The Personal Assistant

How it reads

The Personal Assistant is thriller (domestic thriller, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in a big city setting, in the present day, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are secrets, identity and family. In weight it's light and escapist — easy to fall into.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 352 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's moderately known: read by plenty of people, but not a household name.