Creep by Jennifer Hillier ~ review

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Gallery; Original edition (July 5, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451625847
• ISBN-13: 978-1451625844

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About the book from Goodreads:
Pulsing with the dark obsession of Radiohead’s song “Creep,” this taut thriller—Jennifer Hillier’s superb debut—rockets from its seductive opening to a heartpounding climax not easily forgotten. 

If he can’t have her . . . 

Dr. Sheila Tao is a professor of psychology. An expert in human behavior. And when she began an affair with sexy, charming graduate student Ethan Wolfe, she knew she was playing with fire. Consumed by lust when they were together, riddled with guilt when they weren’t, she knows the three-month fling with her teaching assistant has to end. After all, she’s finally engaged to a kind and loving investment banker who adores her, and she’s taking control of her life. But when she attempts to end the affair, Ethan Wolfe won’t let her walk away. 

. . . no one else can. 

Ethan has plans for Sheila, plans that involve posting a sex video that would surely get her fired and destroy her prestigious career. Plans to make her pay for rejecting him. And as she attempts to counter his every threatening move without her colleagues or her fiancé discovering her most intimate secrets, a shattering crime rocks Puget Sound State University: a female student, a star athlete, is found stabbed to death. 

Someone is raising the stakes of violence, sex, and blackmail . . . and before she knows it, Sheila is caught in a terrifying cat-and-mouse game with the lover she couldn’t resist—who is now the monster who won’t let her go. 

My take on this book:

Dr. Sheila Tao is a recovering sex addict, but after the death of her father she suffered a relapse and had a torrid affair with her teaching assistant/ student Ethan Wolfe, but decides to break it off because she is getting married in a few weeks to the love of her life Morris Gardener, but Ethan doesn't handle the breakup well, and threatens to share a sex video of the couple together. Sheila realizes that Ethan could cost her everything if that video gets out but soon tires of Ethan's taunts and decides to push back. This enrages Ethan and he decides that if he can't have Sheila then no one can, and decides that he must kill her.

This book is a thriller in the true sense of the word. The plot draws you in from the first pages and the characters are easy to care about. Sheila is someone who is trying to get her life together, and hopes for a future with Morris, someone whom she sincerely loves. She made the mistake of having an affair with Ethan, but she had no idea just what sort of person he really was until she tried to break it off. Morris is a character that has issues of his own, he is a recovering alcoholic whose life was derailing until Sheila came along.  Ethan's character comes off as weird in the beginning but slowly escalates into someone who was totally off the wall weird. The author did a fantastic job of leading me along making me think I  had things figured out then she throws in an amazing twist that totally blew me away. The ending left me wondering if there might be a sequel. A great read for anyone who enjoys fast paced thrillers with an exciting, totally believable plot.