Blog Tour Book Review / Don't Turn Around by Amanda Brooke

She died.

You’re next.

Now he’s coming for you 

Ten years ago, Jen’s cousin Meg killed herself after failing to escape an abusive relationship.

Now, Meg’s ex is back and Jen’s domestic abuse helpline has started getting frightening calls from a girl who knows things about Meg – details that only the dead girl or the man who hurt her could have known…

As Jen starts to uncover the past, someone is determined to stop her. Can she save this young woman from Meg’s fate? Or is history about to repeat itself?

Published:     24th January 2019
Publisher:  HarperCollins
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source:  Review Copy from Publisher

MY REVIEW

It must be the season for slow burning thrillers, which I do love to read.  In this story, we follow Jen.  Jen's cousin committed suicide ten years ago and Jen has not yet made her peace with it.  With her aunt, Jen works and helps run a helpline for victims of domestic abuse.    We follow Jen as she suspects that either Meg is not dead or someone is playing a cruel trick on her.  Mix that with the fact that Meg's old boyfriend is back in town, that means Jen is constantly on edge and waiting for something to happen.

I really enjoyed this story.  It was slow paced but did have a few twists and turns along the way.  Although I did guess the ending about half way through the novel, that didn't stop me enjoying following Jen as she discovers for herself what was wrong.  Finding out the truth, genuinely was disturbing...

Blog Tour Book Review / The Child's Secret by Amanda Brooke

A little girl is missing. Her parents are hiding something. Who will pay the price?

When eight-year-old Jasmine Peterson goes missing, the police want to know everything.

What is local park ranger, Sam McIntyre, running away from and why did he go out of his way to befriend a young girl?

Why can’t Jasmine’s mother and father stand to be in the same room as each other?

With every passing minute, an unstoppable chain of events hurtles towards a tragic conclusion.

Everyone has secrets. The question is: who will pay the price?


Published:     14th January 2016
Publisher:  Harper
Author Website:  Click here
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source:  Review Copy from Publisher

 After having read both Another Way to Fall and The Missing Husband by Amanda Brooke I was so excited to read her next book.  Amanda Brooke has this way of building up suspense and mystery in a story and adding the right amount of drama to it that I just love.  There a couple of her older novels that I have still to read but don't worry, I'll be picking those up very soon!

What I loved about this story...
I loved this story.  I am so glad that I have started the year with this story (as well as another really long series I am trying to finish).  The writing in this book is so good and so addictive I just didn't want to put it down.  In fact, I have to say that I read this over the course of a few nights after work and kept on reading until I couldn't stand to keep my eyes open any longer!  I liked the fact that this story is split between 'present day' when Jasmine has gone missing with the police trying to find her and 'the past' going through all that happened that lead up to the moment she went missing.  This 'split story telling' is just so addictive.

What I was not fond of with this story...
Honestly, I would have loved the ending to have been a bit more explosive than it was.  That's not to say that the ending wasn't really good and I definitely enjoyed finding out what happened but I think that the suspense for me just kept building in the book and when I came to nearer the end of the book I had built it up in my own mind to be a lot bigger than it was.  That's no reflection on the story telling at all, I think it was entirely my fault for building up the suspense in my head too much.  

Summary...
If you are the kind of reader that loves moral issues and reads authors such as Jody Picoult and Diane Chamberlain then you should definitely pick up this book and give it ago.  My other favourite of Amanda's is The Missing Husband which is definitely a must read...  


 

Book Review / The Missing Husband by Amanda Brooke

The next stunning novel from Richard and Judy pick, Amanda Brooke.

When Jo pretends to be asleep as her husband leaves for work the morning after an argument, she doesn’t realise how deeply she will come to regret the opportunity to say goodbye. By nightfall, her life has changed irrevocably.

David has disappeared and there doesn’t seem to be any trace of him. But Jo is five months pregnant and her marriage is full of secrets – not least, David’s unwillingness to start a family.

As the mystery around David’s disappearance shows no sign of being solved, Jo must choose: will she give up her baby to make the man she loves come home?

Published:     16th July 2015
Publisher:  Orchard Books
Author Website:  Click here
Goodreads :  Click here 
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source:  Review Copy from Publisher

 For me, the mark of a good book is when it can leave you spinning at the end with both joy at having read such a great book and good irritation as the book has gotten so far into your skin you can't help but stew on the story for many hours afterwards.  This was one of those books for me.  I loved it!  Amanda Brook is a new author to me and I will definitely be checking out her other work very soon!!!  There are so many things I can talk about with this story that I enjoyed.  The first being the character development.  Following Jo as she tries to pull herself through her husband going missing, trying to find out where he has got and then what happens at the end (which I won't spoil).  The relationship between Jo and her new baby is one that I found particularly hard to read but it was written really well.  As for the other characters, there are some nice ones and some not so nice ones but they all added to the drama of the story and showed that Jo had such a great support system around her to help her get through this.

I have to admit that I wasn't expecting the ending that I got with this story, it was definitely surprising.  I had all these things in my head about what could have happened and what did happen was definitely not one of those that I had thought of.  I had wished that it might have been a bit more of an explosive ending but for me it wasn't but that did not deflect the fact that this was a fantastic emotional read.

Amanda Brooke lives in Liverpool with her teenage daughter, Jessica. When her three-year-old son died from cancer, Amanda was determined that his legacy would be one of inspiration. Yesterday's Sun is inspired by her experiences of motherhood. 

●● Book Review / Another Way to Fall by Amanda Brooke ●●

What would you do if you could write the story of your life?

After battling a brain tumour twenty-nine year old Emma thinks she is in the clear, but her world comes crashing down around her when she is told her fight was in vain, and there is nothing more the doctors can do.

Realising that she won’t now have time to achieve the things she dreamed of, Emma decides to write her perfect life in a story. She imagines all the things she would have done, the places she would have seen, the husband she would have shared her life with and the family they would have raised. And, mysteriously, as she writes her story, she starts to notice that some of her dreams seem to be coming true.

Now with a real love in her life, and her fading hope burning brighter, reality and fiction start to become blurred. As she writes their life-long love story Emma dares to believe that anything is possible, but can she really change her fate?

Published:     12th September 2013
Publisher:  Harper
Goodreads :  Click here
Series:  Not part of a series
Source:  Review Copy from Publisher


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