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The Corset by Laura Purcell My Review WOW - brilliant, loved every word of this ravishing historical thriller. I do wish I hadn't read this book!! Only because I'm pretty darned certain it's going to such a hard act to follow that I'm going to find each and every new book I pick up for months, lacking in comparison and I'm saddened and green with envy that everyone who is yet to read this, still has it's delights to look forward to. The description had me chomping at the bit, the cover had me swooning and I KNEW without doubt that it was my kind of book to a T. Yet still I didn't know what absolute reading PERFECTION this completely spectacular book was going to be. Reminding me very much of two of my all time favourite reads Affinity and The Observations I am almost lost for words, to describe my feelings adequately after reading this. It is a historical twisty mystery which is deviously dark and devilishly delectable. Featuring two very different young wom...

My Review of The Perfect Friend by Barbara Copperthwaite : It's just what we all want isn't it? The Perfect Friend? Barbara Copperthwaite has excelled herself, yet again, with this terrific, tense and terrifying, twisty thriller. My goodness, I just can't imagine how she manages to dream up characters capable of such dastardly deeds. Just when I think she can't possibly get any better, my favourite writer of dark and daring deeds blows my socks off. The Perfect Friend, scared me so much I really don't think I'll ever dare trust anyone, ever again! On the surface it's a novel about friendship, surviving and learning to live with your own failures. Beneath its a seething maelstrom of lies, deceit and corruption that made my head reel. The perfect Friend introduces us to two lovely ladies who become friends through a support group which helps people who are finding it difficult to cope with what life has thrown at them. Both are damaged and traumatised. Despite...

Blog Tour and my review for The Old You by Louise Voss. Today I am part of the buzzing blog tour for the fab twistiness that is the latest thriller from Louise Voss. My Review “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive” … There is a whole load of deception within these pages and to find out who is deceiving who and why, you’ll have to read it. I just read it and it blew my socks clean off. If you like your books to mess with your mind then this will fit the bill. The Old You begins quite gently with a dreadfully sad subject, the early onset of dementia and as we watch Lynn come to terms with her husbands sudden and rapid decline into senility it seems as though this is going to be a heart-breaking family drama, which it is …. in a way, however it is also Domestic Noir with a capital N, at its very darkest, filled with secrets and lies and OMG moments. Psychologically it’s mind blowing and so damned cunning it’s a joy to read. Lynn married Ed ten years ago when t...

My Review Oh My Goodness! This book packs a powerful punch that smacked me in the gut, there's a real shocker of a twist that I really didn't anticipate until just a chapter or two before it is to be revealed I began to have a nauseous sense that there was something coming that I hadn't been expecting .... then wham! But I digress, it's hardly surprising that my thoughts are a little muddled having just spent several days locked in the mind of a woman incarcerated in a lunatic asylum. This woman is Edith Potter, daughter of the renowned Dr Potter leader in the field of examining the psychological impact of shell shock following the first world war. Spinster Edith lives alone, since her father was murdered by an unknown intruder, no wonder she is jumpy and nervous living in the very house where he was killed. It's clear from the onset that Ediths mind is a little disturbed, she has secrets and has built a wall to keep them away, but this is to become her undoing and ...

My review of Bring Me Back by B A Paris This is a very twisty and twisted, psychological thriller. If you love to be puzzled by cryptic clues and teeny hints that might not all be what they seem this is a must read book for you. Narrated mostly by Finn, the main male protagonist who is engaged to be married to Emma. He used to be passionately in love with Emmas sister Layla who mysteriously disappeared 12 years ago, when the couple were on their way back from a holiday and has never been seen since. But suddenly messages begin to appear which would seem to indicate that Layla is back, or soon plans to be back in Finn's life. He gets very confused and terribly frustrated and begins to find clues everywhere which disturb and worry him, many of these clues are deliberately placed tiny Russian dolls, which show up at every turn. They have a particular significance to Finn and Layla. He finds on on the garden wall and one on his plate when he goes to the pub ( a pub which is owned and r...

The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor My review Wow - what a fabulously well written book! I can't believe this is a debut novel, it's so slick and accomplished, with a way with words which makes the story slide through your mind like treacle. Move over Stephen King, there's a new kid on the block, she's English and I love her mind. Being a child of the 80's shows in her writing. Gliding effortlessly back and forth in time spanning an era of 30 years we follow the life of Eddie and his little gang of mates, fat Gav, Metal Mickey, Hoppo and Nicky when they are young adolescents and in the present time when Ed has grown into a solitary 43 year old who has been shaped by events this fateful year when he was a 13 year old. That summer of 1986 there is a lot going on, there is a terrible accident, a dismembered body, a new teacher, friendship, bullying, parents behaving unpredictably, as parents often do, and a game the lads play with a bucket of coloured chalks sending messages v...

Can you keep a Secret by Karen Perry My Review: Can you keep a secret? is the latest psychological twisty school re-union gone wrong, chiller by Karen Perry, which is  is the pen name of Dublin-based authors Paul Perry and Karen Gillece. It's a conundrum of a thriller with lots of mystery about, unsurprisingly, secrets and lies. A group of ex-school chums get back together 20 years after they previously congregated for a tragedy laden 18th birthday party at Thornbury Manor, the family pile of 2 of their peers, brother and sister Rachel and Patrick. Lindsey is our main protagonist, she was at the original event and is about to be included in this one too. The Manor house is now run down and rather ramshackle and Patrick can no longer find the upkeep, so he gets in touch with Lindsey then decides that he will hold a final bash before he sells off the hall. As the small group of friends who attended his 18th gather together for the first time in two decades, old scores to be settled a...

