Review - The Corset - Laura Purcell -

The Corset by Laura Purcell

My Review
WOW - brilliant, loved every word of this ravishing historical thriller.

I do wish I hadn't read this book!! Only because I'm pretty darned certain it's going to such a hard act to follow that I'm going to find each and every new book I pick up for months, lacking in comparison and I'm saddened and green with envy that everyone who is yet to read this, still has it's delights to look forward to.

The description had me chomping at the bit, the cover had me swooning and I KNEW without doubt that it was my kind of book to a T. Yet still I didn't know what absolute reading PERFECTION this completely spectacular book was going to be.

Reminding me very much of two of my all time favourite reads Affinity and The Observations I am almost lost for words, to describe my feelings adequately after reading this.

It is a historical twisty mystery which is deviously dark and devilishly delectable. Featuring two very different young women. Dorothea Truelove is a well off young lady who wishes to do good works, has an interest in reading the shape of the head, phrenology and in particular observing the characteristics displayed by criminals. She resists her fathers attempts to marry her off, wishing to choose her own suitor, though this is not an option of the well to do Victorian female.

Her choice of good works is to be a prison visitor in Oakgate womens prison, where she soon becomes intrigued and involved with the young murderess Ruth Butterham who is charged with murdering her employer. A talented seamstress, with self taught skills she hones creating herself a corset from scraps of left over fabric, Ruth falls on very hard times as a series of dreadful personal disasters leads her to believe she can cause death by sewing hatred and ill will into the garments she works on.

With her talent with a needle being the only way she can earn a living she ends up apprenticed to the vile and Dickensian sweat shop of the Metyard familys dressmaking business.

What follows is a life of drudgery which is revealed stitch by intricate stitch, as she slaves for the Metyards, crosses paths with the vile Captain, makes a friend in Mim and encounters the handsome Billy. The lives of these two women entwine as each struggles against the whims of others and the restrictions placed on women in this era.

Their are dastardly deeds aplenty, the writing is sheer poetry it has an eerie and compelling literary quality and the characters are sublime. It is worthy of comparison with the wonderful Sarah Waters writing and is a sensational follow up to the authors successful debut novel The Silent Companions and in my opinion is far superior to it.

Put this on your must read list. It will be published in September and you can pre-order it now so you have something to look forward to when the nights begin to draw in.

I received my advance copy of #TheCorset from #NetGalley
My thanks to Raven Books, home of deliciously dark books

The Description:

The new Victorian chiller from the author of Radio 2 Book Club pick, The Silent Companions.

Is prisoner Ruth Butterham mad or a murderer? Victim or villain?

Dorothea and Ruth.

Prison visitor and prisoner. Powerful and powerless.

Dorothea Truelove is young, wealthy and beautiful. Ruth Butterham is young, poor and awaiting trial for murder.

When Dorothea’s charitable work leads her to Oakgate Prison, she is delighted with the chance to explore her fascination with phrenology and test her hypothesis that the shape of a person’s skull can cast a light on their darkest crimes. But when she meets teenage seamstress Ruth, she is faced with another theory: that it is possible to kill with a needle and thread. For Ruth attributes her crimes to a supernatural power inherent in her stitches.

The story Ruth has to tell of her deadly creations – of bitterness and betrayal, of death and dresses – will shake Dorothea’s belief in rationality, and the power of redemption.

Can Ruth be trusted? Is she mad, or a murderer?

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Review - The Perfect Friend by Barbara Copperthwaite - perfectly terrifying

My Review of The Perfect Friend by Barbara Copperthwaite:

It's just what we all want isn't it? The Perfect Friend?

Barbara Copperthwaite has excelled herself, yet again, with this terrific, tense and terrifying, twisty thriller. My goodness, I just can't imagine how she manages to dream up characters capable of such dastardly deeds. Just when I think she can't possibly get any better, my favourite writer of dark and daring deeds blows my socks off.

