Thrillers & Suspense
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Privacy: A Novel
You never know who's watching. . . .
A successful therapist's world is upended when her patients are targeted by a campaign of twisted psychological harassment in this propulsive novel from the author of Convince Me.
Dr. Laina Landers is good at her job. She's an accomplished therapist, dedicated and compassionate. When she is summoned by a panicked patient who is being held hostage by her husband, she intervenes and dissuades him. Laina becomes a media sensation. But as her star rises, a target is placed on her back.
Not everyone is impressed by Laina's achievements. Someone has it in for her and is targeting what matters to her most: her patients. One by one, Laina's patients spiral after they receive unsettling gifts that mock their deepest fears and hidden traumas. Liana's own home is targeted, in a mysterious break-in where nothing is taken, but left behind is the same message sent to her patients: Watching you.
Enlisting Cal Murray, an ambitious and charismatic investigative journalist to whom she has an explosive attraction, Laina must examine her patients' lives and her own to identify the culprit. All she knows for sure? It's someone with access to her records. Someone who wants to destroy her stellar reputation, shatter her newfound success, and even, perhaps, end her life.
A successful therapist's world is upended when her patients are targeted by a campaign of twisted psychological harassment in this propulsive novel from the author of Convince Me.
Dr. Laina Landers is good at her job. She's an accomplished therapist, dedicated and compassionate. When she is summoned by a panicked patient who is being held hostage by her husband, she intervenes and dissuades him. Laina becomes a media sensation. But as her star rises, a target is placed on her back.
Not everyone is impressed by Laina's achievements. Someone has it in for her and is targeting what matters to her most: her patients. One by one, Laina's patients spiral after they receive unsettling gifts that mock their deepest fears and hidden traumas. Liana's own home is targeted, in a mysterious break-in where nothing is taken, but left behind is the same message sent to her patients: Watching you.
Enlisting Cal Murray, an ambitious and charismatic investigative journalist to whom she has an explosive attraction, Laina must examine her patients' lives and her own to identify the culprit. All she knows for sure? It's someone with access to her records. Someone who wants to destroy her stellar reputation, shatter her newfound success, and even, perhaps, end her life.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Privacy
"Screenwriter and filmmaker Sadowsky gives readers a rapidly paced, suspenseful thriller that makes the most of such hot-buatton issues as privacy, professional ethics, media malfeasance, and race relations. This one seems bound for the big screen."-Booklist
Praise for Nina Sadowsky
"Nina Sadowsky's . . . voice is clear, her storytelling skills are remarkable, and her pacing is perfect."-Sue Grafton
"A master storyteller."-New York Times bestselling author Wendy Walker
"Every time you think you've unlocked the puzzle, Nina Sadowsky introduces a new twist that makes you start guessing all over again."-New York Times bestselling author Michelle Richmond
"Screenwriter and filmmaker Sadowsky gives readers a rapidly paced, suspenseful thriller that makes the most of such hot-buatton issues as privacy, professional ethics, media malfeasance, and race relations. This one seems bound for the big screen."-Booklist
Praise for Nina Sadowsky
"Nina Sadowsky's . . . voice is clear, her storytelling skills are remarkable, and her pacing is perfect."-Sue Grafton
"A master storyteller."-New York Times bestselling author Wendy Walker
"Every time you think you've unlocked the puzzle, Nina Sadowsky introduces a new twist that makes you start guessing all over again."-New York Times bestselling author Michelle Richmond
Readers Top Reviews
J.K
Privacy will push the boundaries of proprietary, social and professional. Someone is watching a woman. Alternating chapters are in the voyeur’s voice. Who is it and why the stake out? I had the wrong person the entire time. Therapists are supposed to help patients. Laina Landers is a much sought after professional. She has secrets to hide. Just how far she’ll go to keep them hidden re aims to be seen. Get some reading therapy with this book.
Short Excerpt Teaser
CHAPTER ONE
Daisy Sullivan had come into Dr. Laina Landers's office already crying messy tears and they haven't abated yet, forty-three minutes into the fifty-minute session.
