#Psychologcal Thriller

[readingforsanity]

The Senator's Wife | Liv Constantine | Published 2023 | *SPOILERS*

In this town, anyone is replaceable...

After a tragic chain of events led to the deaths of their spouses two years ago, DC philanthropist Sloane Chase and Senator Whit Montgomery are finally starting to move on. The horrifying ordeal drew them together, and now they're ready to settle down again - with each other.

As Sloane returns to the world of White House dinners and political small talk, this time with her new husband, she's also preparing for an upcoming hip replacement - the latest reminder of the lupus diagnosis she's managed since her twenties. With both of their hectic schedules, they decide that hiring a home health aide will give Sloane the support and independence she needs post-surgery. And they find the perfect fit in Athena Karras.

Seemingly a godsend, Athena tends to Sloane, and evens helps her run her charitable foundation. But Sloane slowly begins to deteroriate - a complication, Athena explains, of Sloane's lupus. As weeks go by, Sloane becomes sicker, and her uncertainty quickly turns to paranoia as she begins to suspect the worst. Why is Athena asking her so many probing questions about her foundation - about her past? And could Sloane be imagining the sultry looks between Athena and her new husband?

Riveting, face-paced, and full of unbelievable twists, The Senator's Wife is a psychologcal thriller that upends the private homes of those who walk the halls of power. Because when you have it all, you have everything to lose.

Two years before the events of the novel, Sloane and Robert Chase and Whit and Peg Montgomery are vacationing at one of Sloane and Robert's homes. Both men are prominents senators in Washington, and Robert and Peg are cousins. What was meant to be an idylllic weekend away turns sour when Whit and Peg begin arguing over Whit's supposed infidelity. Peg confesses to Sloane that she believes Whit to have been unfaithful with Madelyn Sawyer, another prominent politician in Washington, though Sloane doesn't put any stock into this as she feels Peg's drinking and paranoia have gotten the better of her.

A few months later, Peg has invited Robert over after having Whit followed the last few weeks to prove his infildelity. Whit denies it, stating that Madelyn and her husband, Fred, have been supporters of his campaign and have given him quite a bit of money in order to continue his work in Washington. However, Peg doesn't accept this answer and grabs a gun that was hidden under the couch cushion. Robert, seeing what is about to happen, jumps up in order to save his friend and Peg accidentally shoots her cousin before turning the gun on herself, both of them killed instantly.

Two years later, Sloane and Whit have found love in each other, and have remarried. Unfortunately, Sloane's health has taken a dip after a lupus diagnosis in her twenties have left her with uncomfortable flares and her hip is in need of a hip replacement, a surgery that she has finally scheduled. Despite the loss of their respectives spouses, the two of them seem to be on a good start to their new marriage, though Rosemary, Robert's mother and Sloane's mother-in-law, isn't happy to see the two of them having moved on so quickly.

For her recovery, Sloane and Whit have agreed to hire a home healthcare aide in order to assist Sloane with her day to day duties with her health, as well as some admin tasks for her foundation, where Sloane and Robert have helped thousands of abused women. In this, they hire a young, beautiful woman named Athena Karras. The daughter of Greek immigrants, she feels close to both of the Montgomery's, as she too is a widow after having lost her husband in a motorcycle accident before returning to the United States after previously lived in Greece with him.

Athena moves into the home, and quickly becomes a huge help to not only Sloane but to Whit as well. Rosemary, on the other hand, reaches out to a friend of hers, Mac, in order to begin investigating not only Athena herself, but also Whit. It appears Whit may be involved in some untoward events in Washington, and Rosemary wants to present these facts to Sloane, but only once she has proof, as Sloane hasn't taken to her mother-in-law's dislike of her new husband.

Sloane, unfortunately, begins to have a lupus flare shortly after her surgery, and shortly after that, her memory and health continue to decline. She begins to hallucinate, have memory lapses where she forgets the names of those around her, and also begins experiencing the loss of huge chunks of time. She begins to suspect that Athena and Whit are working against her in order to kill her so the two of them can be together.

Whit and Athena have become close to each other the more Sloane's health declined. They would often have dinner together well into the night, and Whit began sharing his fears of Sloane's declining health, as well as his hopes for the future. He begins to believe that Athena is his soul mate, and the two of them can be together after Sloane's passing.

When Rosemary is attacked in her home, along with her Congresswoman friend Faye, and is in a medically induced coma for several weeks, Sloane's health continues to worsen. Rosemary was on the cusp of finding out the truth, that Whit really is involved in something sketchy with other people in politics. When Sloane begins to worry that Athena is drugging or poisoning her, she goes into Whit's room in order to look for something that could point that he is also involved.

What she finds is disturbing: a watch that belonged to Peg's father, having had an insurance claim on it after it was believed to be lost in the fire that had killed Peg's parents. On top of this, she also finds the report that Rosemary had received from Mac in a briefcase inside the closet.