The Perfect Friend, scared me so much I really don't think I'll ever dare trust anyone, ever again!

On the surface it's a novel about friendship, surviving and learning to live with your own failures. Beneath its a seething maelstrom of lies, deceit and corruption that made my head reel.

The perfect Friend introduces us to two lovely ladies who become friends through a support group which helps people who are finding it difficult to cope with what life has thrown at them.
Both are damaged and traumatised. Despite their difference in ages they have become firm friends.

Alex is the elder woman. In her struggle to cope with her husband leaving her and offspring she can no longer speak to she has succumbed to the debilitating condition of Anorexia. With a lot of love to give she is pouring her affection into her friendship with the younger woman Carrie, almost young enough to be her daughter, Carrie is sweet and bright and cheerful despite fighting cancer.

The two women are drawn together and would, it seems, do almost anything for one another.

And maybe, not the most reliable narrators to tell this story.

Alex feels there is something she must make up for and throws herself into supporting her young friend who has become like a surrogate daughter to replace the one Alex is unable to spend time with any more.

But nothing - absolutely NOTHING, is quite what it seems and secrets and lies are peeled back from this toxic friendship, to reveal deeper layers of deceit and confusion. Reading it, I was swept along so swiftly I didn't even see the rapids coming until I'd hurtled over them and rose from the deep spluttering and in denial.

A fabulous convoluted cornucopia of trickery which will have you looking at your best friend and wondering .... what if??

The Blurb

She’ll do anything for you…

My name is Alex, and my world has been shattered.
My husband has left me.
My children won’t speak to me.
My friend Carrie is the only person I have.
She’s the only one I can trust to keep all my secrets.
She’d never do anything to let me down.
Would she?

This dark, gripping psychological thriller will have you holding your breath until the very last page. Fans of Behind Closed Doors, Sometimes I Lie, and The Girl on the Train will be captivated. 

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Blog Tour and my review for The Old You by Louise Voss

Blog Tour and my review for The Old You by Louise Voss.

Today I am part of the buzzing blog tour for the fab twistiness that is the latest thriller from Louise Voss.

My Review

“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive” …

There is a whole load of deception within these pages and to find out who is deceiving who and why, you’ll have to read it. I just read it and it blew my socks clean off.

If you like your books to mess with your mind then this will fit the bill.

The Old You begins quite gently with a dreadfully sad subject, the early onset of dementia and as we watch Lynn come to terms with her husbands sudden and rapid decline into senility it seems as though this is going to be a heart-breaking family drama, which it is …. in a way, however it is also Domestic Noir with a capital N, at its very darkest, filled with secrets and lies and OMG moments. Psychologically it’s mind blowing and so damned cunning it’s a joy to read.

Lynn married Ed ten years ago when they fell head over heels for each other despite him being older than her and she has built the perfect scene of domestic bliss, surrounded by a lovely group of friends, a stepson she eventually came to look upon as her own. She’s recently started a nice new job which suits her down to the ground and everything has been going so well. But that’s all about to change and not only because of Ed’s encroaching illness causing him to slip into periods of forgetfulness that make her scared to leave him alone.

Amidst coping with him behaving increasingly strangely, embarrassingly and occasionally violently, she feels there is someone watching her, things which cannot be easily explained are happening and she just wishes she could have the old Ed back together with their old life.

But that is NOT going to happen.

When a face from the past shows up bringing old memories of a past which has been carefully kept under wraps, things begin to unravel for Lynn and the sudden death of a close friend seems to be the final straw which will have her running screaming from her life. But she has to be the strong one, after all she has experience of dealing with change, she can cope with anything … or can she? Perhaps it’s not just Ed who is losing the plot.

This is brilliantly written with so many red herrings and about turns you’d think it would be confusing to read but the author is so highly skilled the transitions are seamless and the story flows so smoothly that every - single – little – bump, every gear change, on this journey jolted me out of my seat.

