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cservat129's review against another edition
4.0
This book grabbed me right from the beginning. It was a great plot with a real psychological twist. I thought the writing was really great and the characters well written. I could not put this one down.
lauralovestoread's review
3.0
Hovering between 3 and 4 stars, I ended with 3 stars for Close To Me. Chosen as the book club book at my local library, I enjoyed the suspenseful storyline of a woman waking with no memory as to what happened, yet she has bruises and bandaged arms from falling down stairs and starts to fear that her husband might just be to blame.
cassies_books_reviews's review
4.0
This book was a slow burner for me. I slowly was introduced to each character and I was drawn into their lives. When Jo Harding fell down the steps at home, she wakes up groggy and sore and without a memory of the last year and her husband wants to keep it that way. The last few memories she has is dropping her son off at the university. Jo is having difficulties remembering the night she fell and what she does remember are bits and pieces she does know she keeps getting the feeling of fear towards her husband Rob and a relief every time he goes to work. Rob keeps reminding her how happy they were and how their the perfect couple. If this was true why does their daughter inform her that he told her not to bring up the last year. Rob informs Jo that her phone broke when she fell and gives her a new one with just his number in it and she keeps having nightmares of her fall and Rob pushing her. Jo decides to investigate the last year of her life and it starts with her children and the place she previously volunteered at and she does this without her husband knowing. The more she digs the more she starts to realize maybe they weren’t the perfect couple or family and her husband may be hiding more than she realizes. This book was definitely a psychological thriller that evolves around family drama.
bibliobethreads's review
4.0
I got the opportunity to meet the lovely Amanda Reynolds in person at a Headline bloggers evening I went to recently where I also picked up a copy of her debut novel, Close To Me in exchange for an honest review. Thank you very much to Wildfire Publishers (an imprint of Headline) for a copy and to Amanda for the wonderful chat we had that evening. Now, if you like your psychological thrillers, Close To Me is a novel you definitely shouldn't miss out on reading, it's a fantastic and tense tale that had me gripped right until the end and I became terribly attached to the characters and their lives - the sign of a wonderful author.
The premise initially reminded me of the brilliant Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson i.e. a woman has an accident which results in her suffering amnesia and questioning whole periods of her life that she has missed. It wasn't long before I realised that although there were slight similarities at the outset of the novel, Close To Me stands by itself quite independently and should not be compared or any potential twists anticipated. Our protagonist, Jo Harding has lost one year of her life after falling down the stairs at home but snatches of events keep coming back to her as she is recovering from her head injury. She begins to realise that certain things are being kept from her by her husband and her two grown up children, but why? What has happened in the past year that has been so terrible that her family are keeping secrets from her in this way? Also, if Jo manages to uncover what has happened in the past year, will that be a good thing or will she wish she had never remembered?
I loved the way this novel was structured. We only hear things from the perspective of Jo but she is such a fascinating character (and somewhat unreliable narrator due to her head injury) that I immediately warmed to her and was rooting for her to get to the bottom of what precipitated her fall down the stairs in the first place. The reader is transported between two time periods, Jo's present situation and her fight to recover her memories and back to a year ago where one of her last memories is dropping her son off at university. As we, the reader find out things as Jo is finding them out herself it felt very intimate and exciting as a reading experience and I thoroughly enjoyed all the revealing moments, especially close to the end where I quite literally could not put the book down until I had found out EVERYTHING. This is a strong, very memorable psychological thriller and a brilliant debut for the genre. I wish Amanda Reynolds every success for the future and I'll certainly be reading whatever she writes next.
Interested? Buy Close To Me from Amazon now as an e-book for the absolute bargain price of 99p!:
For my full review and many more please visit my blog at http://www.bibliobeth.com
The premise initially reminded me of the brilliant Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson i.e. a woman has an accident which results in her suffering amnesia and questioning whole periods of her life that she has missed. It wasn't long before I realised that although there were slight similarities at the outset of the novel, Close To Me stands by itself quite independently and should not be compared or any potential twists anticipated. Our protagonist, Jo Harding has lost one year of her life after falling down the stairs at home but snatches of events keep coming back to her as she is recovering from her head injury. She begins to realise that certain things are being kept from her by her husband and her two grown up children, but why? What has happened in the past year that has been so terrible that her family are keeping secrets from her in this way? Also, if Jo manages to uncover what has happened in the past year, will that be a good thing or will she wish she had never remembered?
I loved the way this novel was structured. We only hear things from the perspective of Jo but she is such a fascinating character (and somewhat unreliable narrator due to her head injury) that I immediately warmed to her and was rooting for her to get to the bottom of what precipitated her fall down the stairs in the first place. The reader is transported between two time periods, Jo's present situation and her fight to recover her memories and back to a year ago where one of her last memories is dropping her son off at university. As we, the reader find out things as Jo is finding them out herself it felt very intimate and exciting as a reading experience and I thoroughly enjoyed all the revealing moments, especially close to the end where I quite literally could not put the book down until I had found out EVERYTHING. This is a strong, very memorable psychological thriller and a brilliant debut for the genre. I wish Amanda Reynolds every success for the future and I'll certainly be reading whatever she writes next.
