Tag: thriller

‘Keeper’ by Jessica Moor

In all the excitement of setting up my blog and all the new releases, I feel that I’ve not shared my reviews on some absolutely outstanding (but slightly older) books.

This book was released in March 2020 and was one of my five star ARCs of 2019.

I really didn’t know what to expect from this, but wow! This is a well-written and pacy thriller that will not be forgotten easily. It’s shocking, sad, tragic…but more than anything made me feel so angry. Just as the writer intended, I think.

The story begins with the body of a young woman, Katie Straw, being recovered from a river in a small town somewhere outside Manchester. The police recognise that it’s probably a suicide, but they just need to check out a few things to close the case. The narrative then splits between the investigation in the ‘Now’ sections of the book and Katie’s life leading up to her death (‘Then’). In this strand, a much darker theme of domestic abuse rears its head and the novel becomes almost unbearable in its inevitability.

However, this is so much more than your average thriller. It is unflinching and quite unsettling in its portrayal of the trauma suffered by the women in the novel. The women’s refuge featured is at once a safe space but also precarious and underfunded. The women residents are flawed and realistic, their decisions often poor and their thinking blurred by their suffering.

It made me angry, I think, because it was so believable; this does happen every day and the statistics about women being killed by their domestic partners speak for themselves. But how do you help or understand women who repeatedly return to or excuse their abusers?

I raced through this book and recommend it highly. It will make you absolutely furious that this happens, but it’s a clever and an engaging read too and recognises some important issues. It’s much darker than my usual reads, but I am so glad I chose it give it a try.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you would like your own copy of ‘Keeper’, please use my affiliate link below. This supports my blog at no extra cost to you.

Header photo with thanks to Sydney Sims for sharing their work on Unsplash.

‘Knife Edge’ by Simon Mayo

Next up and also released on 20th August is broadcaster Simon Mayo’s thriller.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this, having not read Simon Mayo’s previous book for adults (‘Mad Blood Stirring’, a historical novel). However, I was pleasantly surprised by this fast-paced and twisty thriller.

The novel opens with the killing of seven IPS journalists within minutes of each other one morning in London. The action then focuses on the journalists left behind as they try to work out what their murdered colleagues were working on that could have sealed their fate. What is uncovered is surprising and interesting and far too complicated for me to explain here! Suffice it to say that there is plenty of peril and action to keep the plot moving.

This is an engaging novel, and one that will keep you reading as you definitely become invested in the outcome. The main characters are interesting, but not as developed as they could be – I didn’t really have any sense of Sam or Sophie as characters in particular. This may well be simply due to the fact that the cast of this novel is quite large so I think that Mayo has (probably quite rightly) kept the focus on plot. Some of the events and twists are also a bit incredible – however, it is a pacy and lively novel and I don’t think anyone would be disappointed at the rollercoaster of events it takes you on!

Overall, this is a book that I’d recommend. It is slightly disturbing in its capturing of 21st century Britain and the threats of both terrorism and knife crime – in this way it absolutely taps into current affairs (prior to coronavirus stealing the limelight). If you’re happy to overlook the occasionally thin characterisation, there is plenty to like here.

I received a free copy of the novel from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

If you’d like to buy the book, the link is below. The Quick and the Read might earn commission on purchases at no extra cost to you.

Photo by Samantha Hurley from Burst

Blog Tour: ‘The Child Who Never Was’ by Jane Renshaw

Welcome to my first blog tour post! Today, I want to talk to you about the psychological thriller ‘The Child Who Never Was’ for damppebbles blog tours.

The Blurb:

Her child has been taken. But no-one believes her.

Sarah’s beautiful baby son Oliver has gone missing. And she will do anything – anything – to get him back.

But there’s a problem. Everyone around Sarah, even her beloved identical twin, Evie, tells her she never had a son, that he’s a figment of her imagination, that she’s not well, she needs help.

And on one level, they’re right, Sarah does need support. She has suffered massive trauma in the past and now she’s severely agoraphobic, very rarely leaves the house, avoids all contact with people.

But fragile though she is, Sarah knows deep in her heart that Oliver is real, that the love she feels for him is true.

And that can only mean one thing – someone has been planning this. And now they’ve taken her baby.

The stunning psychological thriller with an ending you won’t see coming. Perfect for fans of K.L Slater, Mark Edwards, Alex Michaelides.

My Review:

Although slightly outside my usual genres, I was intrigued by the premise and had to find out what happened! I love a story with plenty of twists and hoped that this would keep me reading – and it certainly did!

The story opens with Sarah utterly convinced that her toddler, Oliver, has gone missing. She has vivid recollections of giving birth to him, his bedroom, his speech patterns… However, everyone tells her that he never existed and that he is a figment of her imagination. Sarah has mental health challenges after an earlier trauma in her life and now rarely leaves her house, so is Oliver merely a result of this? Sarah is unconvinced and will go to extreme lengths to prove that her child has been taken.

The central characters in the novel, Sarah and Evie, are twins and they are beautifully contrasted. Evie is composed, in charge of the sisters’ architectural business and mother of her own toddler, James, while Sarah is the opposite: struggling with her mental health, bossed around by her sister and childless. It is this sense of opposition that drives the narrative on and the reader is not quite sure where their sympathies should lie for a large proportion of the book. The fact that Sarah is the focal character is especially clever as she is a notoriously unreliable narrator and so the reader is unsure what to believe.

The narrative does have plenty of twists and turns that kept me interested in this story of the two sisters, a lost child and mental health issues. The loss that Sarah feels is convincing and compelling – it is impossible not to feel for her, even as you also have to balance this with her own psychological issues. The opening scene is also – no spoilers – an absolute gem and I was desperate to know how this fitted in with the rest of the story.

Overall, this is a pacey and engaging read. It’s certainly worth clearing the diary for as you will not want to put it down until you know the truth!

About Jane Renshaw:

Jane Renshaw

As a child, Jane spent a lot of time in elaborate Lego worlds populated by tiny plastic animals and people. Crime levels were high, especially after the Dragon brothers set themselves up as vets and started murdering the animals in their ‘care’. (They got away with it by propping the victims up with Plasticine and pretending they were still alive…)

As an adult, she is still playing in imaginary worlds and putting her characters through hell – but now she can call it ‘writing’ and convince herself that she is doing something sensible. In real life, she has a PhD in genetics and copy-edits scientific and medical journals.

Jane is the author of Watch Over Me. THE CHILD WHO NEVER WAS will be her second novel published with Inkubator Books.

Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JaneRenshaw10

Website: https://www.janerenshaw.co.uk/

Purchase Links:

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3kqo1if

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/33IIk4u

Publishing Information:

Published in digital format by Inkubator Books on 16th August 2020