Personally I didn’t care for this book. Seemed like one long therapy sessions. Lots of naive people. I find it hard to believe Lana is really that dumb. This was a skimmer for me. Not one of her better books.

Review of ‘The Therapist’ by Nicole Trope, due to be published on 31 July 2025 by Bookouture.

Lana, single mum and therapist, has a bulging workload with no space for anyone else, but is reluctantly given no choice but to take on Sandy, a client of her practice partner Ben.

Lana is intrigued by Sandy, and is not sure what to believe, leading her to question what is reality and what is complete fiction.

This story is an absolute rollercoaster of highs, lows, twists and turns. It’s full of tension and suspense. It has an ending that you don’t see coming, and had me hooked from the very first page.

A really dark, psychological thriller that will be another bestseller!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

Nicole Trope’s The Therapist is not merely a psychological thriller—it’s a tightrope walk across the razor’s edge of perception and reality, where the roles of healers and harmed blur until the fall feels inevitable. With chilling precision, Trope taps into the undercurrent of suburban despair and mental fragility, crafting a novel that invites the reader to question not just what they’re being told, but who is telling it—and why.

The story orbits around a therapist’s practice, a setting typically associated with safety and trust. But here, that trust unravels slowly, like a thread pulled from a sweater—subtle at first, until the whole garment collapses. Trope excels in small moments: the way a door clicks shut, the blink of hesitation before an answer. These nuances are where dread creeps in. She doesn't rely on overt horror; instead, she burrows into the quieter fears—the ones we ignore until they’ve already taken root.

The characters are neither archetypes nor wholly reliable. Their inner lives are shaded with conflicting desires and secret traumas. In fact, the brilliance of The Therapist lies in how Trope manipulates our empathy, drawing us close before shoving us back with a revelation we didn’t see coming. It’s a game of psychological mirrors, where victim and perpetrator shift places in ways that feel disturbingly plausible.

As a psychological thriller, this book delivers the requisite twists—but it delivers suspense with emotional depth. Each chapter tightens the noose while also humanizing the people caught within it. It’s a thriller that listens while it terrifies.

The Therapist is about unsettling the reader—with truths that cut deeper than a plot twist ever could. Trope doesn’t ask if trauma can be healed; she asks what happens when it’s misdiagnosed, manipulated, or ignored.

Wow! I cannot remember the last time I was so hooked! This book was an absolute fantastic, suspense-filled, unputdownable page turner with a wild unexpected twist! I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!

The perfect example of a psychological thriller I had no idea who to trust and believe until the last few chapters.

This book masterfully weaves suspense, intrigue, and complex characters into a story that keeps you guessing until the very end i’d highly recommend!

If you’re a thriller fan in any capacity, I would recommend grabbing this one immediately!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars