Tag: thrillers

Her dream wedding might become a nightmare

Tara Moore feels like the luckiest girl in the world. She’s finally found the man of her dreams, and after the fairytale wedding, she’s leaving Dublin to start a new life in Australia.

Until Avril Ryan’s body is discovered in a house that Tara lived in three years ago.

Tara doesn’t know Avril, so why was she the last person Avril called? How has she become the number one suspect?

But what the police don’t know is that Tara’s past conceals her own dangerous secrets. And as the detectives start digging and old friendships come to light, Tara begins to wonder who she can trust.

Will her wedding day become her last?

A twisty, unputdownable psychological thriller packed with suspense. Fans of T.M. Logan and Samantha Hayes will be completely gripped.

Jackie Walsh lives in Dublin with her husband Paul and dog Layla. She is a member of the Irish Writers Centre and The Irish Crime writer’s group. After years spent building her own business she decided to take time out and pursue her interest in writing. With a lot to learn, Jackie attended classes, writing groups and travelled to lots of festivals and launches. She secured a publishing deal with Hera Books who published Familiar Strangers and The Secrets He Kept in 2019, Five Little Words in 2020 and Her White Lie which will be published in July 2021.

Twitter: @JackieWalsh_ie

My thoughts: this was a clever and tense thriller, who can you trust if you can’t trust your oldest friend?

Tara’s sitting on a secret, but not the one the police think. Having to rely on her former friend and housemate, herself riddled with secrets and lies, isn’t ideal and Tara’s perfect new life is at stake.

Very much on the edge of your seat stuff as the two women try to keep their stories straight. It had me hooked all the way through.

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

Everyone says Graham Catton was the perfect husband, professor and father. Why would someone murder him? His wife, Hannah Catton, tells the police she remembers nothing from the night of the murder. Why would she lie to them? Evidence against the accused, Mike Philips, is minimal and he protests his innocence throughout the trial. Why would they convict him? Journalist Anna Byers has overturned numerous prison sentences with her popular podcast CONVICTION and she believes the wrong man is behind bars. What will she do to help him? Someone knows more about the murder than they’re telling. It may have been Hannah’s husband who was killed, but listeners are about to become judge, jury and executioner on this season of CONVICTION.

Katie is a graduate of the University of Birmingham with a BA(Hons) in English and an MPhil in Literature and Modernity, and in 2012 started her blog, Fat Girl PhD – writing about body image, feminism and health. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Independent, and the BBC, as well as a number of media outlets in the US, Canada and Australia. Katie is currently working on a PhD in Female Rage in Literary Modernism and the #MeToo Era. THE FURIES is her first novel.

My thoughts: the true crime podcast has become increasingly popular in the last few years, and this is an interesting take on the genre of true crime podcast novels. Instead of following the investigator/host it follows the family of a victim and possibly a suspect for the killing.

Hannah has tried to move on from her husband’s brutal murder, tried to protect her daughter from it too. But a podcast is about to dig it all up again.

The way this novel unwinds, flipping between Hannah trying to do her job as a psychiatrist and the podcast episodes, the reactions of her daughter Evie and colleagues, patients and strangers, is really interesting. Hannah’s memory isn’t reliable and as events get more and more frightening, is she beginning to crack under the pressure?

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

Twelve years ago my life began again.

But it was a lie.

With the startling twists of Gone Girl and the haunting emotional power of Room, Mirrorland is the story of twin sisters, the man they both love, and the dark childhood they can’t leave behind.

Cat lives in Los Angeles, about as far away as she can get from her estranged twin sister El and No. 36 Westeryk Road, the imposing gothic house in Edinburgh where they grew up. As girls, they invented Mirrorland, a dark, imaginary place under the pantry stairs full of pirates, witches, and clowns. These days Cat rarely thinks about their childhood home, or the fact that El now lives there with her husband Ross.

But when El mysteriously disappears after going out on her sailboat, Cat is forced to return to the grand old house, which has scarcely changed in twenty years. No. 36 Westeryk Road is still full of shadowy, hidden corners, and at every turn Cat finds herself stumbling on long-held secrets and terrifying ghosts from the past. Because someone—El?—has left Cat clues all over the house: a treasure hunt that leads right back to Mirrorland, where she knows the truth lies crouched and waiting…

A sharply crafted mystery about love and betrayal, redemption and revenge, Mirrorland is a propulsive, page-turning debut about the power of imagination and the price of freedom. Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, Ruth Ware, and Daphne du Maurier.