Reading it is like snoozing gently on a long car journey and suddenly waking up to find the car has left the road and is hurtling down a rocky mountain and all you can do is hold tight and wait for the impact! And when it comes, boy will you know about it!

Tense, scary and devious The Old You is out now – what are you waiting for?

You can buy a copy from Amazon and other great booksellers

The Blurb

Nail-bitingly modern domestic noir
A tense, Hitchcockian psychological thriller

Louise Voss returns with her darkest, most chilling, novel yet…

Lynn Naismith gave up the job she loved when she married Ed, the love of her life, but it was worth it for the happy years they enjoyed together. Now, ten years on, Ed has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, and things start to happen; things more sinister than missing keys and lost words. As some memories are forgotten, others, long buried, begin to surface … and Lynn’s perfect world begins to crumble. 


But is it Ed’s mind playing tricks, or hers…?

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Book Review - Walls of Silence Ruth Wade - twisty historical psychological thriller

My Review

Oh My Goodness!

This book packs a powerful punch that smacked me in the gut, there's a real shocker of a twist that I really didn't anticipate until just a chapter or two before it is to be revealed I began to have a nauseous sense that there was something coming that I hadn't been expecting .... then wham!

But I digress, it's hardly surprising that my thoughts are a little muddled having just spent several days locked in the mind of a woman incarcerated in a lunatic asylum.

This woman is Edith Potter, daughter of the renowned Dr Potter leader in the field of examining the psychological impact of shell shock following the first world war.

Spinster Edith lives alone, since her father was murdered by an unknown intruder, no wonder she is jumpy and nervous living in the very house where he was killed.

It's clear from the onset that Ediths mind is a little disturbed, she has secrets and has built a wall to keep them away, but this is to become her undoing and one day she flips completely and ends up an inmate in a cruel and uncaring mental asylum where she is catatonic and unresponsive.

In comes Dr Stephen Maynard, young and ambitious he hears of Edith and her plight and decides she will be the perfect subject for him to test his theories using the new-fangled psychoanalysis to try and help her. But is he about to unleash more than he can cope with? As he starts to break down the walls that surround Edith and she begins to respond we realize that she is harbouring a few terrible secrets which she needs to keep buried at all costs.

There is quite a lot of detail about psychoanalysis as we delve inside the mind of this deeply disturbed yet very intelligent woman and at several points throughout the book I really thought it was me that was going inasne, so deeply does the author make us feel the despair and confusion of a deeply damaged psyche.

The story is rather disjointed but this all adds to the feel of unease, uncertainty and a terrible sense of madness. When I discovered the final secret she is keeping hidden, it both shocked and saddened me. It's a real twist I wasn't expecting, though the clues and hints are there.

This is a thoroughly great historical look at mental health issues and a twisty psychological thriller combined. It is dark and scary and despite the despair I loved it. Highly recommended.

The Blurb:

The patient has a story that isn’t told and which no one knows of. It is the secret, the rock against which he is shattered. Carl Jung

The Great War is over but for Edith Potter an equally devastating conflict is about to begin. 

She is unhinged by a secret so terrible her conscious mind doesn’t acknowledge it.

It is 1927 and Dr Stephen Maynard is using the new science of psychoanalysis to restore her sanity.

From his first meeting with her in the lunatic asylum, Dr Stephen Maynard is determined to bring her back to reality. During the long challenge, her disturbed behaviour forces him to confront his limitations – already severely stretched by the presence of someone prepared to use whatever weapons they can to ensure she maintains her silence.

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My Review of Bring Me Back by B A Paris twisty and clever

My review of Bring Me Back by B A Paris

This is a very twisty and twisted, psychological thriller. If you love to be puzzled by cryptic clues and teeny hints that might not all be what they seem this is a must read book for you.

Narrated mostly by Finn, the main male protagonist who is engaged to be married to Emma. He used to be passionately in love with Emmas sister Layla who mysteriously disappeared 12 years ago, when the couple were on their way back from a holiday and has never been seen since.

