Romance

Assassin Next Door by Eve Langlais

Lori Carroll

Grade: 1

I will never have more to say about a book than one I don’t like. While I have OPINIONS about this book, I’ll try to keep the review as objective as possible. 

Calvin is an assassin living in suburbia. Lily is fresh out of an abusive relationship and has just moved her and her daughter in next door.  Let’s start there. A woman just escaping a violent household should probably not be paired with an assassin whose life is violence personified. 

Zoe, Lily’s daughter, brings about the introduction of the neighbors by playing on Calvin’s property causing Calvin to lash out at Lily. Which should have also shown us these two were not the best pairing. 

Calvin is investigating a drug ring, while Lily is dealing with hostile visits from her ex.  That pretty much sums up the plot. 

The character development consisted of telling us what the characters were supposed to be, but showing us a completely different person.  Calvin as an assassin is supposed to be good at hiding his secret identity…but he’s telling Lily about it before they really know each other. Lily is supposed to be traumatized from her abusive marriage, but we see no evidence of that from her actions.  Zoe is supposed to be a child living in the house, but there are no toys or evidence of a child living there at any given time. 

Here’s where my big problems come in. Calvin gets drunk and uses his scope on his loaded sniper rifle to spy on her. Which is only the first of many stalker type behaviors we are shown.  He breaks into her house and installs cameras to watch her, unbeknownst to Lily. He watches her search the stuffed animals Zoe brings back from the ex’s house for cameras, which she finds and destroys. This does not cause Calvin a moment of regret for doing the same to her. He breaks into the house and hides knives and loaded guns…in a house with a child. Being a stalker is never a good trait in my heroes, let alone with a woman who has just escaped an abusive relationship. 

The plot points were as weak as the character development.  Most of the plot ended up being thrown in there with no natural build up so that they made sense. Instead the author needed the story to turn, so she just turned it. 

Bottom line: I don’t think the author wanted to write this story, but since she self-published it I have to assume there was no pressure, so I’m at a loss on why she wrote it.

Lori Carroll

Lori Carroll

Owner at Jan's
Starting late in life reading, Lori made up for it by becoming a voracious reader. Recently she bought an established bookstore in Beaverton, OR and now spends her day surrounded by nothing but books and booklovers!
Lori Carroll

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