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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
At first I was a bit skeptical, because the beginning sounded like quite a few other books that I have read. After that it really picked up and the story had many twists and turns, and it was hard to let go of the book. There are some bits that I did not really find realistic, and I decided to not put too much emphasize on them, but since I am still thinking about it, maybe that was a bit of a turn off for me. There were also a couple of inconsistencies along the way, but otherwise the book was very entertaining, it kept me interest, and mostly I enjoyed the pace. It could have been a bit shorter. A bit of a better balance would have made this book nearly perfect. Pretty sure lots of people will love this book!
Don't Look Back begins with newlyweds Rose and Luke who are taking a belated honeymoon to a remote Caribbean island. At the end of their trip, Rose admits that her violent ex had tracked her down to their London flat, there was an altercation and she ended up killing him. Luke is shocked that there is a dead body in the home they are about to return to and calls his friend, Mickey, for advice.
This is a fast paced and action packed story set in Sainte Therese, London and Donegal and told across multiple timelines. I was quickly drawn in to the story and empathised with the characters throughout.
There were SO many twists and turns along the way, I felt that I couldn't be sure who to trust for certain.
My thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for sending me this ARC in return for an honest review.
This is a fast paced and action packed story set in Sainte Therese, London and Donegal and told across multiple timelines. I was quickly drawn in to the story and empathised with the characters throughout.
There were SO many twists and turns along the way, I felt that I couldn't be sure who to trust for certain.
My thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for sending me this ARC in return for an honest review.
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Violence, Murder
The body in the bedroom…
Luke and Rose Miller have spent an idyllic week on the Caribbean island of Saint-Thérèse, a surprise belated honeymoon that Rose sprung on Luke out of the blue. Now it’s time to go home, but suddenly Rose tells Luke she can’t go back with him. She tells him she killed a man in their flat, and the sudden holiday was her way of running away. The dead man was her ex-partner, Kevin Davidson – a man so violently abusive, Rose had fled from her home in Donegal, changed her identity and tried to lose herself in London. But Kevin had tracked her down, broken in to their flat and attacked her when she came home, and it was half-accident, half-luck that he’d come off worse in the encounter. Luke is shocked but is determined to protect Rose, so he devises a plan to deal with the body. For his plan to work he needs help, though, so he contacts Mickey Shiels, his ex-lover, a woman who now spends her life trying to help abused women get away from their violent partners…
There’s lots to like about this one. The writing is very good and there’s a variety of different settings – Saint-Thérèse (which I think must be fictional), London, Donegal. The pacing is steady rather than fast-paced, but there’s always enough momentum for it to have held my interest and kept me turning those pages. However, somehow it never caught fire in quite the way I expect from this type of thriller. Although there were frequent big build-ups to events that created some good tension, the events themselves tended to fizzle out. Not so much fireworks as sparklers.
We quickly learn that both Luke and Rose are hiding secrets from each other, and those secrets remain hidden from the reader too, and from Mickey, who has (oddly) dropped everything to run to the aid of a man who betrayed her so badly he nearly destroyed her life. I can’t say I really found any of these three main characters convincing, and I had a pretty good idea of at least one of the major secrets from quite early, so it didn’t come as a big surprise. There are also hints as to the motives early on, and while I didn’t work out the whole thing, again I felt rather unsurprised when all was revealed at the somewhat unexplosive end. And the post-climax tidying up of everyone’s lives simply didn’t ring true at all – it seemed like a cosy ending tacked on to a book that had been anything but cosy up to that point.
This was my first Jo Spain and I did find it quite enjoyable as a quick read, but nothing outstanding or unmissable. However, a couple of blog buddies who are both long-time Spain fans had pre-warned me that this isn’t one of her best, so I’ll take their advice and try her Inspector Tom Reynolds series instead. I feel the lack of fireworks in this one might suggest her style would work better in the police procedural type of novel than in the standalone thriller format. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Quercus, via NetGalley.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Luke and Rose Miller have spent an idyllic week on the Caribbean island of Saint-Thérèse, a surprise belated honeymoon that Rose sprung on Luke out of the blue. Now it’s time to go home, but suddenly Rose tells Luke she can’t go back with him. She tells him she killed a man in their flat, and the sudden holiday was her way of running away. The dead man was her ex-partner, Kevin Davidson – a man so violently abusive, Rose had fled from her home in Donegal, changed her identity and tried to lose herself in London. But Kevin had tracked her down, broken in to their flat and attacked her when she came home, and it was half-accident, half-luck that he’d come off worse in the encounter. Luke is shocked but is determined to protect Rose, so he devises a plan to deal with the body. For his plan to work he needs help, though, so he contacts Mickey Shiels, his ex-lover, a woman who now spends her life trying to help abused women get away from their violent partners…
There’s lots to like about this one. The writing is very good and there’s a variety of different settings – Saint-Thérèse (which I think must be fictional), London, Donegal. The pacing is steady rather than fast-paced, but there’s always enough momentum for it to have held my interest and kept me turning those pages. However, somehow it never caught fire in quite the way I expect from this type of thriller. Although there were frequent big build-ups to events that created some good tension, the events themselves tended to fizzle out. Not so much fireworks as sparklers.
We quickly learn that both Luke and Rose are hiding secrets from each other, and those secrets remain hidden from the reader too, and from Mickey, who has (oddly) dropped everything to run to the aid of a man who betrayed her so badly he nearly destroyed her life. I can’t say I really found any of these three main characters convincing, and I had a pretty good idea of at least one of the major secrets from quite early, so it didn’t come as a big surprise. There are also hints as to the motives early on, and while I didn’t work out the whole thing, again I felt rather unsurprised when all was revealed at the somewhat unexplosive end. And the post-climax tidying up of everyone’s lives simply didn’t ring true at all – it seemed like a cosy ending tacked on to a book that had been anything but cosy up to that point.
This was my first Jo Spain and I did find it quite enjoyable as a quick read, but nothing outstanding or unmissable. However, a couple of blog buddies who are both long-time Spain fans had pre-warned me that this isn’t one of her best, so I’ll take their advice and try her Inspector Tom Reynolds series instead. I feel the lack of fireworks in this one might suggest her style would work better in the police procedural type of novel than in the standalone thriller format. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Quercus, via NetGalley.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
dark
mysterious
tense
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2 stars
This story had a good start but boy did it go down in a basket.
It was soo dragged and boring. It took me forever to finish it.
Happy couple on honeymoon have an abrupt wake up call when the wife said he killed someone prior to leaving so she can't go back.
Go straight and read the last chapter because that's the only part that is worth, a good twist actually in the end.
This story had a good start but boy did it go down in a basket.
It was soo dragged and boring. It took me forever to finish it.
Happy couple on honeymoon have an abrupt wake up call when the wife said he killed someone prior to leaving so she can't go back.
Go straight and read the last chapter because that's the only part that is worth, a good twist actually in the end.
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Slow read that seemed to take for eve
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes