HOW CAN I HELP YOU?
LAURA SIMS
*****
No one knows Margo’s real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality, and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of countless premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges.
That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo’s subtly sinister edge, and watches her carefully. When a patron’s death in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margo’s mysterious past, Patricia can’t resist digging deeper—even as this new fixation becomes all-consuming.
MY REVIEW
*****
Margo has started a new life – she’s moved to a new town and has a new job working in the Library - but when she lets slip a little too much about her previous life to new starter Patricia, a game of cat and mouse begins…
I really enjoyed How Can I Help You and was fully gripped, powering through the pages to find out what would happen next. The book starts from the perspective of Margo, a jolly lady working at the town Library with a loud laugh and funny stories. However, Margo is hiding a big secret about her previous identity. The book then switches perspectives to new starter Patricia and alternates between the two of them throughout. This narrative technique worked really well, and you got one side of the story from Margo and then a completely different perspective from Patricia. It was great to see the small behaviours that would be read one way by paranoid Margo and then the innocent explanation from Patricia.
It's a well plotted booked and paced to perfection, with tension that really ramps up to the action-packed finale. Margo’s character is so creepy, down to the obsession with having baths and her compulsion to set items on fire to calm herself down. There are hints to her childhood in here as well as details from the past which slowly reveal themselves until you get a true picture of her. As she’s the first POV you are introduced to, you actually find yourself rooting for her over Patricia at some points which just shows the depth of Laura Sims’ writing.
Overall, How Can I Help You is a creepy and compelling read that I just couldn’t put down. Thank you to NetGalley and Verve Books for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
LINKS TO BUY
The story line sounds so intriguing. Reading your review makes me interested in this book. Insya-Allah, I'll add it to my TBR. Thank you for sharing.
Wow! This book sounds intense. I would love to read both Patricia's and Margo's side of the story. I also want to know what Margo will do at the end of the book.