But suddenly messages begin to appear which would seem to indicate that Layla is back, or soon plans to be back in Finn's life. He gets very confused and terribly frustrated and begins to find clues everywhere which disturb and worry him, many of these clues are deliberately placed tiny Russian dolls, which show up at every turn. They have a particular significance to Finn and Layla. He finds on on the garden wall and one on his plate when he goes to the pub ( a pub which is owned and run by yet another ex-girlfriend Ruby. Confused? You will be, you're meant to be, the author very neatly and cleverly fills the story with dainty little red herrings, which you keep sniffing out and thinking Ahh, then realizing you've been coerced into heading off up the wrong garden path, hence the twistyness which ensures you won't sleep a wink whilst this clever, dark and very gripping thriller is on your bedside table.

I must confess I disliked Finn he's a pretty flawed character, he was sparing with the truth when Layla went missing omitting some pertinent facts, even when telling the police what happened, now that's never a good thing is it? Oh and he seems to have a bit of a hot temper does Finn and I find it impossible to love a man who lashes out with his fists whatever the reason, but the main reason I just couldn't warm to him is, his past is lettered with ex girlfriends who he seems to think are all desperate to get back with him (when I fail to see how he ever managed to attract any woman in the first place!)

So - he's a bit of a fibber, who likes to lash out and he's really, really self obsessed. But would we wish what is going to happen to Finn on our worst enemy?


To find out you'll have to read it and see and while you're reading it #ForgetSleep because you won't rest easy until you uncover the mystery of where Layla went and what is going on. Get your copy from Amazon here.

Or see what people are saying about it on Twitter.

@HarperCollinsUK @HQStories @BAParisAuthor

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The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor - a chilling thriller

The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor

My review

Wow - what a fabulously well written book! I can't believe this is a debut novel, it's so slick and accomplished, with a way with words which makes the story slide through your mind like treacle. Move over Stephen King, there's a new kid on the block, she's English and I love her mind.
Being a child of the 80's shows in her writing.

Gliding effortlessly back and forth in time spanning an era of 30 years we follow the life of Eddie and his little gang of mates, fat Gav, Metal Mickey, Hoppo and Nicky when they are young adolescents and in the present time when Ed has grown into a solitary 43 year old who has been shaped by events this fateful year when he was a 13 year old. That summer of 1986 there is a lot going on, there is a terrible accident, a dismembered body, a new teacher, friendship, bullying, parents behaving unpredictably, as parents often do, and a game the lads play with a bucket of coloured chalks sending messages via chalk men to each other which is at the very heart of the terrifying tale which is The Chalk Man.

Between the fun of the fair, cycle rides through the woods and games at the playground a chilling darkness spreads its talons and scary things, that will make your skin crawl, occur. It's wonderfully terrifying, achingly nostalgic and a thoroughly, jaw-droppingly good, read, peppered with tricksy twists to make you gasp.

I had a reading slump in the latter part of 2017 but this (and the wonderful Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon) have completely renewed my faith in my ability to be totally absorbed in a book, in fact, although a very different kind of story, Chalk man reminded me a lot of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by the same Joanna Cannon, both involving kids growing up in a 1980s they made me remember growing up in, even though I was fully grown by then!

I finished the Chalk man last night and I'm still reeling with awe and admiration. If you want something to send shivers up your spine - read it! It's dark, relentless, scary and nostalgic.

The Blurb

In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy little English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code; little chalk stick figures they leave for each other as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing will ever be the same.

In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he's put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out his other friends got the same messages, they think it could be a prank... until one of them turns up dead. That's when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

Expertly alternating between flashbacks and the present day, The Chalk Man is the very best kind of suspense novel, one where every character is wonderfully fleshed out and compelling, where every mystery has a satisfying payoff, and where the twists will shock even the savviest reader

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Can You Keep a Secret - Karen Perry - twisty and clever - my #review

Can you keep a Secret by Karen Perry
My Review:

Can you keep a secret? is the latest psychological twisty school re-union gone wrong, chiller by Karen Perry, which is  is the pen name of Dublin-based authors Paul Perry and Karen Gillece.

