Thank you to both NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for providing me with an advance copy of Kate Myles debut novel, The Receptionist, in exchange for an honest review.

Read the book from cover to cover, over some amount of agonizing hours. No, just no.

Emily is a top talent agent who rules the land of talk shows and reality TV. Whip-smart and brutally practical, she outmaneuvers all rivals…except in her personal life. Emily willfully ignores her CEO husband Doug’s philandering in exchange for their glamorous one-percenter lifestyle, until a surprise pregnancy changes everything.

This was a.completely crazy book! With amazing\crazy characters to go along with it.
If you're looking for a thriller to keep you hanging on the edge of your seat read this book!

What a ride! I really enjoyed this book with all its craziness and dysfunctional characters. I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s definitely a slow burn that picks up speed and turns into complete mayhem. I would definitely recommend.

A quick little thriller. Twists, turns and betrayals centered around Chloe and Emily - girls competing for attention.

I absolutely love this book. It’s a little twisted a little fun and a little ruthless. The characters are unforgettable and I was on the edge of my seat until the last page. I highly recommend this read.

This was a DNF for me. Unfortunately I was only able to get to about 25% and couldn't push myself to go any further.

Oh no! This is bad! I hated both of the characters! I got confused with the writing style and I pushed myself damn hard to finish it even though dnf-ing was so tempting!

I did my best to find something good to hold on because as a writer I always focus on positive attributes of the book to form a better review.

I can only say the opening was not hooking but somewhat interesting. At first we had prologue about 11 years old girl’s finding out about brutal murder news and then we are introduced two heroines: the wife and the mistress( at the beginning she was just the receptionist at womanizer a.hole husband’s office) Emily: ruthless, competitive, a real shark talent agent gets threatened by beauty of Chloe who is stunning and nearly 25 years actress wannabe/ receptionist as I mentioned before at market research firm ( Emily’s husband Doug owns it as I mentioned and he’s douche bag as I defined with other word! )

Emily thinks Chloe sleeps with her husband but as their talk continues she changes her mind: Chloe just an innocent, naive lamb, don’t have any competitiveness in her bones so she decides to humiliate her with snarky comments, critiquing her style ( including her bag) Poor Chloe leaves her office with shaky hands. As we start to feel sorry her she just pushes an old woman who wants to help her. We realize she has anger management issues and she did a bad thing in the past.

As we start to get intrigued, the author ends the chapter and at least for 90 pages we never hear from Chloe. We read about slow paced Emily and Doug’s meeting and marriage story. We hate Emily more: she’s narcissistic, selfish, arrogant and cutthroat bitch who was also mean girl and ruined a girl named Destiny’s life when she was young and she never feels sorry for it ( sociopath alarm!) and Doug is also narcissistic womanizer who cannot keep it in his pants. We see his dangerous side, too. Finally we turn back to see how Doug and Chloe’s relationship started.

Emily gets pregnant, interestingly she hides it from her husband but her husband already knows, still sleeping with Chloe. Then things get messier and the story loses its direction. It gets more unreliable, nonsense and boring.

I yawned more, trying to gather my patient but especially the last chapters are like B movie kind of ridiculous and the holes of plot get bigger than my husband’s sock holes! ( grandiose)

The epilogue of Emily’s daughter was also painful ( not in emotional way, too painful to read , too irritating to absorb)

Aimless story telling, awkward conclusion, very punchable characterization earned my two unfortunately this didn’t work with me stars!

I’m truly sorry because the beginning of the story was hopeful and I know this is debut novel and the author is successful TV producer but I tried to write my honest thoughts even they are harsh and criticizing . I still want to read future works of the author. I know she has good potential to share better stories with us.

So many thanks to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions. I wish I could like it more.

I am pretty sure that this is my second time reading and reviewing this book on netgalley. I was rather confused when I read the first chapter and everything was familiar to me. No matter how many times I read this book unfortunately it doesnt get any better.