Sheryl Browne

This was a good twisty thriller, Sarah and Steve are 3 year old Ollie’s parents, they split up recently and now Steve is living with his new girlfriend Laura.
Sarah feels uneasy about Laura from the start, something wasn’t quite right but she couldn’t put her finger on what. When she voiced her concerns to Steve he just though Sarah was jealous and was brushed off. Sarah was only concerned for her child’s safety but no one wanted to listen, even her new boyfriend Joe, a policeman who she has known since they were at school worried it was jealously.
But she was right to worry about Ollie’s safety!
I really felt for Sarah, she had that mother’s instinct and everyone she turned to wouldn’t listen. Told in multiple POV’s I felt we got to know the characters, some made me angry, and some had me wondering about them and some I really felt for.
When secrets from the past and the truth came out I was stunned but I understood a lot more about the person than I did previously.
When Ollie went missing I didn’t suspect the person that did it at all. It left me shocked.
This was a brilliant read, I was hooked from early and it stayed that way throughout.… (altro)

This new psychological suspense novel will have you guessing from the beginning until the end. None of the characters are who you think they are when you first meet them. But who are they? I'll tell you right from the beginning, I didn't like ANY of the characters -- they are all unreliable narrators and try to present themselves in a much better light than they really belong in. So who are the characters

-Eve is the young mother of a new baby. She loves him and wants to protect him totally differently than the way so was protected as a child - she was totally unprotected from her parents.
-Dom is Eve's husband. He knows that she's keeping secrets but can't get her to open up. Even though he is a stay at home dad, he feels like Eve doesn't totally trust him with their child.
-Lydia is Eve's mom. She and Eve had been estranged for years until one day she shows up at her daughter's house to see her grandson. She lived with her husband (Eve's dad) until he died. He was an abusive husband and Lydia did nothing to protect her daughter. They both doted on their young son who was sickly but we don't find out what happened to him until later in the story.
-Chloe has been Eve's best friend since childhood. She's in a rocky marriage but had always been close to help her best friend through some of the turmoil in her life.

Right from the beginning, there are a lot of questions
-Why is Eve so protective of her baby
-Why does Eve want to keep her mother away from the baby
-Why won't she share her past with Dom
-What happened to her younger brother
-Was Chloe really a good friend or had she been stirring up Eve's life for years

You'll get answers to all of these questions but won't totally understand the family dynamics until the very end of the story. I went from feeling sympathy for a character and a couple of pages later, I'd realize what an awful person they really were. This is a roller coaster ride of a novel that will keep you guessing until the end!… (altro)

I received this ebook free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I think I can safely say this is one of my favourite reads this year. I loved how sudden all of the events were, even found myself gasping out loud or shaking my head at the actions and words of some of the characters.

I often struggle with child characters because they can tend to be hollow additions, there to move a plot along, but the children in this novel were so real and complete. They broke my heart over and over.

The use of multiple perspectives worked perfectly, and I found my favourite character was the one I didn't expect to feel much for at all. Just goes to show how well written each person in this story was. They felt so incredibly real to me that I could imagine running into them on the street, if I lived in the UK that is.

Everything just made sense.

I'm not great at reviews, aside from sharing my feelings on a story, and I can tell you this one was exciting, intriguing, and impossible to put down. I almost want a sequel but I also enjoyed the open ended feeling, filling in the following years in my own imagination.

This is a favourite for 2019 and highly recommended to anyone who enjoys character driven stories and domestic thrillers.… (altro)