It's a conundrum of a thriller with lots of mystery about, unsurprisingly, secrets and lies.

A group of ex-school chums get back together 20 years after they previously congregated for a tragedy laden 18th birthday party at Thornbury Manor, the family pile of 2 of their peers, brother and sister Rachel and Patrick.

Lindsey is our main protagonist, she was at the original event and is about to be included in this one too.

The Manor house is now run down and rather ramshackle and Patrick can no longer find the upkeep, so he gets in touch with Lindsey then decides that he will hold a final bash before he sells off the hall. As the small group of friends who attended his 18th gather together for the first time in two decades, old scores to be settled and tensions mount, its almost inevitable that its going to prove to be a big and rather costly mistake.

Things start to go wrong from the outset and as the spooky old mansion shivers with a sense of haunting malevolence, human betrayals and secrets come to the surface and you the reader, just go along for the ride, knowing someone somehow is going to get hurt.

Truths will eventually emerge and until then you don't really know quite who did what and to whom, in the past, but you know for sure that this volatile crowd really shouldn't think about having a drink then going around the estate shooting guns, but that's what they decide to do!!

It's a very gripping, tension filled story with a sense of inevitability and few real shockers along the way.

Published by Penguin books it's out already in ebook if, like me, you just can't wait to get stuck in and the paperback will be released on November 30th and can be pre-ordered now

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Review - He Said She Said - Erin Kelly - darkly convoluted

My review of He Said, She Said by Erin Kelly

Wow - wonderful twisty read, blew my socks off. 

It's not often that I finish a book and can't really find words to write a review straight away. But I loved this book so much I had to take a step back and examine what I thought or just babble away senselessly. 

Its delightfully different and darkly convoluted. It actually took me a little while to get into it at the beginning as it's deliberately written in several voices from different viewpoints and jumps back and forth several years and it does take a while to get into the rhythm, but when you do boy does it grab you and just won't let go!

We begin our tortuous journey by being introduced to a young couple, Laura who is pregnant and her partner Kit who is heading off across the seas to witness an eclipse. For that is what this young couple do as a hobby, they are eclipse chasers and travel all over the world joing festivals and celebrations and watching eclipses. They've always travelled together but heavily pregnant Laura is staying home this time whilst Kit goes off. It's immediately apparent that something untoward has happened in their past to make them distrustful of strangers, paranoid and both trying to keep a very low profile.

As we whip back and forth over about 15 years, we discover that at one such festival the pair witnessed a shocking and unpleasant event in addition to the eclipse. They stumble across a degrading and violent sex attack and Lauras determination to ensure justice is brought to bear makes her act somewhat rashly and utter words that are set to haunt her.

Back and forth in time we go whilst the noose tightens, events grow more complicated. I began to mistrust folk, then evidence is presented that made me change my mind, again and again until I didn't know who I could believe any more.

This is an extremely clever psychological twister and illustrate that when everything hinges on what he said and what she said, just a few tiny words can make a vast difference to how we perceive things.

There are so many smoke screens and distractions I didn't see a couple of things coming til they smacked me in the face and even then when I thought smugly I'd sussed everything out along comes another curved ball for me to deftly duck.

Clever, crafty and conniving, a terrific heart stopping novel tackling taboo subjects and with some delightfully unreliable narrators and a final kick up the bum that has my cheeks still smarting!

The Blurb

In the hushed aftermath of a total eclipse, Laura witnesses a brutal attack. She and her boyfriend Kit call the police, and in that moment, it is not only the victim's life that is changed forever. Fifteen years on, Laura and Kit live in fear, and while Laura knows she was right to speak out, the events that follow have taught her that you can never see the whole picture: something, and someone, is always in the dark. 

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