ramblingmads

You can change your name. Change your life. But someone knows exactly who you are.

Twenty years ago, Mason Tucker was tried and convicted as the teenager who helped
lure young boys to the serial killer known as the Pied Piper of Peasedale. After serving his twenty-year sentence, Mason is freed and hopes to remain invisible while he rebuilds his life as an adult, hoping to become a man he can be proud of. A new town, a new flat, a new job and a new purpose.

But living with secrets is challenging, and protecting his anonymity, the woman who
stood beside him, and her child becomes impossible when the past pushes back. Hard.

Within days of his release, Mason suspects he’s being stalked. He’s threatened and
twice attacked. He never imagined being outside would be more dangerous than being in prison. The police aren’t an option. One headline will destroy him.
Someone wants him punished, not redeemed, and as danger closes in, you will never suspect where the next threat comes from.

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Heidi Field was raised in the beautiful countryside of the South of England with her parents and her two sisters. In her twenties she was a freelance Sports Massage Therapist. She achieved a Degree in Zoology at the age of thirty and then went on to raise two boys and became the
stepmother of three more young children. She still lives near her family home with her partner, their Great Dane and the children that have yet to fly the nest.

In her early forties Heidi completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Winchester University.
She entered the course hoping she would become a children’s fantasy writer and left with a burning desire to write contemporary mysteries and thrillers.
Heidi wanted to put relatable people in extraordinary situations, challenge them, push them to their limits and watch them fight for their sanity. The Other Boy is her first novel.

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My thoughts: It was interesting to read Mason’s perspective on the events that previously we’ve seen from the point of view of his mum and the parents of his friend Jamie (in The Other Boy and The Other Mother). He was groomed and manipulated, a victim too in many ways, of the same man who murdered all those young boys. But because he appeared to be an accomplice – due to his age, things he probably didn’t tell anyone, and the fact that he survived, he’s spent twenty years in prison.

Released and given a new identity and back story, the rest of his life is his to do with as he pleases. Mess it up, and he’s back inside.

He gets a job, has a flat, makes a few friends, but trouble is coming for him and there’s nothing he seems to be able to do to stop it. Befriending a teenage boy who reminds him of himself attracts attention from the wrong sort of person and unfortunately his true identity might have been uncovered.

Mason tries to steer clear, keep his head down and stay free, but deep down he’s a good person and doesn’t want to let anyone else suffer like he did. His choices aren’t going to make his life better, but they might just help someone else.

There’s a redemption arc here, and Mason has had plenty of time to reckon with his past actions and the awful things that went on in the creepy shack in the woods. We can see that he was targeted and groomed by a monster, but he couldn’t, not at the time, and that’s how things went so badly for him. I don’t think he’s even half as bad as people think, he just didn’t know where to turn and had no support. 

Fascinating to see the differing angles on the same events, how they affected the different characters and impacted their lives, and how they managed, or not, to move on and rebuild. 

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

In 1997, high in the alpine resort of Tignes, Cecily celebrates her third wedding anniversary with a night of passion. But in the morning her happiness turns to misery and shock when she find her husband Nick dead in the bed beside her, the victim of a sudden heart attack.

Six weeks later, Cecily learns she is pregnant.

Twenty-six years later, her son Charlie takes a DNA test alongside his uncle Adam, Nick’s identical twin. The results shatter everything he thought he knew: Charlie is not related to Adam. If Nick wasn’t his father, then who was?

Cecily insists she was faithful, and the timing points only to that single night in Tignes. Desperate for answers, she turns to the SeeMs Detective Agency. Could someone have entered her room that night
without her knowing? And if so—who? And why?

As the detectives dig deeper, they uncover a web of conflicting memories, buried secrets, and dangerous lies. Slowly they discover other people are in danger and if they don’t find out very soon what really happened in that wonderful night in Tignes two, or maybe more, lives will be lost.

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This is Gina Cheyne’s seventh novel in the SeeMs Detective series (the agency that
looks behind what seems to be true). Gina’s family are keen and dedicated skiers and this book was inspired by a holiday in Tignes in France.

Gina has worked as a physiotherapist, a pilot, freelance writer and a dog breeder.
As a child, Gina’s parents hated travelling and never went further than Jersey. As a result she became travel-addicted and spent the year after university bumming around SE Asia, China and Australia,
where she worked in a racing stables in Pinjarra, South of Perth.

After getting stuck in black sand in the Ute one time too many (and getting a tractor and trailer caught in a tree) she was relegated to horse-riding work only. After her horse bolted down the sand, straining a fetlock and falling in the sea, she was further relegated to swimming the horses only in the pool. It was with some relief the race horse stables posted her off to Thailand… after all what could go wrong there?

In the north of Thailand, she took a boat into the Golden Triangle and got shot at by bandits. Her group escaped into the undergrowth and hid in a hill tribe whisky still where they shared the ‘bathroom’ with a group of pigs. Getting a lift on a motorbike they hurried back to Chiang Rai, where life seemed calmer.

After nearly being drowned in a fiesta in Ko Pha Ngan, and cursed by a witch in Malaysia, she decided to go to Singapore and then to China where she only had to battle with the language and regulations.

Since marrying life has been calmer. She became a writer because her first love was always telling a good yarn!

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My thoughts: This was quite a shocking case for the ladies of SeeMS Detective Agency. Cecily comes to them for help, her son has taken a DNA test and it seems he isn’t related to her late husband. The only thing is as far as she knows she didn’t sleep with anyone else. How on earth can this be true?

As the team dig into the events of 26 years ago, they discover a terrible deception, a cruel act and devastated family members. What happened in Tignes more than two decades ago affected a lot of people, some who have never talked about it – until now. Can the team unmask a killer before he claims another victim? 

The case is quite dark and when they piece together the exact events, it was genuinely quite disturbing. The perpetrator in this case is a very unpleasant individual and I am very glad he’s fictional. Cecily and her family, as well as quite a few others have had to live with unanswered questions for too long.

Well written as always, and full of twists and turns, like a ski slope, but with a pretty grim resolution that shocks everyone involved.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.