Daisy, a freelance graphic designer, had received a call from her bank that very morning. A woman with the unlikely name of Jupiter Sterling had apparently gotten ahold of Daisy's tax return and had tried to cash the check for quarterly estimated taxes that Daisy had written to the government. Daisy had seen a scan of the check, with U.S. Treasury miraculously erased and replaced by Jupiter Sterling. The amount had been large enough for a savvy teller to twig, and Jupiter Sterling herself stupid enough to try to cash the check at Daisy's bank using her real name and her own ID.
The check was stopped. The credit agencies were notified. Jupiter Sterling is in custody. But none of these measures eases the sense of violation that consumes Daisy. Her Social Security number "is in the wind," she's sobbed repeatedly since entering Laina's sanctuary. "I'm going to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life."
Laina's calm face doesn't give it away, but with seven minutes to go in the session, and despite her genuine sympathy for Daisy's distress, she's feeling the pressure to get her client pulled together.
"Daisy?" Laina interrupts. "Can you listen to me for a moment, please?"
Daisy blows her nose into the wad of damp tissues already clutched in her hands and nods.
"What happened with your taxes is upsetting. I get that. But the culprit was arrested, you've issued a new check to the government, notified the credit bureaus, spoken with your bank. I wonder if this sense of violation that you're talking about has another contributing factor?"
"Like what?"
"Why don't you think about it for a moment and tell me what comes to mind. Take a couple of deep, mindful breaths."
To Laina's relief, Daisy does as she's been instructed, closing her eyes and taking a deep inhale through her nostrils, filling her belly with air. She holds her breath a long moment before releasing it through her mouth with a hearty sigh.
"That's good, Daisy. Do another."
Laina takes advantage of Daisy's closed eyes to sharply observe her client. Always attractive in a pale, blond, washed-out kind of way, Daisy's become almost blurry around the edges since her husband announced five months ago that he was leaving her and their two young children. Within three days of this pronouncement, he disappeared without a trace to "find a new path," considerately emptying only half of their joint bank account.
A "pandemic-life crisis," Laina dubbed it, and poor Daisy's husband isn't the only one. The ricochet effects of a world turned upside down are still being felt.
Scores of people she knows, and virtually everyone she treats, were bludgeoned one way or another. Parents or children lost, or siblings or friends. Jobs and savings accounts evaporated into thin air as if by an evil fairy's malicious spell. Schooling interrupted, dreams delayed, marriages broken beyond repair. Laina herself can't claim to be untouched.
Daisy's eyes snap open. "You think it's about Mark Victor, don't you?"
"Is that what you think it's about?" Laina parries, hiding her surprise. Mark is a friend of Daisy's who'd delivered some "benefits" when Daisy found herself newly single after eight years. As far as Laina knows, there had been a few stress-releasing tumbles and then a mutual agreement to stay friends. Daisy hasn't talked about him much since.
Daisy lifts her pale blue eyes to hold Laina's dark brown ones in a firm, resolute gaze. "He took pictures of me. You know, naked. When I was asleep. I think he might have even drugged me! God! How did you know? I've been so scared and humiliated, I haven't said a thing to anyone."
With a barely perceptible twitch, Laina reacts to both the bomb Daisy's just dropped and the realization that they have about four minutes left in their session. She has Ken and Connie Ito, a pair of hard-driving surgeons struggling with fertility issues, in for a joint counseling session immediately after this, and Ken Ito does not react well to being kept waiting.
"I mean, talk about a violation!" Daisy splutters on now that the floodgates are open. "I thought we were friends. I couldn't believe it. I still can't."
"Did you ask him to delete them?"
"Of course I did! I have children. But he laughed, said they were ‘too sweet' to give up, and when I pushed him, he got crazy angry. After that I just backed off."
"I am so sorry that happened to you. You must feel so betrayed," Laina says empathetically while concealing her surprise tha...
