The Nurse is quite a slow burner to begin with but once the twists and turns begin it picks up pace and it kept me guessing and questioning everything along the way. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for my ARC.

★★★ 3.5 stars

The perfect job...the perfect home...the perfect nightmare...

Emily is a struggling nursing student having just graduated as valedictorian and is now in line for the perfect nursing position working for prominent and renowned psychiatrist Dr Henry Roth. Her role is to care for his ailing wife, Sabrina, suffering from mental illness in their palatial and luxurious Florida home. As a struggling student, Emily has landed on her feet with this job as it pays well and heaven knows she needs a reliable income to pay the rent, lower her student debt and pay off her credit card.

It isn't long before Emily discovers her duties extend beyond nursing and she is expected to be housekeeper, tidying up, doing laundry and household chores the entitled rich who never seemed to lift a finger themselves. That's what "the help" is for. Added to the growing list of duties, Emily must ensure Sabrina takes all her medications...but are they doing her any good?

According to her husband Dr Roth, Sabrina suffers from delusions amongst other mental health issues that require a consistent medication regime to prevent her condition from deteriorating.

Soon Emily begins to wonder if the good doctor is over-medicating his wife. And if so, why? But things are not always as simple as it seems at first and Emily takes it upon herself to figure out the enigma that is Dr Roth and uncover the truth about him and his wife before it's too late.

A carefully woven web of secrets and lies are the backbone of this complex tale where nothing is what it seems. A little slow to begin with but the pace picks up in the second half. Towards the end, it becomes obvious what going on but prepare to be shocked. A clever little sting in the tail from Ms Kernan.

I would like to thank #JennaKernan, #Netgalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheNurse in exchange for an honest review.

This review appears on my blog at https://stinathebookaholic.blogspot.com/.

This was a slow burn domestic thriller that Ramos up in the last 30ish%. There were some points that kind felt a bit sluggish but it was worth sticking through it to get to the ending.
Emily has recently graduated at valedictorian of her nursing school class and is now an LPN. She comes from a humble background and is burdened with student loans and with the loss of her mother, she’s trying to save for a headstone. So when she hears of a home healthcare job that seems to good to be true, she decides she has to apply for it anyway and she gets the job and that’s where the story kicks off. The husband is a psychiatrist who is also responsible for the care of his wife, who he says has many issues caused by trauma in her past and it will be Emily’s job to make sure she takes her meds and stays calm and stays on her routine so that she won’t become unstable. But Dr. Roth doesn’t seem completely stable himself. Is Mrs.Roth really a danger to herself and others or is Dr.Roth just super controlling? Do the Roth’s have secrets they’re trying to hide?
The pacing was a little slow for the first half and then it started to pick up but then it had enough twists to keep me intrigued and questioning who was telling the truth and who was lying.

Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for this Earc in exchange for my review.

This kept me up way too late trying to figure out this psychological thriller. Lots of lies and secrets thrown in and you didn’t know who was fooling who. Loved the twist at the end! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early release in exchange for my honest review. Can’t wait for more books by this author, Jenna Kernan. To be published October 2023.

The Nurse by Jenna Kernan sounded like a juicy domestic thriller about a recently graduated nurse who is hired under mysterious circumstances by a concerned husband for his mentally fragile wife. This premise hooked me, as I could picture lots of room for dramatic suspense, upon which the book ultimately delivered.

The protagonist Emily was likable from the start. She was struggling to make ends meet, and when she was offered the lucrative job of "private nurse" to one patient, she jumps at the chance. Dr. Ross seemed a little too smooth from the beginning, but no one is who or what they seem in this novel. I appreciated the twists and turns. What I struggled with was some of the obvious plot points - wouldn't a wealthy doctor have screened a potential nurse more closely? How could a psychiatrist ethically be the only health care professional for his own wife? Putting those questions aside, I suggest simply enjoying the ride.

3.5 stars.

Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was super creepy and sinister! I had a real sense of foreboding all the way through the book, which started off slowly and built in intensity and complexity as the truth was gradually pieced together.