My review of He Said, She Said by Erin Kelly Wow - wonderful twisty read, blew my socks off.  It's not often that I finish a book and can't really find words to write a review straight away. But I loved this book so much I had to take a step back and examine what I thought or just babble away senselessly.  Its delightfully different and darkly convoluted. It actually took me a little while to get into it at the beginning as it's deliberately written in several voices from different viewpoints and jumps back and forth several years and it does take a while to get into the rhythm, but when you do boy does it grab you and just won't let go! We begin our tortuous journey by being introduced to a young couple, Laura who is pregnant and her partner Kit who is heading off across the seas to witness an eclipse. For that is what this young couple do as a hobby, they are eclipse chasers and travel all over the world joing festivals and celebrations and watching eclipses. They...

BLOG TOUR - The Lucky Ones by Mark Edwards I'm thrilled to kick start the blog tour for this brilliant book with my review. I'm fairly certain that if I start my review by saying Mark Edwards has a truly warped mind, he would take this as the huge compliment it is intended to be! How he dreamt up this twisty thriller I can't imagine. He gets deep inside the malformed psyche of a devilish serial killer to take the reader on a vivid and skin crawling journey of terror. Let me briefly introduce you to the authors work, whose page you can find here . He writes brilliantly different and terrifyingly unorthodox psychological thrillers, which have included Because She loves me , Follow you home and The Devils work . You can follow the links to read each of my reviews of his previous work and you just might come away with the idea that I'm already a big fan of this talented writer and you wouldn't be far wrong. So its always with a sense of worried anticipation that I open...

Exquisite – Sarah Stovell – Review and Blog tour I’m so chuffed (do people still SAY chuffed these days?) to be part of the blog tour for this truly exquisite book! Certain to appeal to all keen readers and budding writers because its two lead characters are both authors, and absolutely guaranteed to enthrall those discerning folk who do pick it up and read it  owing to the wonderfully sublime writing and clever characterization within the pages. Bo is the first woman we meet. In her forties, she is already a successful, popular, published author with a string of books to her credit. Living in the tranquil and idyllic Lake district with her older husband and their two daughters, she is self-assuredly living the dream every fledgling writer fantasizes about. Every now and then she holds a creative writing course to help new talent emerge. Isn’t she just the perfect role model for a struggling, younger, would be author to admire? That emerging writer turns out to be Alice. She hasn’t...

Today I'm very excited to be sharing with you an enticing and tempting excerpt from the very latest psychological thriller by one of my favourite and most highly anticipated authors Barbara Copperthwaite. If you haven't yet discovered Barbara's superb writing you're in for a rare treat, and, lucky thing, you still have her 2 previous, sensational novels to look forward to as well. Barbara writes wonderfully scary, true to life twisty thrillers about crimes and the impact they have on all the people involved, she puts the reader so deeply inside the characters psyche you emerge  gasping. Barbara Copperthwaite You can find my enthusiastic ravings about her first two books on my blog: Her Debut novel Invisible and her second mind blowing thriller Flowers for the dead I kid you not if you haven't read them yet you really MUST! But I digress. What we're here for today is to tantalize and tempt you with the release of Barbara's third thriller The Darkest Lies  av...

My Review A thoroughly entertaining and gripping psychological suspense story by the wonderful CL Taylor, author of  The Accident   The Lie  and  The Missing  all taut, suspense filled Domestic Noir/ psychological thrillers. In The Escape we follow the life of Jo, our main protagonist, who is the Mother of a little girl Elise, and is married to an investigative journalist Max. Jo is suddenly approached and threatened, by a stranger, a woman called Paula who warns Jo that she needs to keep a closer eye on her daughter and that her husband has taken something that belongs to Paula. Now if Jo's reactions to this encounter seem a touch extreme this is explained when we realise that she is agoraphobic, in fact as we immerse ourselves deeper in her story it is revealed that she has several mental health issues, is somewhat unstable and doubts begin to creep in. My empathy for her began to waver slightly as she becomes the atypical unreliable narrator around which many...

Bad Little Girl – Frances Vick My review An absolute corker of a psychological thriller, with a deprived and abused little girl at the heart of it – prepare to be moved – prepare to be terrified. Take an inner city school. Meet Claire, a harassed, very compassionate and caring, middle aged teacher who sometimes feels like a bit of dinosaur as she juggles the responsibilities of her dull private life, her irascible Mother, her non-existent social life, with her beloved career. Her path meets that of neglected 5 year old Lorna from a feckless family with a bad reputation on a run-down housing estate and both their lives are about to be affected by the meeting. Warning bells ring when Claire uncovers a heinous crime – Lorna, with the stick like limbs, the dirty clothes and the badly worn shoes, in a bid to be accepted by her peers, has stolen some collectable kids erasers and thus Rubbergate is unleashed! Far from bringing her friendship and admiration it makes her despised and scorned. I...