Perry once again writing an on-point novel after the Madoff scandal), Sophie finds herself with a very different life. A life that sees her working at a gym. When she meets Lana at the gym, and Lana asks Sophie to be her personal trainer, Sophie jumps at the chance of earning a bit of money, culminating in Lana asking Sophie to house-sit for her while she’s away, saying Sophie may attend social parties in Lana’s honour. At one of these parties, Sophie meets Nick and falls head over heels but when Nick is found dead, all suspicion is suddenly on Sophie. As she finds herself on the run with enigmatic Josh, Sophie has no idea who’s chasing her and no idea just how far people will go to find out information that they presume Sophie has…

Running parallel to Sophie’s story is the story of Ruth, a journalist who finds herself caught up in the middle of Nick’s death and the aftermath. The novel is alternated between the two girls as Sophie tries to find out the truth about Nick’s death and as Ruth tries to find out the truth about who killed Nick, and whether it was indeed Sophie who did it. I found the plot to be so fascinating. It was fast-paced, it was frantic, and it barely let up. Whether it was Ruth chasing the Nick story or Sophie running from gangsters, it was thoroughly interesting. Ruth’s story did sometimes get in the way of Sophie’s story, by which I mean, I hated leaving Sophie, not that Ruth’s story was crap or anything, because it wasn’t. You just know when you get so tied up in one story? Yeah, that.

Perry has once again hit it out of the park. I have no idea how she manages to keep me hooked for over 400+ pages, but she does. Perfect Strangers was just brilliant. I loved both stories, loved both women, but my absolute favourite bit was the Sophie and Josh chemistry. I love a bit of romance when two people are on the run. It makes my day better. A bit of romance always brightens things up. Perfect Strangers, pretty much, was perfect. The action barely let up and I now understand when people call a novel breathless (never experienced that until this novel – I always thought it was a silly expression, but given the action in Perfect Strangers, nope, I was breathless). I definitely recommend the novel and I cannot, absolutely, utterly wait for the next Tasmina Perry novel. The woman is a writing genius.