This book was quite an interesting concept! I went back & forth with the main character because although his intentions are good boy oh boy were his actions wrong. I enjoyed the authors use of medical and legal knowledge, and did not feel like it was too out of touch for someone who is not an expert in these fields. This book was definitely fast paced & kept me intrigued.

this was a really well done psychological thriller, the characters were great and I really enjoyed going on this journey.

The beginning was interesting, given a somewhat similar pandemic situation we face now. But once the premise was set the story line went on to be predictable, and seemed a drag. An okay read.

Josephine Ronaldinho is a young attorney in San Diego struggling to cope with her career and her father who has dementia.
Her boss helps get her father into the Kessler Institute which increases her stress levels as all is not what it seems.
PI Scott Benson finds out people are disappearing from the Institute and tries to find out what is happening.
Brings home the difficulty of having a family member with this terrible disease which most readers will be able to sympathise with.
3.5 Stars ⭐️
Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in return for a fair review.

Unethical by Marla L. Anderson was a very timely, suspense-filled, and interesting read, Engaging and well thought out storyline on Alzheimer's. #UNETHICAL #NetGalley

Josephine is struggling to care for her father whilst working at a prestigious law firm. His Alzheimer’s seems to be getting worse every day. Her boss manages to get him a place at the Kessler institute on a clinical trial. It seems the answer to her prayers until she seems his deterioration appears to have increased rather than improved. When she tries to challenge the doctor things get worse. When she uncovers some illegal experimentation, her career is threatened an getting her Dad out of harms way is easier said than done.

I did enjoy this book. It opens the door on some ethical questions without forcing the authors opinion on the reader. The writing style is good and the characters are well established in the plot. I will be looking for more work by this author. Thank you to Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for allowing me to preview the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and BooksGoSocial on the arc of UNETHICAL by Marla L. Anderson.

4 Star read- This follows a woman named Josephine whom is a young lawyer and trying to take care of her dad whom has been diagnosed with Alzheimers disease. She is then very happy when a clinic a private one is researching alzheimers disease, shes very happy to try it for her dad but it is nothing as what it seems to be...

such a different type thriller for me a great read and well written

4 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐

I liked the premise of this book - dodgy investors trying to force researcher to be first in line first with a lucrative cure for Alzheimer’s. It is a thought-provoking idea, especially in these times when safety is being sidelined to find a vaccine to prevent Covid-19 and its variants. Only the first few companies will see profits from their research, and this has always been a problem with the pharmaceutical model.

However, I found that the characters in the book a bit flat and not very engaging. Some of the situations stretched credibility a little, and once I figured out what was going on, the rest of the book seemed to drag on and , so I skimmed through the second half.

Thanks to NetGallery for providing this e-book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Jo Rinaldi is an attorney trying to balance her job with taking care of her stubborn father who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Her boss suggests getting her father into a top notch facility where they are doing a blind study and are making great strides in treating the disease. Jo is thrilled, as this will help solve a lot of problems. Everything seems fine at first, althouh her dad seems to be getting worse and seems very unhappy at the Kessler Institute. Jo overhears a conversation, while at the Institute that concerns her. She tries to remove her dad, and is met with resistance and soon finds her self no longer aloud to even visit her father. She mentions the issue to her boss and soon finds herself fired from her job.

Jo hires a PI and together they break Jo's dad out of the hospital. From there things get really strange.

I don't want to give any spoilers so I will stop there. This is a great book and definitely a unique story line.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book.

Josephine, a young lawyer is trying to build a career and to take care of her father who was diagnosed with Alzheimer disease. When she hears about a private clinic that is researching Alzheimer she is happy to try it for her father. But, in the end, nothing is what it looks like.
Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

I have always been intrigued by stories about aging and Alzheimer's Disease. That is why, I looked forward to reading what this story had to offer.

In the Prologue, we meet Dr Adrian Kessler, who runs the Kessler Institute for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Erring against ethics, Dr Kessler harvests the brain cells of a patient suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, who had shown a brief period of recovery while under his care. The procedure is illegal, but Dr Kessler is driven in his obsession to find a cure. So far only a few mice in his laboratory have survived for more than a few months.

Josephine Rinaldi is a young lawyer, whose father suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. Unable to cope with the demands that the disease makes on them, Josephine struggles to care for him while fulfilling the demands of her job. It doesn’t help that during his brief lucid spells, he is extremely critical and abrasive towards the very daughter who cares for him. As the sole surviving family member (her mother has died of cancer and her older brother died as a result of drowning), Jo has no one to appeal to for help.

Her boss, Matthew Dawson, who legally represents Dr Kessler, offers her father’s admission into Dr Kessler’s Institute. But then her dad complains to her that he is not happy there and that people keep disappearing all the time.

PI Scott Benson finds out that there is foul play afoot at the institute. At least three patients have died, after showing marked improvement. Jo’s own attempts to find out more cause her to lose her job, and increasingly put both her and her father at risk.



At first Dr Kessler’s desire to find a cure seems well intentioned, even if his methods are all wrong. He genuinely wants to help people have a better quality of life. But the road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions, and Dr Kessler ignores all ethics in his drive to get what he wants.

