A. F. CarterReseñas

Who D.I.D. it?


Having studied psychology in college when this book came to Netgalley I rushed to request it. This type of mystery is completely up my ally. So, thank you to all parties involved in my getting a copy of this book. A.F Carter you have a new fan with me I really enjoyed this new twist to a thriller so thank you. Carolyn Grant had been subjected to extreme and horrible sexual and physical abuse from her biological father, then by the foster family, she was sent to. Even after she aged out of the system, she continued to be exploited by others around her. She had fractured into several different people all sharing the same body, all with the goal of surviving one day at a time. Their lives are put at risk when Eleni the rather promiscuous personality gets picked up by the police and their freedom is questioned. The story takes an even more interesting turn when the father who abused Carolyn for so many years is paroled after serving a large part of his sentence. I don’t want to give two much of the story away but I will say someone does die and we don’t know who did it until the very end.

This is one of those novels that will do well with book clubs and friends because it opens the discussion for mental health. I love how the author treats the subject with respect and gives the reader a proper insight on treatments. I enjoyed that the separate personalities had a great deal of details and independence to them. Who I hated was the psychiatrist that the court appointed I will say that I enjoyed that he made all the personalities work together to better support the collective but that is about all I liked of him. Overall a 4.5 star read. I will continue to support this author in the future because I enjoyed the original concept.

Published: September 20, 2022

3.5⭐

Captain Delia Merola of the Baxter Police Department has a lot on her plate. With the new Nissan Car Company plant promising to boost the economy of the small town of Baxter, she is in charge of cleaning up the local drug trade, making Baxter a safer place to live and work. She spends her days busting meth labs and arresting dealers and pushers while balancing her role as a single mom to her fourteen-year-old son Danny. When the fifteen-year-old daughter of a rich family, who also happens to be the highest bidder on the construction contract of the new plant, Delia is instructed by her boss to let the FBI handle the case. When the FBI advises the family to pay the ransom and wait for Elizabeth’s release, the family reaches out to Delia and asks her to run a parallel investigation- one that does not involve sitting and waiting.

Elizabeth Bradford was born with a golden spoon in her mouth. She is a smart teenager two years ahead of her peers in school, aware of the privileges of her family background but realistic in her observations of the world around her. When she is kidnapped, she is aware of the potential peril that awaits her despite her kidnapper’s assurance that she will be released once the ransom is paid. She trusts no one and though she appears to be the perfectly meek hostage, her mind is working in ways her captor would never guess.

Narrated by both Delia and Elizabeth in the first person, The Hostage by A.F. Carter is atmospheric, gritty and exciting. The procedural aspects and the dynamics in an understaffed police department were very well executed as were Elizabeth’s moment in captivity. The author does a great job of describing the setting of a struggling, crime-infested small town. Delia’s personal life and her dynamic with colleagues and friends form an integral part of the narrative. Both Delia and Elizabeth are two strong and smart protagonists who manage to keep the reader engaged. The emphasis on local crime fighting often overshadows the kidnapping case , which at times dampened the thrill for me. Though the narrative did drag a little towards the end, I was happy with the way the story was resolved. I would be interested in more stories featuring the fearless Delia Merola in the future.

Thank you to Penzler Publishers and NetGalley for providing a digital review copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

If you like tough grimy mysteries this is for you! Very strong character development, and I just loved Git from the start. She is only a young woman who has dreams of getting out of town, but she also has sexual needs. She occasionally dresses up and careful to hide her true identity while going to the local bar looking to score.
Git did just that and hooked up with this guy going to a hotel, which was a terrible mistake. He went to the bathroom and overdosed on heroine, which only she knows. The town is infested with drugs and completely run down. Git has been wishing to get out of town and now she finds herself caught between a rock and a hard place, and is hoping the police doesn’t find out that she was there with him at the hotel.

It was a super fast read and the ending was a a mind blowing shocker!

This book is alright. The problem is the story is told from 3 points of view:
Git, a white trash female who makes bad decisions where men are concerned and is trying to better her life.
Delia, a lesbian police detective assigned to the crime.
Connor, the bad guy.
The story takes place in I think Iowa although it is never terribly clear.
The story is not much of a mystery, and all three characters are tough and hardened by life’s lessons.
Sadly what they really are is stereotyped caricatures.
I seriously doubt the author has been out of New York City.
I also have a real problem with male authors trying to write from a female perspective, and in this case a lesbian character as well. Once you strip away the stereotype behavior all three characters are flat.
Again the story was good and a few twists were enjoyable, but other than checking all the politically correct boxes for characters in a book in 2021 I don’t know why it was told by a male author using 2 main female characters.

Carolyn Grand has very distinct multiple personalities. There's Eleni, the seductive one, Serena, the timid one, Martha, the one that does all the choresss, Victoria is the well dressed one, Tina is the little girl and then there's Kirk, he feels that he is a man stuck in a woman's body.

When Eleni accidentally solicits a detective, Carolyn Grand is forced to prove she's able to care for herself. She then finds out her father, the man that abused her, was being released from prison. All of her rage comes to the forefront as she realizes her psychiatrist isn't really trying to help her and her father has been murdered. Can she prove her innocence when she has no recollection of that night?

I loved this book, it really makes you think about what someone with this disorder goes through. Imagine having days, weeks, or months missing out of your life at a time. The descriptions were so vivid that you feel the frustrations and confusion, not knowing what she did and what happened on those missing days. The only part I wasn't very happy with was the very anti-climatic ending.

Definitely not a thriller. Interesting enough though. Decent plot but the characters are very bland and one dimensional.

Carolyn Grand suffers from dissociative identity disorder. Inside her once abused and battered body live 6 individuals. Martha, the housewife, Victoria, the public persona, Eleni, the promiscuous, Kirk, a heterosexual male, Serena, the new age spiritual, and Tina, the keeper of memories. After Eleni propositions a cop, they find themselves in therapy. They immediately distrust the psychiatrist, who is a bit too forceful, and who takes pleasure in their discomfort. Then, their father, their primary abuser, is paroled.

This book seemed to have very little plot. The story focused so much on describing the personalities that nothing ever seemed to happen. The psychiatrist, meant to be a dark character, was a bit bland. The situation with the father was resolved too quickly and too easily. Overall, this book was much ado about nothing.

I liked the idea of this book a lot more than I liked the execution. The concept and overall story were awesome, but the delivery left something to be desired. I wasn't a big fan of the writing style - I love a good multiple viewpoint story, but for me, there wasn't enough separation amongst the characters. It could be confusing who was speaking at times. I was also bothered by the relationship between Carolyn and one of the detectives handling the case. I don't want to include spoilers in this review, so I will leave it at this: nothing about their relationship is acceptable. The men in the book are overwhelmingly icky, and it just leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth (which to an extent is to be expected, but it can also feel a little heavy handed). I did, however, enjoy seeing the ways each personality adapted to the world around them and howthey all ultimately took care of each other and Carolyn.

So as a psychological thriller I found this one particularly unique as the main character suffers from a multiple personality disorder in which she has six unique personalities that all share one body. Having suffered years of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her biological father, Carolyn Grand is mostly just a name on paper. The day to day grind falls to one or more of her personalities, each one filling a different niche. Carolyn’s life hovers in a delicate balance that is threatened when she finds out her abusive father will be released from prison after serving almost 30 years. After an unfortunate incident where one personality propositioned a cop for sex, Carolyn is also facing the possibility of being thrown back into a live in psychiatric hospital, if her new therapist deems she is a threat to herself or others. So when her dear dad, recently paroled, turns up dead in his hotel room, the list of suspects of course includes Carolyn, as the estranged, abused daughter. But could any of her personalities kill? Finding an unlikely ally in Bobby, a detective, who is actively investigating her father’s murder, Carolyn and her six personalities must try and work together to maintain their status quo. This story is very different, and interesting because of the characters. This brings a fresh, original quality to the story. At times there is a certain dark humor to this tale as 6 personalities vie for dominance while trying to survive. Definitely something to read for those into something that’s considered a little unusual. Thank you to Netgalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Content Rating: 18+
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Published: June 2, 2020, by Mysterious Press

All of Us is a noir thriller with an unnerving psychological twist. A.F. Carter takes the reader deep into the fractured mind of Carolyn Grand. Since early childhood, Carolyn has endured horrendous abuse at the hand of her sick, twisted father, Hank, and then she suffered at the hands of her foster family. As if that is not enough, Hank also exposes Carolyn to his pedophile friends and films them.

“I have no memory of my father, now in prison, or of his sadistic friends. Nor do I remember Benny Aceveda and his wife, the foster parents who rented us by the hour.”
Martha

Carolyn’s mind copes with this trauma by splintering into six distinctly different individuals, each with their own unique personalities. Carolyn Grand suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), sometimes called Multiple Personality Disorder or Split Personality. I loved that the author took a murder mystery and added this unique twist.

All of Us is told to us by each of Carolyn’s personalities. These six different personalities work together and have enabled Carolyn to have a reasonable life. She still struggles and needs help from the state, but she can live on her own. Carolyn Grand’s people are the makeup of Martha, Victoria, Serena, Kirk, Elina, and Tina, who have their particular purpose in protecting Carolyn both physically and psychologically.

“Our past is imprinted somewhere inside the brain we share, but Tina alone has access. If that saves the rest of us a lot of pain…”
Martha

I won’t explain what each person does for Carolyn, as that would take away the fun of reading the book but know that A.F. Carter does an excellent job in the development of each character and perfectly showcases the internal struggle between each of the personalities.

“Victoria and Martha want to eat me, me and Eleni, to swallow us down, to digest us, to empty us from their bowels, to flush us away.”
Serena

Everything is going along “normally” until Carolyn hears that her father will be released from prison. Upon release, he starts stalking Carolyn, she reports this to the police, but they are unable to do anything. And then Hank is murdered.

A.F. Carter leads us down a well written suspenseful path that leaves us wondering and yes, hoping if any of Carolyn’s personalities were capable of murdering Hank. These six characters/personalities were all so well developed, and I became attached to all of them. The pacing of this book was well executed and kept me on edge throughout the whole book. If you like the thriller genres, All of Us delivers that edge of your seat reading with a unique twist.

* Please note the quotes in my review are subject to change once the book is published. *

** I kindly received this galley by way of NetGalley, publisher, and author. I was not contacted, asked, or required to leave a review. I received no compensation, financial or otherwise. I have voluntarily read this book, and this review is my honest opinion. **

I'm fascinated by dissociative identity disorder, so this book's premise immediately caught my attention. I was looking forward to an intense psychological thriller, but the story didn't quite come together for me.

Each of Carolyn Grand's six identities have narrating parts. While this can feel like a lot, the author does an excellent job of making them each unique and immediately identifiable. My problem was that all the identities are bland, as if their personalities have been stripped down to one or two characteristics. The complexities lie in the person as a whole, but not within the individual narrating identities. Consequently, it winds up feeling like specific traits were plucked from Carolyn and given lives of their own, which is not how DID works.

The plot is engaging, and I was rooting for Carolyn as she fought to keep her independence. The content raises thought-provoking questions about what defines sanity, who gets to decide, and how we treat people whose brains work differently than the norm.

I did feel aspects were overblown, with too many of the people in Carolyn's life being twisted and abusive in some way. I also thought the ending fizzled, where I was expecting a bang.

*I received a review copy via NetGalley.*

I remember reading The Three Faces Of Eve, seeing the movie Sybil and being fascinated with multiple personalities. Sometimes thing happen that are so awful or so traumatic that the mind cannot handle it. Some people blank it out. For other people the mind creates a new identity to handle it. Charlene Grant was abused by her father and his friends for their amusement but she still had hope. When her father was arrested and she went into foster care the abuse was even worse. This time she lost hope and many other identities came into being. As the book opens, one of her identities, Eleni the sexual one, propositioned an undercover cop. She wasn't arrested because she didn't ask for money but she was sent to therapy with the rather creepy Dr Halbertstam. With him we meet Martha, Victoria,Serena,Tina and Kirk. Each of them has a purpose in Charlene's life and they have been existing quite well on their own. Soon after the incident with Eleni, Charlene's father was released from prison. When he is found dead, Charlene was the most likely suspect, especially since she is already known to the police. I did not find this book to be that suspenseful but I enjoyed it. The chapters alternated among the identities which could be confusing for some I suppose but I had no trouble with it. The book was a sad commentary on the mental health system and how it sometimes treats patients. The ending ties everything up but not necessarily neatly. I received an early copy from Netgalley and would like to thank the publisher for allowing me to read and review it.

