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Unspeakable by Kevin O’Brien — An Audiobook Review

An author in full command of his craft pens a 5-star suspense-thriller

Arpad Nagy
The Book Cafe
4 min readJan 12, 2025

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A photo capture of the book cover of a shack in the woods.
楽天ブックス: Unspeakable — Kevin O’Brien — 9781452646121 : 洋書

Author Kevin O’Brien likes complicated stories. In Tell Me You’re Sorry, his novel I listened to in early December, O’Brien showed his talent in layering subplots. He takes this device to a new level in Unspeakable, where “too much” never seems to cross his mind.

There is a lot going on in this story. `

Protagonist Olivia Barker is a therapist who employs hypnosis as one of her tools; her primary service is to help people overcome mental hurdles, things blocking them from losing weight, quitting smoking, sleeping well, and other minorly debilitating afflictions.

Antagonist/Support protagonist Colin Cox is a sixteen-year-old former child star of commercials, movies and television. One night, Colin and his friend, Fernando, succumb to the pleadings of their friend, Gail, to undergo hypnosis. Gail learned the hypnosis technique from her aunt, and this initiating incident lets a monster out of the closet. That aunt happens to be Olivia.

The story gets moving with Colin having failed attempts with other hypnotherapists until he gets to Olivia, the last one on his desperate list. Lying about his age and issues, he implores Olivia to see him and…

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Arpad Nagy
Arpad Nagy

Written by Arpad Nagy

Shortlisted for 2024 Northwind Writing Award in NF/Fiction. New owner of First Line Fiction. Editor @ The Memoirist, AoE, Book Cafe, Short Place, Kitchen Tales.

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