One Last Secret by Adele Parks

Whenever Adele Parks puts out a new one it goes to the top of my "to read" pile. I've read every one of her books and they never disappoint. She is the queen of the domestic thriller.

This newest one features Dora (alias Natalya), a sex worker in London. She makes enough money as a high-end escort to live comfortably in a very expensive city. Presumably like all sex workers, she didn't set out in life with this aspiration. Dora is a child of Serbian immigrants and as a young woman she develops a confidence in the world as she discovers she has a talent for performance. While enrolled in a prestigious acting school she meets a wealthy older man named Shaun with connections to the theater. Thus begins an affair with the married man that eventually leads to the end of Dora's ambitions.

Fast forward a decade and Dora's close friend Evan reveals his feelings for her with a proposal. Dora accepts and promises Evan that she will find a new career path. But while Evan is away on a business trip Dora accepts one more job with an established client. She tells him she'll escort him on a week's getaway to a French chateau with a group of his friends. Dora says she'll go and pretend she's the man's girlfriend but there will be no sex involved (in loyalty to Evan).

But almost immediately the trip turns very strange. The man's friends give Dora weird vibes like when she comes into a room that was silent until she steps in, then everyone erupts in laughter. Odd things happen like when Dora falls asleep at the pool and wakes up in her room, with no recollection of how she got there. Also, there is a man at the gathering that looks a lot like a former client of Dora's that beat her and raped her, but he claims he's never seen her before.

The story eventually ties in Dora's decade old past and takes the reader on a wild ride as Dora must fight for her life. At one point Dora has the thought that women like her often come to bad ends but no one really cares. Her life's path has lead her to believe that the only believable part of the Cinderella fairy tale was that at the end she turned back into a servant girl and the coach turned back into a pumpkin. Parks does a wonderful job developing her characters and making you care about them, and this book is no different. I loved curling up with this twisty novel of suspense.