Carolyn Grand is the star of our thriller, All of Us, but she just happens to be comprised of six alternate personalities. We have Victoria, a carefully constructed extrovert, Kirk, a heterosexual and outnumbered male, Martha, a no nonsense mother figure, Serena, a bohemian artist, Eleni, charming deviant, and lastly Tina, the small seed that remains of the original Carolyn after suffering years of sexual abuse as a child. After an unfortunate incident the personalities who usually resort to whatever methods available to gain control of the body must unite for a common goal - being committed to yet another psychiatric facility. Carolyn's functional foothold in society is threatened when her she learns that her father, Hank Grand, the man responsible for years of sexual and physical abuse is being released from prison early. Hank begins to appear at places that Carolyn frequents ultimately bringing back horrifying memories to all of the personalities, not just the one who remembers.

Hank is suddenly murdered putting Carolyn and their history straight into the police's radar. He did have other nefarious business in the squalid hotel room that he was found in making evidence and witnesses hard to come by and hard to believe. One of the detectives assigned to Hank's case finds himself enmeshed into Carolyn's personal and very lonely existence. The detectives, the reader and Carolyn's many personalities are all wondering the same thing - could any of their fellow personalities who can barely keep appointments, be responsible for murdering their father?

This book is intensely intriguing and so is the concept behind DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). You can decide for yourself if you believe in DID. I believe that it could definitely be true - even if it has been sensationalized in its various forms. Trauma invites the break down of the mind, who is to say that your mind couldn't break down so far that each function to survive became a personality unto itself? With Carolyn's character each personality is entirely different from the others - and those are just the ones that are around in the books time frame. None of the characters fall flat either but the most unknown is Tina and it does make sense as to why she would be elusive.

"'Where do you go, Victoria, when you're not in control and not watching?'

'Well, that's the question, isn't it? And I apologize for not having an answer, except to say we don't relate well to clock time. It seems to me that I exist at every moment, but I know that can't be strictly accurate.'

'And why is that?'

'Because there are periods of time I can't account for, long periods of time. But, then again, where does your anger go, Doctor, when you're not angry? Your laughter, your hunger, your thirst?'"

There were several angles in this book that I was surprised at but the main one being the plot development with Detective Ortega but it tied everything together nicely (for everyone involved). I feel that this book has a heartbreaking but brutal take on mental illness, poverty and what it takes to survive. I loved the fact that this book spun an entirely different thriller than what I have been reading so much of lately - it was refreshing and extremely well put together. It feels like I have been reading a lot of under-hyped books lately and this one qualifies for sure. If you're here, reading this and it sounds interesting - please consider purchasing this book to read.

This title has some fairly sensitive topics strewn throughout it's chapters but as from the description it is expected, the main ones being: physical and sexual abuse of a child, drug use, mental illness, suicide and poverty. I would highly suggest this book to readers who enjoy psychological, thriller, suspense, murder mysteries, mental illness, unreliable narrators. Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to read this odd and stunning thriller.

All of Us by A.F. Carter is a psychological suspense novel that uses a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder as the protagonist and driving force.

I am one of those readers who like to try my best to understand a character on that character's own terms. Needless to say a novel about a woman with DID is challenging for me. In fact, I usually find myself in a hit or miss situation with such books. Fortunately, this book was far more hit than miss. I think any reader needs to understand that this book can't be everything to every reader. To delve into the personalities much deeper it becomes a psychological case study. Not enough and it becomes a confusing mash-up of seemingly different people inhabiting one body, which is a far too simplistic way that many perceive DID. This is being promoted, I think, as a psychological thriller/suspense, not a murder mystery/police procedural, so even though there is a murder investigation Carolyn Grand is the focus of the book. That shifts expectations ever so slightly as each genre has its own reader expectations. If you're like me and tend to pay little attention to genre once I've started reading it is a little easier to just go with the flow of the book, so to speak.

I found the plot to be sufficient for me to care about Carolyn and to want to see the story through. I would have preferred an ending that wasn't so stereotypical of how "damaged women" are always saved in fiction, but that didn't detract from the enjoyment of the ride to that point.

This book gets very dark at times and may be off-putting to some readers when it does. Those moments are, however, essential to understanding why and how Carolyn developed these personalities. Be prepared but understand nothing is gratuitous.

I recommend this to readers who like psychological suspense or even just psychological drama, mainly because the mental condition of Carolyn is almost always front and center here. If you're looking for a more murder mystery genre type read, this may or may not satisfy you.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.½