Secrets can be kept. If you’re willing to pay the price.
Anne Marie’s life isn’t easy. She’s a single mom in a dead-end waitressing job with a beater car and bills to pay. Adding to the pressure, her teenage son, Dave, is out of control, and no matter what she does, Anne Marie can’t seem to get through to him.
Then, out of the blue, Dave completely changes. He’s kind, he’s thoughtful, he helps out around the house and looks after his mom. Anne Marie can’t believe her luck.
Until she discovers the reason for her son’s sudden transformation – he’s done something really awful and he’s terrified he’ll be caught. Even worse, someone out there knows about it and they’re blackmailing him.
Anne Marie is desperate to protect her son and knows she has to somehow stop the blackmailer. But how?
As she considers her choices, Anne Marie realizes she may be taking the first steps on a path that will lead her straight to the gates of hell.
How far is she willing to go to save her only child?
Emily Shiner always dreamed of becoming an author but first served her time as a banker and a teacher. After a lifetime of devouring stacks of thrillers, she decided to try her hand at writing them herself. Now she gets to live out her dream of writing novels and sharing her stories with people around the world. She lives in the Appalachian Mountains and loves hiking with her husband, daughter, and their two dogs.
My thoughts: Anne Marie is trying to keep all the plates spinning – her dead end waitressing job, her struggle to pay the bills, her son Dave, who’s getting into trouble at school. But after a hit and run on their street, Dave changes for the better. Can it last and does he have anything to do with the death of their elderly neighbour?
When he finally opens up to her, it’s with the horrifying news that he did indeed hit their neighbour and somebody saw – now they’re blackmailing him. He needs his mother’s help to get the blackmailer off his back. And from there it all spirals out of control.
Anne Marie no longer has any control of what’s going on, and increasingly her son, who’s not a particularly nice person, is and he doesn’t care who he has to hurt to get his own way.
There are twists and turns along the way, as Anne Marie’s life falls apart, all the things she’s scrabbling to hold onto are escaping her and she’s on her own with no one to turn to. I felt sorry for her, she’s lost in her own life and nothing seems to be improving. Even when she tries to take back control it goes wrong. The final twist was gasp worthy, but no spoilers here.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 
Fab review – thank you so much for supporting the tour x
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