The Patient by Steena Holmes | Review

The Patient by Steena Holmes

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Published: October 15, 2019

Pages: 320

Received: audiobook via Thomas Allen & Son for honest review

Find Online: Goodreads

A therapist must face her own worst fear—one of her patients is a serial killer.

Danielle Rycroft suspects someone close to her has a dark secret. In the confidential setting of therapy, her patients share their anxieties and fears. Now, with a string of murders in town putting her on edge, Danielle’s own worries come close to eclipsing her patients’. In each case, the pattern is the same: parents killed while their children sleep blissfully unaware in their beds. Her best friend, Detective Tami Sloan, is the only person she has confided in.

Danielle believes that there’s still a secret one patient has yet to share. But which one? Behind a familiar face is a stranger who’ll do anything to hide their worst compulsions. The anxiety brings Danielle to her own therapist’s office, seeking counsel and comfort. But what is she willing to risk, and how much closer must she get, to stop them?

Steena Holmes has quickly become one of my new favourite Canadian authors. Thanks to Thomas Allen & Son for introducing me last year with The Forgotten Ones and now just recently with The Patient. 

I love a good thriller and I really enjoy multiple point of view books, which this one had in abundance.  I found it so interesting to flip between Danielle, three of her patients, someone who might be the serial killer and some flashbacks. Since we know from the synopsis that one of her patients just might be a serial killer, I found it interesting to try to figure it out along the way with Danielle. Since all three have different reasons to be considered the killer, I found it intriguing for her to try and unravel the truth. 

The fact the she is a therapist and she seeks help and counsel from her own therapist was fascinating to me. I never really thought about a therapist needing their own place to speak out about the stresses of their job, but it makes sense. I'm just not sure that Danielle got what she bargained for with looking for help. Or maybe she did?

The part of the story that really had me was all the references to Alice in Wonderland. From Danielle's strong love of the book that she collects different versions of it whenever she can, to the fact that she lives in a town called Cheshire that has streets named after characters and statues in the parks depicting the different characters in the book. Even the killer gets dubbed the Cheshire Mad Queen which just adds to the Alice theme! We're all mad here seems fitting given the location and what is happening.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story from start to finish as it had me guessing who the killer was, who the flashbacks really were from and how it all fit into this puzzle. I tend to read a lot of thrillers so my mind comes up with fantastical ideas on who the killer could be or what the plot twist might be, so I had part of it figured out but I didn't expect one of the twists at all. I like when a book can surprise me even when I have part figured out. I will say that the killer ends up being a shattered and broken person, similar to the way the image on the cover shows that the picture does not line up completely. I love how the cover depicts that part of the killer.

If you've read anything the Steena before, you'll know this was a departure from her normal genre. I feel that it was a good first thriller for her and hope to see her write more and thrillers are a fave of mine.

Have you read The Patient yet? What did you think and did you have a clue who the killer might be?