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Carole Johnstone is an award-winning writer from Scotland, whose short stories have been published all over the world. Mirrorland, a psychological suspense with a gothic twist, is her debut novel.

Having grown up in Lanarkshire, she now lives in the beautiful Argyll & Bute, and is currently working on her second novel: a very unusual murder-mystery, set in the equally beautiful Outer Hebrides.

Website

My thoughts: this is a sad, shocking and disturbing book about twin sisters, their secret fantasy world and the truth about their lives. Cat has blocked out her memories, and left Edinburgh far behind, but returns after her sister goes missing.

El and her husband Ross bought the home the twins grew up in and Cat finds little has changed, it still holds its horrors for her. But as the search for El’s body winds down and Cat’s relationship with Ross starts to turn dark; the memories of their shared childhood resurface.

I was gripped by this tale of fantasy worlds, nightmares and tragedy. Cat and El’s childhood is twisted and strange, raised in isolation by their mother and grandfather, they never left the grounds of their house until they were 12. Cat has repressed her memories but returning to the house starts to bring things back to the surface. Ross is a fascinating character, a childhood friend and neighbour, but is he El’s saviour or captor?

Mirrorland is the fantasy world the twins created, a world they escaped into, in a covered alleyway down the side of the house. There they felt safe and could escape the horrors of their home. Until they couldn’t. But who is sending Cat emails and directing her to pieces of El’s diaries and why?

As she starts to dig into what happened to her sister and recover her long buried memories, the house takes on an increasingly sinister aspect. Mirrorland is similarly full of darkness. A really interesting, dark read.

People don’t just disappear without a trace…

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find…

In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.

My thoughts: this was a really clever and twisty thriller. I could not work out what was going on and what had happened to the two women and the little girl at all. Everything is slowly and tantalisingly revealed in flashbacks and bit by bit the shocking answers are given.

Absolutely gripping and totally stunning, I got to the end and could not believe it. Such fantastic writing.

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

A golden summer, and six talented friends are looking forward to the brightest of futures – until a daredevil game goes horribly wrong, and a woman and two children are killed.

18-year-old Megan takes the blame, leaving the others free to get on with their lives. In return, they each agree to a ‘favour’, payable on her release from prison.

Twenty years later Megan is free.
Let the games begin . . .

My thoughts: this was a clever, knotty thriller about friendship, promises and keeping them. The friends are not particularly nice people – spoilt rich kids who grew up into adults who aren’t much better. They let Megan take the blame so as to not ruin their futures, with no real regard for the lives they destroyed with their stupid game.

So when Megan is released from prison – instead of offering her support, friendship or anything, it’s not really a surprise that they turn their backs and so she begins to toy with them, to make them acknowledge their behaviour.

It all begins to spin out of control and terrible events unfold. Can any of them retain their grip on things, can Megan be stopped? Or is something else going on?

Full of suspense and horror, dark and twisted, this is a brilliant and gripping read.

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

Alana Loxton was part of the all-female team to take down Barratt, a notorious serial killer.
He is safely behind bars when one of the detectives goes missing.
Her disappearance, and the connection to the killer, could be a coincidence – but when her body is
discovered days later, a link begins to form. Then another detective from the team goes missing and the situation becomes horrifically clear.
Someone is picking them off one by one – and Alana’s name is next on the list . . .

Amazon UK
Amazon US

Vicki Bradley is a detective constable in the Metropolitan Police Service. She has had a varied career, as a uniformed response driver in Brent and then as a Detective Constable in Southwark CID. She has managed High Risk Sex Offenders and worked on the Serious Organised Crime Command.

Before I Say I Do won the Write Here, Right Now competition, came 3rd in the First Novel Prize and has been
shortlisted for the Virago New Crime Writer 2017 and Peters Fraser and Dunlop Prize 2016. Vicki lives in London with her husband and baby.
Twitter

My thoughts: this was a really good, gripping police thriller, set in South London, where the author works as a police detective, adding extra authenticity. I used to work in Elephant & Castle so recognise some of the places the detectives go to as they investigate the kidnappings and murders of several female detectives, emulating a serial killer, safely locked away in Broadmoor.

Is there a copycat or did Barratt have an accomplice? Alana Loxton is in the killer’s sights but she’s determined to solve the case and save the lives of her friends as well as her own.

The story was fast paced, never letting up as we follow Loxton and her partner, Polish transfer Dominik, across London, out to Kent and back, with the killer closing in. They turn up a few suspects, and think they’re getting close, keeping the suspense up as the killer taunts them and manages to be one step ahead.

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