Interested? Buy Close To Me from Amazon now as an e-book for the absolute bargain price of 99p!:
For my full review and many more please visit my blog at http://www.bibliobeth.com
annaelliot's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
bookworm_smanff's review
4.0
I got into this book the further along I got into it. Engrossed in fact. It definitely keeps you guessing the whole way through. Would recommend
beckiebookworm1974's review
4.0
Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
https://www.beckiebookworm.com
Really enjoyed Close To Me by Amanda Reynolds, wasn't sure what to expect this being a debut author but I certainly wasn't disappointed.
Close To Me tells the story of Jo Harding after she falls down stairs hitting her head and losing her memory of the past year.
On coming home things feel different and disjointed, Jo feels there is an undercurrent of deceit, secrets being kept from her by her husband and children and as she unravels the mysteries of the past year things escalate to a shocking conclusion.
So this was a great psychological read, it kept my interest and pulled me in, the writing was superb, and the storyline very easy to follow.
Close to me is told in two parts, real-time and snippets of the past year, though it has a slow build this is not a bad thing as you get to understand Jo's life and how she is the person she is.
The characters here felt real and human, some you could sympathise with others not so much.
If I had to pick my least favourite person in this, it would have to be the daughter I found her very self-centred and immature, but she's a product of her overindulged upbringing.
I myself have grown up children there is no way on this planet I would be paying for their accommodation.
what a right spoilt brat Sash is.
Close to me delves into the dynamics of family and the resulting aftermath when things ultimately implode.
I did kind of guess where this was going but it didn't detract from my overall enjoyment reading this.
Would I recommend this? Hell Yeah!!!
It was an engaging read.
Thank you to NetGalley, publisher and the author for providing me with an arc of Close to me
This is my own honest unbiased opinion.
Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
https://www.beckiebookworm.com/
https://www.facebook.com/beckiebookworm/
https://www.beckiebookworm.com
Really enjoyed Close To Me by Amanda Reynolds, wasn't sure what to expect this being a debut author but I certainly wasn't disappointed.
Close To Me tells the story of Jo Harding after she falls down stairs hitting her head and losing her memory of the past year.
On coming home things feel different and disjointed, Jo feels there is an undercurrent of deceit, secrets being kept from her by her husband and children and as she unravels the mysteries of the past year things escalate to a shocking conclusion.
So this was a great psychological read, it kept my interest and pulled me in, the writing was superb, and the storyline very easy to follow.
Close to me is told in two parts, real-time and snippets of the past year, though it has a slow build this is not a bad thing as you get to understand Jo's life and how she is the person she is.
The characters here felt real and human, some you could sympathise with others not so much.
If I had to pick my least favourite person in this, it would have to be the daughter I found her very self-centred and immature, but she's a product of her overindulged upbringing.
I myself have grown up children there is no way on this planet I would be paying for their accommodation.
what a right spoilt brat Sash is.
Close to me delves into the dynamics of family and the resulting aftermath when things ultimately implode.
I did kind of guess where this was going but it didn't detract from my overall enjoyment reading this.
Would I recommend this? Hell Yeah!!!
It was an engaging read.
Thank you to NetGalley, publisher and the author for providing me with an arc of Close to me
This is my own honest unbiased opinion.
Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
https://www.beckiebookworm.com/
https://www.facebook.com/beckiebookworm/
alicematt's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
steph1rothwell's review
4.0
Close to Me is a new novel that follows the fairly common theme of having an unreliable narrator. But this book is slightly different with the narrator not being in her twenties. Here, Jo is in her mid-fifties, and struggling with having nothing to focus on now that her two adult children have left home. Neither of them have lived up to the high expectations that their parents had of them and their disappointment is evident. Rob, her husband is quite critical especially when Jo decides to help out a walk in centre where they help people to find work and with other issues they may have.
After her accident, she has no memory of the previous year, either within her family or the work she does at the centre. The book goes back and forth between the year leading up to the accident and a daily diary of Jo’s attempt to try and remember.
At first I struggled to warm to any of them. But as I read more I had more empathy for Jo and the difficult relationship with both of her children. I felt her frustration at not being able to remember the people she had known quite well before the accident. And not knowing what happened to damage the family she thought was close knit. I would have liked to get to know more about Fin, he was probably the character I liked most.
Its strange reading a novel where the reader knows what happened in the previous year but the character doesn’t and I liked it very much when everything was revealed and how exactly she had been deceived.
Well written and easy to read. I will read more by this author in the future.
With thanks to the publisher for the copy received.
After her accident, she has no memory of the previous year, either within her family or the work she does at the centre. The book goes back and forth between the year leading up to the accident and a daily diary of Jo’s attempt to try and remember.
At first I struggled to warm to any of them. But as I read more I had more empathy for Jo and the difficult relationship with both of her children. I felt her frustration at not being able to remember the people she had known quite well before the accident. And not knowing what happened to damage the family she thought was close knit. I would have liked to get to know more about Fin, he was probably the character I liked most.
Its strange reading a novel where the reader knows what happened in the previous year but the character doesn’t and I liked it very much when everything was revealed and how exactly she had been deceived.
Well written and easy to read. I will read more by this author in the future.
With thanks to the publisher for the copy received.