Dr Henry Roth, his mentally ill wife Sabrina, and Emily, Sabrina's nurse, are all compelling characters, each with their own chilling agenda. As well as administering her medication, Emily's duties are essentially to be at Sabrina's beck and call, clear up after her and drive her anywhere she wishes to go. This gives Emily ample opportunity to snoop, and snoop she does! Emily is determined to uncover the truth about The Roths and when Sabrina refuses her medication, Emily takes advantage of the opportunity to find out who Sabrina really is, when she's not in a drugged haze.

The suspenseful writing was brilliant and when the sickening truth came out and then the big twisty ending, I was STUNNED! I had a inkling of how it might go, but I had NO idea of the extent these three brilliantly written characters would go to protect themselves - WOW!

5 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, Jenna Kernan and Bookouture for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this advanced copy. Emily takes a job as a nurse at a private residence. She begins to suspect that the husband is giving his wife too many sedatives, but this job pays well, and she needs the job. This went quick and I was SHOCKED at the ending!

This is not the fast paced thriller I was expecting from the blurb. After only a few chapters in I was bored and DNF.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

There are enough twists and turns to keep even the best amateur sleuths from working out all of these plot twists!
Full of unreliable characters you have no idea who or what to believe from the very start.
Dr Roth is a leading psychiatrist at the top of his field. He is charming, caring and devoted to his mentally ill wife Sabrina. He is her sole medical practitioner and is doing everything in his power to help his wife with her delusions and sometimes out of control behaviour.
After their previous employed private nurse leaves, leaving them in the lurch, Emily applies for the position of caring for Sabrina whilst Henry Roth goes to work.
Emily is flat broke, living in a shared ground floor apartment with her friend Jennell, behind with her rent, running her beat up old car on fumes, she desperately needs this job.
The job isn’t quite what she expected. The only bit of nursing in the job is to give Mrs Roth her medication on time. The rest of the job is basic dogsbody to Sabrina’s wishes, cleaning up after the couple, laundry, taking deliveries and driving her to her to her nail appointments, shopping etc.
There is one strict rule, under no circumstances is Mrs Roth allowed to drive. The car keys must be kept out of her reach at all times due to the medications her husband has her on.
After you begin to see through the mask Dr Henry Roth wears, neither Mr or Mrs Roth are particularly likeable characters and Emily is trapped in between them unsure who she can believe or trust out of the couple.
Things soon become untenable for Emily but she needs this job so she try’s to keep both parties happy but both of them have very different ideas about what is really wrong with Sabrina.
As things get worse Emily can no longer ignore what is going on around her. But who does she believe?
There are so many plot twists that this book really keeps you fully engaged with all three of the main characters. Some you may think you can see coming, and some you will, but as for the others, this book delivers shock after shock right up until the very end with an ending you definitely won’t have foreseen!
As I said, there are plenty shocks to be had but the ending is a genuine true jaw dropper!
The Nurse is a truly clever masterclass in psychological thrillers and you will be hard pushed to find another book this twisty this year!

The nurse is a psychologist thriller with a twist you’ll never see coming. Dr. Roth hires Emily to be his wife’s nurse/babysitter/chauffeur/housekeeper. Mrs. Roth has a lengthy list of psychological conditions and should never be trusted, alone for too long, or allowed to drive. Emily quickly wonders if Mrs. Roth is as mentally unstable as Dr. Roth says she is, or if Dr. Roth is over medicating her for selfish reasons.
This book constantly had me guessing. I was back and forth over who I thought was in the wrong. Is Mrs. Roth completely unstable and paranoid with delusions? Is Dr. Roth a controlling monster? I thought I had it all figured out but the further into the book I got, the more surprises kept popping up to prove me wrong.

There are warning signs early on for Emily when Dr. Roth shows a different side to himself but since she is so far in debt and in need of money, she feels she cannot turn down the job when it is offered to her. And as time goes on, she is conflicted about what is happening in the Roth household. For me, the pacing of the story was pretty slow with too much detail provided at times. The last quarter of the story is where all the real action and resolution happens.

Emily is desperate for a job so is thrilled when she gets a job as a home nurse for a rich doctor’s wife. She is supposed to make sure Sabrina, the wife, takes her medicine. However, whenever the doctor isn’t there, Sabrina seems more lucid and tells her that her husband is keeping her trapped. Emily must figure out who to trust.

