Book #41 Your Closest Friend

Your Closest Friend by Karen Perry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Whoa! Hold on a minute - let me catch my breath. Your Closest Friend sizzles with tension and menace. I thought I had already read my best book of 2018. Wrong. This is it!
Starts at breakneck pace as Cara finds herself caught up in a terrifying terrorist attack on the streets of London - her certain death prevented by Amy, who drags her into a doorway and up a flight of stairs to a storeroom above Pret. In the darkness and desperate to survive Cara divulges to Amy her darkest secrets about her marriage, her husband, her affair…

Days after the attack Cara is back home, back at work as a radio producer, when her life starts to spiral out of control. She starts to receive anonymous threats. And when Amy reappears as if by coincidence Cara turns to her for support - her closest friend? Or her worst nightmare… She invites Amy into her home to help with her family.

This is a psychological thriller that will shred your nerves with its relentless pace. Your Closest Friend is a real page turner. It never lets go. It grabs you from the get go - feel your pulse racing. The effect is hypnotic as you read on knowing that dreadful events are inevitable to a final twist that really had me holding my breath.

A stunning read, better than Gone Girl with a whiff of Single White Female. I doubt that I will read anything better this year.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin UK-Michael Joseph for the opportunity to read this e-book.

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Book #56 Good Me, Bad Me

Good Me, Bad Me by Ali Land
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity to read an ebook of Good Me, Bad Me.

This is a debut novel. Hard to believe. Ali Land has written a stunning psychological thriller with a rather unique twist. It is recounted through the eyes of a teenage girl, Annie, whose mother is a serial killer. Annie reports her mother's horrendous crimes to the police. As the plot unfolds we see Annie with a new identity - 'Milly' - fostered with a couple, Mike and Saskia and their teenage daughter Phoebe, a spiteful girl who shows her intense dislike of 'Milly' and the attention she gets from her father, who is a psychologist. Phoebe is not aware of Milly's disturbing past and sees her as a threat to her own comfortable existence. But how long can it remain a secret, as the plot unravels, waiting for the forthcoming trial at which 'Milly' has to give evidence against her own mother.

The pace is relentless, often staccato in rhythm, which adds to the tension. Where is this going? Will we see 'Milly' as the teenager given a fresh start or might Annie, the serial killer's daughter come to the fore?

A great read with a satisfying, if not entirely unexpected, ending!

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Book #17 Dear Amy

Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Recent publications are peppered with psychological thrillers, a favourite genre of mine. I spotted Dear Amy in Waterstones; it sounded good and had many positive reviews and so I bought a copy of this debut thriller by Helen Callaghan. For the most part I am not difficult to please but for some reason Dear Amy did not resonate with me. It is well written and Callaghan has clearly done her homework concerning psychosis, PTSD, fugues, etc. much of which forms the background to the plot.

The key protagonist is Margot Lewis, agony aunt of the 'Dear Amy' advice column in the local Cambridge press. She becomes dismayed when receiving a letter purporting to be from Bethan Avery, who went missing as a young girl some twenty years ago. The letter must be a hoax? Further letters arrive, which happen to follow the disappearance of another teenager, Katie Browne. Lewis is convinced that the girls' disappearances are connected. Unlike the police she becomes consumed with finding the sender.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, yes and no for me. Whilst the plot is full of twists and turns there were many occasions when I just became irritated with Margot and the dreamscapes she experiences, which do provide clues to her real identity, although at times I found myself muttering "do get on with it" and, indeed, the last 50 pages or so do rack up the tension.

Thinking of other psychological thrillers I have read recently Dear Amy gets 3.5 stars from me.



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Book #9 The Girl Before

The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am really at a loss to understand how any reviewer can give The Girl Before just two stars. There have been comments about the book being compared with Gone Girl and others; I have seen none of this. Indeed, I had not seen or heard about it until I picked up a copy in a local bookstore and bought it. When my favourite author says: "I devoured it" and Lee Child said: "Dazzling - a pitch-perfect psychological thriller" - that was good enough for me. And like Peter James - I devoured it. The Girl Before is perfectly crafted, so well written, almost claustrophobic in the location of One Folgate Street, a unique, ultra-minimalist house designed by an enigmatic architect - with a tenancy agreement that is so comprehensive with a long list of exacting rules that most would be applicants are put off. But not Emma (then) and Jane (now). Jane - who wonders who lived here previously and where is she now? Has something terrible happened here - happened to the girl before? Emma's past and Jane's present become more and more entwined in this fast paced portrayal of psychological obsession.

An excellent, tense, page-turner. I love it.

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Book #69 The Woman Next Door

The Woman Next Door by Cass Green
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You can choose your friends but you cannot choose your family. Same goes for neighbours I guess. I certainly wouldn't want to suffer Hester as the woman next door. Come to that, I wouldn't be too thrilled to live next door to Melissa! We have had The Couple Next Door; now we have Cass Green's The Woman Next Door and this really is a killer read! Two women, two dark secrets and the almost perfect murder. Almost? On page #76 it really kicks off! "The rest of my sentence is whisked away in an out-breath that seems to go on and on. I am aware of the thud and whoosh of my own blood...." What has happened was not at all what I was expecting and it really did take my breath away, with something of an hysterical laugh. Now it's fasten your seatbelt time and hunker down for a race through a terrific psychological thriller with an ending that left me gasping! Never expected that!

Brilliant!

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Book #49 The Couple Next Door

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is as good as it gets. It's better than it gets, if that's possible. The Couple Next Door is a white-knuckle, helter-skelter ride through one of the best psychological thrillers I have ever read. Hurtles along at breakneck speed, no time to catch your breath. Surprises at the turn of every page, truly unputdownable - which, coming from me, says a great deal. So many times I found myself saying "Oh f**k, NO!" So full of twists and turns. On page 281 I said out loud "I KNEW IT!" but I didn't know enough! Not saying anything about the plot apart from the obvious - about a baby taken from her home whilst her parents are dining with next door neighbours. Yeah, right...

Do not miss this! I loved it!

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Book #19 The Bones of You

The Bones of You by Debbie Howells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For a debut psychological thriller/whodunnit author Debbie Howells has certainly left the blocks full tilt. The Bones of You is an accomplished first book. I seldom get through with a 370 page read in two days. It speaks volumes for my overall enjoyment and yet hides a level of irritation that developed as I progressed with it.

When eighteen-year-old Rosanna (Rosie) Anderson disappears, the idyllic village where she lived will never be the same again. Local gardener Kate is struck with guilt. She had come to know Rosie well, and thought she understood her – perhaps better even than Rosie’s own mother. Rosanna dies before we meet her, right there on page 2. Every alternate chapter belongs to the voice of Rosie who spills clues to her attacker like confetti. And whilst I raced to finish this book it was this plot structure that began to annoy me. It went on just a little too long.

A dark side of suburban England is very well portrayed. Rosie came from a loving family and she had her whole life ahead of her. Who could possibly want to harm her? And why? The clues are there and I did figure out the identity of her killer well before the end. This did not however spoil the enjoyment; I had to get to the end to be sure.

The Bones of You is well worth a read despite that little irritation I referred to. Give it a go.

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