This story has seeped into my psyche and given me the most bizarre dreams of technology terrorising my life since reading. I don’t have an Alexa, any smart meters or Home Assistants. And after this book, I have never been more thankful of that! Intriguing, suspenseful, creepy and unpredictable, The Assistant exposes and explores a very modern fear alongside ones that have been around for years.

Jo is a freelance journalist, recently divorced and living in her best friend Tabitha’s spare room. The Camden flat is the height of luxury and high-tech, filled with the latest Home Assistants who control everything from the temperature and lights, to answering your questions. Jo is alone most of the time so she’s started talking to one of the assistants, Electra, for company. But one night the assistants suddenly don’t seem so friendly, uttering the terrifying words - “I know what you did...I know your secret.” Jo is horrified because she does have a secret. One that only two others know. A secret that has haunted her for fifteen years. As the assistants begin to terrorise Jo, it soon clear they want more than control. They want to destroy her. As her life slowly unravels, Jo desperately tries to get to the truth before it’s too late for herself and those she cares about.

Eerie, menacing and sinister, The Assistant is a timely story about our love affair and reliance on technology mixed in with a story about mental health problems and good old fashioned vengeance. It is a claustrophobic story and you have a real sense that someone or something is always watching and listening.

Jo was an unreliable protagonist as early on we learn her father had late-onset schizophrenia and his symptoms were remarkably similar to what she is experiencing. Everything is questionable: is she hallucinating the assistants saying these things or is this really happening? I liked this as we never know what to think which makes the story harder to predict and you’re full of questions right up until the end. I would go back and forth in my own thoughts on Jo’s sanity and what was really happening throughout the book.

The idea that someone could weaponise the assistants against us filled me with a lingering sense of horror. We’re all dependant on technology to some degree. If I leave the house without my phone I panic and feel like my arm has been cut off. We don’t think twice about using these devices to make life easier and connect with people. It is also seen as something that doesn’t make mistakes and it certainly doesn’t think for itself, which is why no one believes Jo when she says it’s out to get her, is speaking to her and doing things using her email accounts of its own accord. That’s just crazy. And it seems just as crazy that someone could be using the assistants to get some kind of revenge. After all, Jo is in charge of the apps.

This was my first book by this author but won’t be my last. I loved the language and vivid imagery in his writing and though I felt like it started a little slow, the tension soon ramped up to a nail-biting suspense. I was desperate for answers and couldn’t put the book down, racing towards the finale where the jaw-dropping twist and revelations left me blindsided.

I would recommend this unsettling and unpredictable novel for anyone who enjoys psychological thrillers. Just make sure you unplug your Alexa before you start…

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollinsUK for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This really was a tense psychological thriller, the tension was palpable all the way through. Great characters and an amazing storyline. I now know why I won't communicate with the vocal apps on my devices!! Very satisfying but dramatic conclusion.

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy. Wow! This was a great book. Suspense was great. The plot was something different and well written. The ending was a shock!

Electra is here to help. You need to know what to expect from the weather? She'll tell you the forecast straight away. Fancy having the lights turned off without getting out of bed? All you need to do is ask. She'll monitor the heating, read to you, and if you supply the smart locks, she'll even open and close the doors for you. Perhaps best of all, you can chat to her if you're lonely. If you wanted, it could be like she's your best friend. Or, your worst nightmare. After all, she controls everything...

Ok, this review will definitely have some spoilers, as it is almost impossible to review without revealing some details of the plot. So don't read on if you've not read it yet!

I have to say, this was a tricky one for me. 'The Assistant' begins with Jo moving into her friends flat, which is littered throughout with smart technology, the most significant of which is Electra - essentially a home assistant very similar to the Amazon echo. Jo is initially unbothered by all the technology, until one night Electra glitches and almost comes alive, breaking out of the prescribed pattern of dialogue and making references to a dark event from Jo's past.

Initially Jo tries to find excuses for why this happened, and what follows is essentially Jo being slowly psychologically tortured by the technology in her home. But, all is not as it seems, as 'The Assistant' actually offers three potential explanations for what Jo is experiencing, the first of which being that the technology has somehow become sentient, and magically knows a huge amount of information about Jo's past, perhaps gained in a psychic manner? Luckily, this possibility is quickly discounted, and we get onto the real heart of the book - is Jo being tortured by someone close to her, using the home assistants to drive her insane, or is she in fact hallucinating the whole thing, as a result of late onset inherited mental illness?