I thought the plot here was fine, but I had a problem with the writing. I found it to be overly descriptive in unnecessary ways. Like it felt like filler. The plot though felt very Verity-esque minus the romance aspect.

Oh my god what a book! So many twists and turns, so many questions about who to believe - honestly your jaw will be on the floor! Can’t wait to read more from this author

Woah! This was a twisty, suspenseful thriller that had me hooked! I loved it!

Emily is a licensed LPN and is deep in debt after recently graduating from college. She takes a well-paying job as a private nurse for a wealthy woman. The woman’s husband is a psychiatrist Emily had worked with at the local hospital, but immediately after beginning work for the couple, Emily wonders if something is going on. Is the husband over-medicating his wife?

The initial plot of this book seemed very familiar to me, and I was certain that I had read a similar story before. (It felt very much like Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid.) However, I urge readers who have this feeling to keep reading. The twist is quite different from the stories that may seem similar to this, and I enjoyed how this was resolved.

Domestic thrillers like this are typically told through the first person with an unreliable narrator. This book was different – using a third-person close narrator. This change in narration worked well for the story since we never doubted the situation that Emily found at the Roths’ home. It also caused me to question some of Emily’s decisions, which increased the suspense of the story.

Pacing varied. It started off at a fast-pace and immediately had me hooked. It slowed a bit toward the mid-point and the story felt like it was dragging. It picked up again towards the end, but the confession was much longer than it needed to be (it was over twenty pages!). I appreciate that the author wanted to tie up all the loose ends, but it went on too long.

My rating is 4.5 stars. I deducted ½ star for the pacing issues, but the mystery and the twisty ending are definitely worth five stars. Readers who love domestic thrillers will love this.

Thank you to @netgalley and @bookouture for this advance review copy. All opinions are my own.

Oh how do I write this review without spoiling it - this kept me up to late as I needed to finish it and yes I was not disappointed with the ending - perfect.

Initially it is quite a slow burn whilst it draws you into the book and the characters, there are hints of what is going to happen but just go with it and get absorbed.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own.

The concept and plot seemed so interesting but I found it really hard to get into. It just felt slow throughout, I wish it was faster paced ad I really wanted to enjoy it more than I did.

The Nurse
By: Jenna Kernan
5👩‍⚕️👩‍⚕️👩‍⚕️👩‍⚕️👩‍⚕️

Psychologist Dr. Henry Roth hires Emily to look after his wife Sabrina as her private nurse and companion. Emily jumps at the chance as he student loan debt is waiting to get paid off.
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As with most kind of jobs where some of high profile involved she is asked to sign a NDA. The house is amazing and she is granted a lot of access and access to a vehicle for the job. Sabrina requires a lot of medication. Is it all necessary? He requires a lot of Emily as he can be called away for work at any time. He has lots of requests! Sabrina has PTSD, depression, paranoia and a multitude of others diagnosis. Is Emily up for all that he is requesting?
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Let the fun begin! Emily is now getting starting to get conflicting information so the snooping and concerns start. This was my 3rd novel by Kernan and I am a huge fan of her psychological thrillers.
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Thank you Bookouture and Dreamscape Elect for these advanced copies. This novel is out October 2 and is defined worth reading!
#bookouture, #thenurse, #jennakernan, #bookreview, #booksconnectus, #stamperlady50, #netgalley, #dreamscapeselect

This was a much slower pace than I was expecting based on the synopsis. I love a good psychological thriller, especially ones involving the medical field, but this book didn’t really live up to my expectations, unfortunately. The overly detailed descriptions were sometimes difficult to get through and much of the book seemed to drag on. At about 50% it started to pick up a bit but I found that I wasn’t as invested in the characters as I would have liked.

I didnt see the twist coming at the end and it seemed a little rushed, quickly trying to tie up the loose ends.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for the ARC.

Oh Emily gets herself in deep by not honoring her NDA. She ends up caring for a mad woman. She can't quit because hs didn't honor the NDA and they are threatening her with a lawsuit and prison if she quits.
Both of her employers are controlling and scary. She keeps digging herself into a deeper hole.
It was great! What a ride!
I love it when protagonists can't mind their business.

This book was such a slow read. I really thought it would be a good book but it was such a slow pace that I couldn't engage in it! Very disappointed!