Title: Frayed
Author: Layne Deemer
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Owen Hanson packs a bag and leaves his past where it belongs—dead and buried in his small Connecticut hometown. His new life as a clothing inspector is boring and predictable and the perfect escape. He’s finally in control.
Lydia March is unexpected, but he can’t avoid her even if he tries. She makes him feel things and throws the delicate balance of his orderly life off its axis.
When Owen begins receiving mysterious messages from an unknown admirer, it’s not long before his world begins to spiral and nothing is as it seems. Is Lydia writing the notes or is it someone else? Has his past finally caught up with him?
When reality starts to fray at the edges, it’s impossible not to pick at the loose threads and watch as everything unravels. Can Owen hold onto the control he so desperately clings to or will his life be reduced to nothing more than a tangled mass of chaos?
*****
MY THOUGHTS
The parts that intrigued me most about FRAYED by Layne
Deemer was the narrative told in flashback, where we learn about Owen Hanson’s
past and the events that led him to turn his back on his old life. Now there’s
the story I would have loved to read more in depth about: how do you try and extricate
yourself from a situation you’ve unwittingly become trapped in? How did you get
there in the first place? What could you have done differently? Frustratingly,
these good parts form a small portion of the overall book.
The back story is not, however, the focus of this book. Three
years after leaving his home town, we end up spending a lot of time in Owen’s
head as he lives his monastic life, works at an unskilled, repetitive job and where
he meets and begins to fixate on a Lydia, a female work colleague. It was struggle
to get past the first half of this book because I found very little about Owen or
his story to be intriguing. I never fully connected with him as a character,
nor did I believe in his relationship with Lydia. It rang false.
The latter part of the book peels back more of the story’s layers
in a much faster fashion. I enjoyed this much more, especially, as I mentioned
at the start, the revelations about Owen’s past life.
*****
Layne Deemer aims to push boundaries with her writing. Her stories deconstruct the ordinary until it becomes something else entirely.
She has a degree in Communications with a minor in English and has worked in the fields of public relations, marketing, and advertising, but writing has always been her true passion. When she isn’t writing, she’s reading. Her wish list of books will take her a lifetime to get through.
She resides in Pennsylvania with her husband, Adam, their two kids, Stella and Jasper, and their bulldog, Archie. Frayed, a psychological thriller, is her first novel.
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