I have to admit, I had a rocky start to Killer Potential. The first pages had me wondering if I would even like it, so that it managed to be a 3-star read in the end is a good sign. This is a fast-moving read, one that, once I’d got into it, had me hooked.

The story opens with our main character, Evie, arriving at the home of her tutee to discover that the tutee’s parents have been murdered. As she’s about to leave to call the police, she hears someone calling for help, and discovers a disheveled woman tied up in a dark room, seemingly a victim of the family. When her student arrives back home and starts screaming murder, Evie ends up going on the run with this mysterious stranger.

It was a slow start to this one — there is quite a bit of exposition and backstory before we get to the interesting part, even while we’re in the interesting part, if I’m honest. It’s only once that’s all out of the way that the plot truly starts to kick into gear. Evie and the woman initially aim just to evade the police, before realising their best bet is to flee into Canada. And, oh yeah, along the way Evie kind of falls in love (which is a bit wild when you consider she ends up knowing this woman for only a week, but I guess shared experiences and all…).

The plot is honestly the best part of this one. It’s what kept me reading so that, in the end, I finished this one in about two sittings (but only because I started it while at work). The desire to find out what actually happened to the family compels you to keep reading and, okay yes, the reveal at the end was kind of obvious in a it-can-really-only-be-this way; but despite that, it had no real impact on my enjoyment of the progression of the plot.

The reasons I rated it 3 stars only, then, were twofold. Firstly, once the reveal comes, there’s still about 50 pages to go, and it becomes a lot more exposition-filled again. We get a detailed play-by-play of what happens to Evie afterwards which, in all honesty, was boring. A lot of that felt like it could have been slimmed down or even cut out, to get to the more impactful ending. My second issue was with how bland the characters felt. It’s not even that they didn’t feel fleshed out, but that they felt like blank spaces where characters should be. They were, despite everything, wholly unmemorable. Perhaps this was because of the first person POV — it was hard to get a sense of Evie’s character in particular — but, as I said earlier, it was the plot that compelled me to continue reading this one. If the plot hadn’t been so strong, this could easily have been 2 stars. I didn’t care all that much about either character or their relationship so the moments that should have been emotionally impactful weren’t.

That being said, if you’re looking for a fast-paced thriller that’ll hook you from early on, then this fits the bill. While I had some issues, I still enjoyed the experience of reading it.

A good fun time to be hand with this. It's Bonnie and Clyde but with two Bonnies instead.Also a bit
Thelma and Louise. A popcorn easy read with a bit of a twist too which I enjoyed. The roadtrip aspect was a lot of fun!

I didn't enjoy this one as much as I thought I would have, but it was still good and kept me hooked until so far from the end. I felt it started to be a bit too back and forth of the story and ended up confusing me just slightly. The twist, however, never occurred to me as something that could have happened, and I loved it. I would definitely read more from Deitch in the future!

3.5

Bonnie & Clyde meet sapphic & deception, I was lucky enough to get this arc copy and it didn’t disappoint the Layers of the characters was so good as they delved their way through being strangers to fugitives on the run bonding by trauma, the last 20% wow I knew some deception was happening but didn’t expect that, that was a good twist, all I can say is one character is a dark horse and very deceiving. Overall good book

Killer Potential is a thriller about an SAT tutor who finds herself on the run with a mysterious woman. Evie Gordon got scholarships to have a great education, but never managed to break into anything after that, and is now working as an SAT tutor. When she arrives one day at a client's house to find both parents dead and an unknown woman crying for help inside their house, she suddenly finds herself branded by the media as a murderer, and she and the woman end up as fugitives. Evie's life suddenly takes a new direction, and on top of this, she's strangely drawn to this woman who seems very adept at stealing cars.

There's a point in this book where Evie describes herself and her fellow fugitive as 'Bonnie and Bonnie' and that gives a good sense of this book: two women on the run, a bit Thelma and Louise, but also the Bonnie and Clyde romanticised love story not quite going to plan. The narrative takes an expected journey through their travels around the country, and then by the end speeds up the pace to race through days, weeks, and months. This means that the first two thirds of the book feels like a film, and then the rest feels much more like a book, as that kind of fast forwarding wouldn't work as well on screen. The big 'twist' has the groundwork very much laid out so it is easy to guess, but that feels like part of the point, because this isn't just a crime thriller about fugitives, but also a love story that hinges on a bit of self-delusion about the circumstances of what is going on.

This is a fun read, especially if you wish you could have more queer crime films. Perhaps the two different paces in the book didn't come together entirely, and it is certainly ridiculous in places, but it still works as a crime love story for the overachievers who didn't make it out there.

read this in two sittings! kept thinking about it when i wasn't reading it! really interesting concept of a woman walking in on a crime scene and then going on a run with a mysterious woman found tied up in the house. it made me stressed, i was concerned, i was gripped, and the end was good

This did not go the way I was expecting, at all. And for that reason, I loved it. Evie was a normal SAT tutor, a former gifted student who was struggling to make ends meet. By being at the wrong place at the wrong time, she ended up on the run with a strange woman and a trial of bodies behind her.

This was action packed from the start, I found myself desperately reading ahead to find out what had happened and who was at fault. Jae was a complex and deeply flawed character who added so much depth to the story. I loved hers and Evie’s complicated arc and the dual narrative towards the end. I felt that the middle of the book was a little slow, but it soon picked up and became hard to put down. This is more than a simple thriller, there’s wonderfully confusing characters and a hidden plot that make the story gripping.