Daisy Sullivan had come into Dr. Laina Landers's office already crying messy tears and they haven't abated yet, forty-three minutes into the fifty-minute session.
Daisy, a freelance graphic designer, had received a call from her bank that very morning. A woman with the unlikely name of Jupiter Sterling had apparently gotten ahold of Daisy's tax return and had tried to cash the check for quarterly estimated taxes that Daisy had written to the government. Daisy had seen a scan of the check, with U.S. Treasury miraculously erased and replaced by Jupiter Sterling. The amount had been large enough for a savvy teller to twig, and Jupiter Sterling herself stupid enough to try to cash the check at Daisy's bank using her real name and her own ID.
The check was stopped. The credit agencies were notified. Jupiter Sterling is in custody. But none of these measures eases the sense of violation that consumes Daisy. Her Social Security number "is in the wind," she's sobbed repeatedly since entering Laina's sanctuary. "I'm going to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life."
Laina's calm face doesn't give it away, but with seven minutes to go in the session, and despite her genuine sympathy for Daisy's distress, she's feeling the pressure to get her client pulled together.
"Daisy?" Laina interrupts. "Can you listen to me for a moment, please?"
Daisy blows her nose into the wad of damp tissues already clutched in her hands and nods.
"What happened with your taxes is upsetting. I get that. But the culprit was arrested, you've issued a new check to the government, notified the credit bureaus, spoken with your bank. I wonder if this sense of violation that you're talking about has another contributing factor?"
"Like what?"
"Why don't you think about it for a moment and tell me what comes to mind. Take a couple of deep, mindful breaths."
To Laina's relief, Daisy does as she's been instructed, closing her eyes and taking a deep inhale through her nostrils, filling her belly with air. She holds her breath a long moment before releasing it through her mouth with a hearty sigh.
"That's good, Daisy. Do another."
Laina takes advantage of Daisy's closed eyes to sharply observe her client. Always attractive in a pale, blond, washed-out kind of way, Daisy's become almost blurry around the edges since her husband announced five months ago that he was leaving her and their two young children. Within three days of this pronouncement, he disappeared without a trace to "find a new path," considerately emptying only half of their joint bank account.
A "pandemic-life crisis," Laina dubbed it, and poor Daisy's husband isn't the only one. The ricochet effects of a world turned upside down are still being felt.
Scores of people she knows, and virtually everyone she treats, were bludgeoned one way or another. Parents or children lost, or siblings or friends. Jobs and savings accounts evaporated into thin air as if by an evil fairy's malicious spell. Schooling interrupted, dreams delayed, marriages broken beyond repair. Laina herself can't claim to be untouched.
Daisy's eyes snap open. "You think it's about Mark Victor, don't you?"
"Is that what you think it's about?" Laina parries, hiding her surprise. Mark is a friend of Daisy's who'd delivered some "benefits" when Daisy found herself newly single after eight years. As far as Laina knows, there had been a few stress-releasing tumbles and then a mutual agreement to stay friends. Daisy hasn't talked about him much since.
Daisy lifts her pale blue eyes to hold Laina's dark brown ones in a firm, resolute gaze. "He took pictures of me. You know, naked. When I was asleep. I think he might have even drugged me! God! How did you know? I've been so scared and humiliated, I haven't said a thing to anyone."
With a barely perceptible twitch, Laina reacts to both the bomb Daisy's just dropped and the realization that they have about four minutes left in their session. She has Ken and Connie Ito, a pair of hard-driving surgeons struggling with fertility issues, in for a joint counseling session immediately after this, and Ken Ito does not react well to being kept waiting.
"I mean, talk about a violation!" Daisy splutters on now that the floodgates are open. "I thought we were friends. I couldn't believe it. I still can't."
"Did you ask him to delete them?"
"Of course I did! I have children. But he laughed, said they were ‘too sweet' to give up, and when I pushed him, he got crazy angry. After that I just backed off."
"I am so sorry that happened to you. You must feel so betrayed," Laina says empathetically while concealing her surprise tha...