It's a fantastically original plot, and there were definitely some elements that really resonated with me. The whole novel reads like a social commentary on our increasing reliance on technology and AI, and it does definitely make you question how much power we all give to our devices. But something about this just didn't appeal to me. Don't get me wrong, it's an enjoyable book, but there's something about it that felt a little flat. I think part of the issue for me was having so many other people in the book conveniently be tech experts - I get that its due to the type of people being written about, but it would have been far more sinister if Jo hadn't known so much about the tech world and the people in it, as it would have for me at least led to a greater level of suspense. Instead, I found it a bit more flat that I think was intended - it obviously had to be one of the tech experts, it was just a case of wait and see which one was picked.

As for the motive of the individual in question, sadly there were too many hints for this to be a surprise, and I guessed the big reveal about halfway through. It might be because I've read too many books on the topic, but this one just wasn't a surprise. I also personally had two big issues with the ending - firstly and most importantly, it offers a truly appalling representation of mental health issues as a result of sexual abuse, and secondly, it was a clear example of throwing everything at it. Remember that earlier reference to AI becoming sentient? Yeah, that gets dragged back up, in a very poorly formatted ploy at creating a surprising ending.

All in all, this one just wasn't that impressive to me. It was ok, it's definitely a quick read so that's a bonus. It just didn't grab me, and despite a unique plot idea, the shoddy execution just made it a bit of a mess.

What a scary storyline, I found myself reading faster and faster just to find out what had happened and why.
No spoilers here from me.

The Assistant is a terrifying psychological thriller about what happens when virtual assistants take over someone’s life. Jo Ferguson made a pact to never speak about what happened to Jamie Trewin. So how does her virtual assistant, Electra know all about what Jo did? Her life starts to fall apart until she’s on the edge of losing everything. Someone wants to destroy her. But who? Or is history repeating itself, and is Jo losing her sanity?

I was completely gripped by this book and couldn’t put it down. It starts quite slowly, but the tension and suspense builds chapter by chapter until it reaches its shocking twist at the end. This works really well in showing how Jo’s paranoia is increasing and the insidious way in which she loses control of her life and is ‘killed on-line”. I thought it was a clever, original concept with an underlying dark warning about how we may all be sleepwalking into complacency around the use of technology and what it might one day be capable of. Five stars for a book that is everything I look for in a good thriller in this genre.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for my personal review.

It took me a little while to warm to The Assistant, for two reasons.

In my opinion, Jo initially comes across as mean and desperate, which was difficult to like. Furthermore, the plot was quite rushed at the start - essentially, within the first few chapters, Jo hears the Home Assistant say something odd and immediately concludes that someone is hacking her, blackmailing her, and persecuting her, and so she begins accusing various people. As a reader, this felt like the book was trying too hard to immediately make me suspicious of every character before I've even had the chance to get to know the characters myself and form my own opinions. Personally, I would have preferred a slower, more sinister build-up to Jo's realisation that the technology is attempting to ruin her life.

However, after pushing past this, these thoughts disappeared and I very much enjoyed The Assistant.

The plot gets darker and scarier with every chapter as Jo is truly tormented; her life falls apart and she even considers suicide, all because of Electra. Jo's hopelessness and despair was so well-written and convincing that it was sometimes difficult to read, and the ending was filled with tension and shock. 

I loved the themes of technology, surveillance, and the debate between control and convenience in the book. These are popular themes in dystopian, science fiction, and thriller novels for a reason - it's terrifying to think you could be monitored, recorded, hacked, controlled, or impersonated by high-tech gadgets, especially in this modern day and age. The Assistant reminded me of other books which deal with these topics like Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, a famous dystopian novel that introduces a world where every citizen is constantly under surveillance and therefore pressured to conform, The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware, a novel about a house that is completely reliant upon technology for everything, and The Mansion by Ezekiel Boone (which I haven't had the chance to read yet).

Overall, The Assistant was incredibly enjoyable and thrilling and, though I had some reservations at the beginning, I did indeed love the plot.

Good, I've finished so I can breathe again. What a read! Jo is a journalist, divorced and broke. She's living in her rich friend Tabitha's flat. Tabitha is happy to have her there and the flat is beautiful, every mod con including an electronic assistant, Electra. Electra is obviously based on Alexa. I don't have Alexa and after reading this, I will never have an Alexa. Electra starts talking to Jo, not just the banal interactions of a smart assistant but real talk, taunting her about an incident in her past. It escalates until Jo begins to doubt her sanity. And unlike many of the heroines in psychological thrillers she has real reason to fear losing her mind because her father was schizophrenic and killed himself when she was a child.

This was a great read. It's quite similar to another book I read recently, 17 Church Road, but I think this just has the edge. Jo is a sympathetic protagonist. There are times when you are exasperated at what she does and it's true she does make some weird choices but nonetheless you can't help liking her. The story is told mainly from her point of view apart from a couple of chapters so you really get inside her head and feel her terror as everything disintegrates around her.

With references to the poetry of Sylvia Plath throughout it makes you want to go back and read Plath's work as well as biographies. I did read one many years ago and it was terribly poignant.

If you like psychological thrillers you'll love this. One to curl up with one a winter's day with snow falling outside. Just don't turn on your Alexa. Many thanks to Harper Collins and NetGalley for the ARC.

Initially I thought the assistant was a secretary, so I was a bit confused when I started reading...

But dear gods, this was awesome! Random, OTT, slightly outside of the realms of believable but I utterly loved it. Wonderfully twisty turny, this will have you questioning what's real and what's vividly imagined right up to the very last page.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation to review.

If you have an Alexa style device in your home or one like it, well lets just say if you read this book you might well be throwing it in the bin after this!

A novel for our times - what do you do if the machine you talk to and ask things, talk intimately in the same room as it is, share everything that goes on inside your home...and it listens and listens... Then it starts answering back, talking to you, controlling you and wanting to destroy you.

If that doesn't get people talking, thinking and freaking out, I don't know what will.

Not the kind of book I usually read but I was intrigued to read this one!

I read and requested this book on the recommendation of a friend, she said I’ll never look at my Google Mini again the same way… was she right…. YES is the answer… holy f***, this was a real eye opener, yes I know its fiction but that’s not to say it couldn’t happen right? Our lives are completely entwined with technology and more and more so every day… we are so reliant on it….what would you do if you’re “Assistant” turned on you….. this book had the hairs on my arms stand up, an absolute cracker of a book, it messes with your mind as well as the main character Jo…. I literally devoured this book wanting to know what happened, how it happened and why it happened…. What a page turner!

This was scary and really a page turner.
Technology is in our lives and this is a thriller embedding that on an extreme. If you have Alexa, you might be scared even more :) Definitely entertaining.
Thanks a lot to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

AI technology is now part of our lives and it seems to enhance our lives. Now imagine you are living in a house full of the stuff. Now go one step further and your house has its own agenda. Well written, pacy, scary and a real page turner. I have unplugged Alexa, just to be on the safe side. An easy five stars and so Highly Recommended.
I would like to thank the author, publisher and Netgalley for the ARC

3 for neutral. This is a book I tried on many occasions, but could never get into it and finish. I know I’ve enjoyed other works by the author and this has amazing reviews, so could be my mood, since I’m an extremely moody reader. Will definitely update if able to enjoy at a later date. Most love, so don’t let my review deter you!

I really wasn’t sure about this book to start with but the reviews said it was good so I ploughed on. However, at nearly half way through it still didn’t sit right with me and I had to give up. There wasn’t enough to grip me.
Jo is hearing things, through her home assistants. They are reminding her of the terrible tragedy that she was part of many years earlier. They are also messing with her mind, but is it someone controlling it to get back at her or is it inherited paranoia?
Well I guess I’ll never know. There just wasn’t a draw here. Yes the technology in our houses could be listening and I suppose this situation could happen but it was all a bit far fetched for me

I absolutely loved the premise of this book and was super intrigued by the concept.

We all now live in the age of our lives being led by our gadgets and I'm sure the majority of use have some form of 'Home Help' whether it's an Alexa or Google pod, you dont realise once you have one just how reliant we have become on having our questions answered immediately by the good old internet..... so..l the actual storyline was one that really resonated with me.

But, in all honesty I was left feeling bored.. there I've said it! Hands up I think I'm the only one who doesn't actually liie this book!

It was really slow, too far fetched and bored me.

I'm giving 2.5* because the actual premise has some real potential, I just font think it was pulled off this time!

Thank you to netgalley and Harper Collins for the ARC.

This book is scary as hell but an absolute page turner that has you gripped from start to finish. As we live in such a technology dependent age, this book feels very real and relevant.

This was a dark, intriguing thought provoking read that kept me guessing. As the owner of Amazon echo devices it certainly made me think!
I’ll be thinking about this book weeks after reading, and after also enjoying The Fire Child by this author I look forward to reading more books by this talented author.

Jo is newly divorced and living in her best friends spare room almost rent free. The high-tech Camden flat is managed by a home assistant Electra, that takes care of everything, Unexpectedly, Electra tells Jo that she knows what she did and Jo is horrified because it’s true. In her past she did something horrible and unforgivable. Only two other people know Jo’s secret and she is sure they would never tell anyone, would they? Soon, Jo realises that the assistant doesn’t just want to control her, I it wants to destroy her for good.

This was an ok read for me. The first ten percent was very boring but I ploughed on and it got better, however I still felt it was a bit far fetched, especially towards the end.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher HarperCollins for an ARC copy in exchange for my honest review.

A brilliant story for the digital age. A truly terrifying story and had me suspecting everyone. Loved it x