The author intersperses the fictional narrative with information about this deadly disease. Her research on both the medical and the legal aspects feels convincing and intuitive to the story. The scientific bits were toned down to appeal to a lay reader.

The book is fast paced; there were parts I read with seemingly my heart in my mouth.



Scott is a swashbuckling character, with his own interesting back story that becomes involved in the main one. He was a secretive person, and there was trouble in his past that came out in believable bits. But there were some errors regarding his name. From being Scott Benson in the earlier chapters, he suddenly changes to Scott Bennett later on in the book.

Another error was in Chapter 32, where Dr Kessler tells Jo, The more time that passes, the higher the likelihood that he will digress. Shouldn’t that be regress?

I had an issue with the main character. There were many times when Jo appeared naïve at best, and stupid at worst. Also, the name, Maggie, changed to Margaret within the same dialogue scene. I hope the author rectifies these errors.



The story gives us an idea of the challenges faced by the caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. We feel a sense of sympathy for caregivers who receive no appreciation from those they care for.

The book also creates a frightening scenario in which medical experts put all morals and ethics aside in the hope of playing God, pitting it against the all-too familiar scenario of a small minnow taking on an adversary many sizes too big.

The book ended in a completely unexpected way, and there was at least one element that I found confusing and can't ask about without creating a spoiler.

Unethical is a novel about a young lawyer trying to make her way in an unsympathetic world that does not understand about the needs of employees who are also carers of infirm relatives. This is the dilemma faced by heroine Josephine Rinaldi, whose father is in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease. What a mervellozs stroke of luck then, that her employer has such strong ties with a private medical care/research facility that are more than happy to take her father on. It is when she tries to pull her father out after the first suspicions emerge that all may not be what it seems when her troubles really start.

This is a tautly-written thriller where the reader may frequently end up with their heart in their mouth, as Jo lurches from one critical or dangerous situation to another. Being in real danger without many real allies means that at 30 she has to start to come to grip with the world in earnest - and to recognise who her true true allies might be once she is first thrown under a bus.

This coming-of-age theme is all good, so is the medical thriller component, though it did seem by the end that this story may have a little bit of an identity issue. By the end Unethical starts to take more of a gothic turn, but it did seem a little late in the day to introduce this idea, after all the action of the medical thriller, Jo versus the golisth of Big Parma and conflicts of interest from above.

That did not mesh at all, at least not for this reviewer - however for those who e joy a nail-biting thriller, there is still much to enjoy.

My first words when I completed this book were "wow" repeatedly. Unethical was absolutely brilliant.

There are few books, that I've read at least, that focus on a member of the ageing population, who is also incredibly ill and this book felt like representation of those suffering from Alzheimer’s.

The story itself thrilled me, it was so fast-paced and had to many twists and turns I nearly got whiplash trying to keep up! There were no lulls in the story, every time you turned the page the story got better.

At points I was quite frightened by this story, it made me really question if something like this could be happening already... Without giving too much away it wouldn't surprise me if there were similar programmes for other diseases.

The stand outs of this book for me though were the characters, each one was blended perfectly into the story, bringing something different and standing out in their own way.

Jo was wonderful, the grit and determination she showed towards her Father was excellent, the author didn't shy away from making it clear how much she struggled with him and how easy things would have been if she just left him, but also showed us how much love and compassion Jo had.

Scott was by far my favourite character, he had so much depth! And his backstory was a really clever little addition. The way he kept supporting Jo, even from the start was admirable.

Kessler again was absolutely brilliant. The author wrote his decline through the book so well, I don't want to give too much away as this is part of the story but it was so cleverly done.

Suzanne I had mixed feelings about, I think she was the best written character through the book. The author really put the work in to make us feel every possible emotion whilst we read Suzanne's parts.

The ending of this book made my heart break and swell at the same time, I don't want to be cryptic but I don't want to give anything away!

On the whole, this book was excellent. Every word written built suspense, fear and excitement and I couldn't wait to keep turning the pages to see what was going to happen.

Unethical by Marla L Anderson was amazing, I'm so grateful that I got to read this book as I thoroughly enjoyed it.

4.5 stars
Wow, this was a great ride. I don't often come across stories about aging characters, so that and the plot had me very interested. Jo has a somewhat turbulent relationship with her father and his increasing dementia only adds to the strain. When Jo finally decides to move him to a very promising research facility, where he'll be cared for by the best in the field, she's relieved to be able to live her own life, again. Unfortunately, her father's new home is being run by people who are under immense pressure to produce results that require more time than they have.

The characters in this story actually behaved realistically, and every time I thought the story was about to have me rolling my eyes, it ended up giving me exactly what I needed it to. Nearly everyone in the story was reasonably well-rounded and someone I could easily sympathize with, and I was eager to know what happened next, throughout the whole book. I thought the story was incredibly well-crafted. I was hoping for a different ending, but it definitely made for a memorable one. I hope Anderson continues to write new stories, because I'm looking forward to the next one.

This psychological thriller is certainly worth the read. I was intrigued by the topic and could not wait to dive in. It is fast paced and keeps you interested from start to finish. It does invoke some emotions and you will commiserate and root for these characters. It’s quite the story and one not to miss out on.