This novel was super dark. An escort geys caught up in a scheme to service a client one last time on an island. I love thrillers but this one was tough for me to finish. The plot was well-paced. However, it just had dark sexual undertones which were hard for me to read.

I don’t know how I exactly feel about this book! It really made me confused! It was smart but there are so missing pieces for me to enjoy it completely!

I loved the start and sarcastic, straightforwardly blunt narration of Theodora/ Dora: thirty years old sex worker/ escort, honestly telling her work life, her clients, her only friend Evan, her struggles in her tough, survival tone. I liked her immediately!
She has rules, restrictions about her profession and she made me a mistake to listen Elspeth( let’s call her : agent) to take the offer of a last minute client! She walks to the hotel, seeing the red flags after meeting with the man wearing the mask who is about to give her more than black eye!

Her best friend/ trust fund baby Evan sees her condition, trying to convince her to quit her job as like he did before but when he realizes, Dora has no intention to leave this life behind, he does something unexpected, he PROPOSES!
And she says YES!

I thought I was reading angsty, erotic romance at first, but Dora was so lovable to hang out and I didn’t care not much happened after 60 pages. I continued!

Dora quits her job but her old client Daniel she’s seen for 6 months need her help to attend a celebration party of his colleague at a chateau in South France. The girl he has a crush on for years who is also married will be there! He needs a pretending girlfriend urgently and Dora knows him so well, she’s the only one who can make his friends believe in their relationship!

Dora already promised Evan, she left her old life. But her client Daniel promises they’re not gonna have sex! A quick visit to France including vineyard tour, private chefs, lots of tennis and time by the pool already lured her! On the top of that: she’ll be paid handsomely! And Evan is at work trip, having no time to check on her! What can go wrong?

Well, I really want to scream at Dora as soon as she said yes to Daniel. And when they arrive at the château, she meets with Daniel’s eccentric friends who act like they see an exotic creature as soon as they say hi to her. And one of them is a very dangerous man! Dora absolutely knows who he is!

I just want to scream louder at Dora to run away before things turn into “ Get out” movie!
I asked myself why she keeps staying. There are so many red flags! Why!

But she stayed and the sh*t literally hits the fan!
I can honestly say I got very flabbergasted after getting blown away by several twists. Some of them are unnecessary!

Then when I was about to start the last third: I realized the author moved the story backwards with 11 years long flashback and another narrator joined with Dora!

It was abrupt but absolutely necessary! I was about to give 2 stars to this book! But last third changed my mind: at least so many of my questions answered even though they were far fetched explanations!

Especially one twist made me scream: NO FREAKING WAY! Absolutely I didn’t foresee it!
I truly got sucker punched !

Overall: I went between three and four stars! I decided to give three stars at the end! I loved Dora! I loved some crazy twists! But so many things in this book were too much exaggerated and there were so many disturbing elements like abuse, rape, degradation, child abandonment ! But I still finished it quickly and thought this book as enjoyable popcorn read!
I’m so sure I’ll happily love to read more books of the author.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing/ MIRA for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

This was my first time reading anything written by Adele Parks, and let me ask this-WHY have I waited this long? This book was excellent. I loved the premise, the characters, the pacing of the book, and of course the ending. This book was fun to read, I was pretty much hooked from the first chapter and I ate this one up rather quickly. Adele is a gifted writer. I highly recommend One Last Secret to everyone. In the meantime, I will be checking out her backlist to see which titles I need to add to my shelf. Many thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for the ARC. Looking forward to seeing a lot more positive reviews of this book closer to publication date!