Blood Sugar by Sascha Rothchild
Review + Book & Author Info
Blood Sugar
Ruby Simon has some skeletons in her closet—three, to be exact. But though she may be a murderer, Ruby is not a sociopath, She is an animal-loving therapist with a thriving practice. She has felt both empathy and sympathy. And she has long-lasting friendships, as well as a husband, Jason, whom she adores. But when Jason dies suddenly, the homicide detectives at Miami Beach Police Department begin to question why so many people have died within arm’s reach of Ruby. . . and to doubt her happy marriage.
Ruby suddenly finds herself accused of her husband’s murder—a murder she did not commit, despite the suspicions of her vicious mother-in-law and a scandal-obsessed public. As she undergoes questioning, Ruby’s mind races back to all the details of her life that led her to this exact moment, and to the three dead bodies in her wake. Because although she may not have killed her husband, Ruby certainly isn’t innocent.
“Rothchild gives readers an unreliable narrator who truly lives up to the moniker. . . A compelling and entertaining psychological thriller.”
—Kirkus Reviews
To purchase Blood Sugar, click on any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound & Goodreads
My Thoughts on Blood Sugar
Loved the premise and the execution — no pun intended — never have I hoped so much for a killer to get away with murder.
Sascha Rothchild’s protagonist kills without remorse. “A calm resolve filled my chest, followed by a burst of gold-glitter excitement that traveled to the tip of every limb.”
At the age of five, Ruby Simon experiences her first.
“Using both my tiny hands, I had just enough grip to pull him down. And hold him down. A calmer boy might have held his breath and kicked free. He was only inches from oxygen. But he wasn’t calm. He was sucking in more and more water. Until he wasn’t.”
The opening sequence introduces us to Ruby’s modus operandi, she identifies an individual who makes the world a lesser place and removes them without a second thought.
“As my mother held me, I waited for guilt to set in. But it never did.”
The startling, delicious first chapter of Blood Sugar leads into Ruby’s adult years and the fourth murder connected to her, but the first she didn’t commit. Suffering from diabetes, her husband dies from complications from his disease.
Or did he?
Rothchild creates a questionable narrator. Is Ruby to be trusted? She’s clearly a killer, but is she also a liar? Something for the reader to find out as they navigate her sometimes violent past and reconcile those events with her present.
The tense plot unfolds as a series of photographs displaying Ruby’s victims are placed one after the other on the table in front of her by Detective Keith Jackson of the Miami Police Department. The good detective questions how four suspicious deaths could occur around one thirty-year-old woman.
“‘How do you explain that, Ms. Simon?'” he asks her.
“It was a valid question.” Ruby thinks to herself.
Ruby Simon had a turbulent adolescence. Running loose on the South Beach party scene, racing from cocaine to cocktails and dancing the night away. An inventive scene, which I won’t spoil, explains how she gets her act together and heads off to college to become a therapist.
There she meets Roman Miller, a man who would become pivotal in her life. “I didn’t necessarily want to sleep with Roman, or date him. But I knew I wanted to know him.” Soon their lives entwine, unravel, and entwine again.
Post college, Ruby meets her husband, the man she loves. Then her life turns upside down again. With dexterity and sparkling prose, Rothchild never lets her protagonist get too comfortable.
Ruby Simon is a complex, compelling character that engenders sympathy regardless of her own bad behavior. She may be a serial killer, but she’s a thoughtful, compassionate individual who wants to help her clients improve their lives. Readers will be transfixed to find out whether Ruby does in fact get away with murder, or ends up convicted of something she didn’t do . . . or did she?
Lovers of domestic suspense and tense, edgy thrillers will devour this excellent debut.
Author of Blood Sugar, Sascha Rothchild
Sascha Rothchild is an Emmy-nominated screenwriter, who has written and produced lauded shows such as GLOW, The Bold Type, The Baby-Sitters Club, and The Carrie Diaries. In 2015, she was named one of Variety‘s “10 TV Writers to Watch.”
Rothchild has written for LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, Elle, and the Miami Herald, and adapted her article, “How to Get Divorced by 30” into both a memoir and a screenplay for Universal Studios. She graduated from the honors program of Boston College summa cum laude, with a major in theater and screenwriting. Blood Sugar is her debut novel.
To learn more about Sascha, click on her name, photo and any of the following links: Twitter & Instagram
Looking for more reviews? Click the link here.
Elena Taylor
Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.
For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.
Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020
Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020
Header photo by Holgi on Pixabay
