The Secret Room by Sandra Block Series: Zoe Goldman #3
Published by Grand Central Publishing on April 18th 2017
Genres: Thriller, Psychological
Pages: 368
Format: eBook
Source: NetGalley & Grand Central Publishing
Her patients are dying. Some are apparent suicides and others possible accidents, but rumors are flying that Dr. Zoe Goldman is an angel of death-intentionally helping hopeless cases go to a "better place" - or, worse yet, a dangerously incompetent doctor.
As a new psychiatry fellow at the local correctional facility, Zoe is still learning the ropes while watching her back to avoid some dangerous prisoners. As the deaths mount up, Zoe is wracked with horror and guilt, feverishly trying to figure out what is going wrong and even questioning her own sanity.
What Zoe doesn't realize is that someone is targeting her patients to get to her. Someone who has access to her deepest secrets and fears. Someone who will stop at nothing to take everything Zoe has, even her life.
**Special thanks to NetGalley & Grand Central Publishing for supplying my copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.**
It’s a thin line between sanity and madness. But it’s also the line between being malicious and being victim. And in The Secret Room, we wonder where this line lies. is the third installment in Zoe Goldman series by Sandra Block.
Zoe Goldman is a psychiatrist at the local correctional facility. She had had her own share of bad events in the past installments and in her life is just coming back together. Having a job that she likes, a loving boyfriend and a career to look forward to, the past is now behind, or so she thinks.
She has all kinds of patients. Some are hallucinating, schizophrenic or narcissists while others can even go to the limit of inflicting self-harm. Quite a dangerous career with a lot to keep her eyes wide open. Yet, Zoe is good at what she does and she’s taking good care of her patients, until …
Something is not right. Her patients are dying, one after the other. Her career is at risk. No matter how careful she is about her patients, they terminate their own lives one way or the other. The warden blames it all on her. He thinks she’s careless and he might even fire her.
Well, if that’s not enough, her biological sister, Sofia, is now one of her patients. Her supervisor insists that Zoe includes Sofia as her first patient in a research project. Sofia had been enough trouble for Zoe in previous installments killing their own biological mother and attempting to kill Zoe. Zoe can never forget that. However, Sofia insists she had changed. She can’t let Zoe alone. She claims she only wants her forgiveness.
On a parallel sphere, something sinister is going on in a secret room. A mysterious woman is talking about it. We only read her words and it’s very threatening. Something evil is going on. We only hope someone will notice this. As a reader, my mind keeps spinning. Who’s that woman?
Zoe is receiving mysterious haunting messages. Someone is trying to torture her with those messages. With her career is on the line, and her sanity too with those messages, Zoe can’t fight the urge to act as a detective. She needs to get to the bottom of it.
The Secret Room has been quite a mystery book for me. I enjoyed every part of it. I was even sorry I haven’t noticed the previous installments before. I loved the mystery. It got me wondering and guessing all the time. I also loved Zoe. She’s quite a character. I could feel her light spirit through the pages while she wondered who was trying to frame her and acting like a detective herself. Sandra Block has a wonderful writing style. The pages flew by keeping me up all night. I was desperate to know what’s going on. I just loved it.
Though the events are somehow linked in the three installments, I could read the third installment, The Secret Room, quite easily without having read the previous books. However, this is not advisable because you will be missing a lot of fun. The books and the story are quite enjoyable. You wouldn’t want to miss that. I am now going back to read the previous installments.
About Sandra Block
Sandra Block graduated from college at Harvard, then returned to her native land of Buffalo, New York for medical training and never left. She is a practicing neurologist and proud Sabres fan, and lives at home with her husband, two children, and impetuous yellow lab Delilah. She has been published in both medical and poetry journals. “The Girl Without a Name” is her second Zoe Goldman novel. Her debut was “Little Black Lies.”