Now truly believing that her life is in danger, Sloane begins to worry what she can do to get out of this situation. However, her health doesn't allow her to get very far as she loses consciousness shortly after returning to her bedroom. At this, Athena offers to end Sloane's life, act as an angel of mercy, in order to put her out of her misery. Whit has confided in Athena that Sloane's doctors have found permanent brain damage as a result of her lupus, and that this would be the best way to honor his promise not to let her get into such a state.

Whit leaves, and Athena enters Sloane's bedroom; when Emmy, Sloane's daughter comes home from LA the next morning, she is told that Sloane has passed away. Funeral arrangements are set, and we receive Whit's POV that he was involved in everything that people believed he was guilty of. He was using LLC's in order to launder money, and now Sloane's money would be his.

When he goes into the foundation offices in order to get a head start on things; he finds himself faced with not only his supposed dead wife, but Emmy and Athena as well. We come to learn that Athena helped Sloane fake her death; while looking inside of his office one day, Athena came across the items that Whit had been using to poison her with, including Bactrim and belladona, also known as nightshade. Athena is really Athema Pimfilis, an FBI agent with a prior medical background, making her work undercover the perfect cover in order to get Whit's ass handed to him.

Although Whit pleads guilty to attempted murder of Sloane and the corruption charges, he was unfortunately unable to be pinned for the murders of Robert and Peg, of which he was truly guilty of, having admitted so during one of his POVs. He received a sentence of 15 years, and Sloane began the process of divorce shortly after finding out the truth. The president and others involved in the money laundering scheme were also charged and are doing sentences of their own. It turns out that Rosemary's friend, Faye, had been involved in the laundering as well as the attacks on the two of them.

Athena returns to Greece, returning to her roots and where she truly feels connected and Sloane, Emmy and Rosemary visit with her and the women connect on all levels, forming a friendship that knows no conditions.

Liv Constantine strikes again with this one; my second 5 star read of the month. Even if you know nothing of politics, like myself, the story is easy to follow along with. You truly feel for Sloane, feeling lost in her mind. It read very much like another story I read about a woman experiencing Alzheimer's at a young age and just watching her mind deteoriorate.

I sort of hope this one becomes a book of some kind; or even a TV series. It would do really well.

[thesunshinydays]

ooooo uh top 5 video games

OOOH MY GODDD

5. tie between inscryption (<- your fault) and undertale/deltarune. i just love metafiction so so much. metafiction is an instant nerdsnipe

4. breath of the wild, which walked so that genshin impact could run and also steal peoples wallets as it sprints past. botw is beautiful and also was the first open worldish game that i could make progress in without getting bored immediately. i love to just open the game and wander around and experience the world.

3. ghost trick. an utterly charming game about the ghost of a man trying to solve his own murder while uncovering a huge plot and saving and befriending strangers along the way. it was written by ace attorneys shu takumi and you can really tell because it has the same bonkers level of complexity and hard earned heart warming moments. i replay this one whenever i need a little more faith in humanity and also want to see a funny guy unmurder people. marn you should absolutely play this one it has hitmen AND time loops AND ghosts.

2. WITCHS HEART MY BELOVED. god where do i even start with this one. its a japanese rpgmaker horror game. its a reverse harem shoujo anime. its a psychologcal thriller. its got the prettiest colors ive ever seen. its an examination of the different ways trauma can affect people and of what happens when you trap those people in a house with demons for five days (the demons are also traumatized). the demons mostly look like monsters except for the most powerful ones filled with the most hatred for humanity, those ones look like girls wearing lolita fashion. the protagonist is a girl with a heart of gold, a head of empty, and legs of steel. shes so dumb but she never skips leg day the other characters need weapons to fight monsters she just kicks them. it also has time loops as well as my favorite poor little meow meow of all time. its going to have four endings but only one of them has been released so far but its so satisfying so i know at least one of the others is going to hurt me. its over 19 hours long according to how long to beat but that hasnt stopped me form playing through it two and a half times. its got so many unintended glitches. its about what people are willing to do in order to grant their deepest wish and how granting that wish doesnt necessarily heal the damage thats been done. there is a cooking minigame. the guy who owns the house makes you do chores. there is gratuitous violence. there is a fishing minigame. 

1. borderlands 2 i will never be over borderlands 2. borderlands is what happens happens when the AAA game studio doesnt realize that they hired queer dudes as the head writers on the first two titles in their big fps shoot em up game series. its so bright and colorful and silly and campy in the face of so many of the grizzled marine fps games of the era and i felt at home immediately, its where i learned to play fps games because it was the first fps i felt truly excited to play. every queer kid has one or two pieces of media that kept them company when they needed it and helped them figure things out, and this was one of mine. perhaps i am being a tad sappy but bl2 made such a difference in my life im not even joking. that being said, theres also a mission where you hunt down four rat guys in a sewer who are very blatantly the teenage mutant ninja turtles but as rats and theres another where you meet a guy named “Shooty McFace” and you have to shoot him in the face. it also briefly renames one of the common enemy types “Bonerfarts.” theres a shotgun that shoots swords that explode into smaller swords. so like. grain of salt and all that.

[pecularis]

El Habitante Incierto (2004)

The Uninvited Guest (2004)

[pecularis]