For month now I am reading book after book which stays behind my expectations. I am beginning to ask myself if it is my fault. Because this book is unfortunately one of those.

The blurb says enough about the story. A young couple travels to a festival in Cornwall in 1999 to watch an eclipse. There they become whitenesswa of a rape. After that the life of many people changes forever.

The story itself is very clever and complex. The problem is that every character is so very unlikable. Laura is extremely difficult. I found it hard to understand her in the past and in the present. I really did not get her anxious problems. And I could not understand Kit’s devotion for her. In the end I got it. But it is a long way to the end and the story drags and drags. The pace is extremely slow and sometimes the story gets lost. The thing about Kit’s father and his brother are not relevant for the story. As well is the background for Jamie, the rapist, not really necessary. It is just too much information. And Beth, a major character, is left in the dark. I really did not get why Kit and Laura lived in this total fear for 15 years.

At first I found this thing about the eclipse chasers very interesting. But the chapters following Kit to his trip to the current eclipse are quite boring and of no meaning to the story. It just got lost on sideshows. The pace is often slowed down by chapters like this. The whole story seemed artificial. All narrators are unreliable. They are not telling things just to reveal them in the end. They all lie. This is clever and interesting but it is told so slowly. It just got boring because it was told so slowly. There is just too much in this book. At the end there is another twist. And another one. It is almost predictable.

This book got a lot of ravenous reviews. Unfortunately I cannot comprehend. The idea is very good. But it is just too long, too dragging. The story gets lost. I had high expectations. But it is just too long, too tedious. The thing with the unreliable narrator is just overworked. There are one or two twists too much. I can see the brilliance of the idea, of the story itself. But it is somehow overworked. And the pace was so terrible slow. Maybe if I would not have received this book from NetGalley I would not have finished it. In hindsight it was a good and complex story, but the way to the end was quite a struggle.

I was given an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.
I absolutely loved this book. Couldn't put it down. And (without giving anything away) the last 25% of the book was excellent. Kit and Laura are the perfect couple and their story unfolds with them both telling their story, past and present. Cannot recommend this highly enough - best read so far of 2017. Will be hard to beat.

I really liked this book, another excellent page turner from the queen of Thrillers.
Plenty of twists and turns.
I give it a 10/10.

From the very first page I was drawn into the story and found myself reading faster and faster to find out what was going to happen. Worth more than the five stars that I am able to give.. Too good a book to not read

A riveting story, a psychological thriller with an unusual element: solar eclipses. When Laura and Kit cross paths with Beth at an eclipse festival in Cornwall, nothing will ever be the same again. Who can we trust, is honesty the best policy or should we protect those we love by keeping them in ignorance? Integrity and reputation are central to the plot, and each individual's perceptions of an event will be different. I've just finished reading this compelling story, and found the twists and turns in the characters' fortunes, their challenges and tragedies believable and the writing excellent. It's hard to review without giving away too much, but this is an accomplished, enjoyable, intelligent and original novel which is well worth immersing oneself in. It's a jolly good read.

What. A. Book. Written by Erin Kelly, author of, amongst others, The Ties that Bind, The Poison Tree (which was also a TV series I believe) and co-writer of Broadchurch, He Said/She Said is a deftly written psychological thriller full of twists and turns. Set in both the present day and during the August solar eclipse of 1999 it tells the story of Laura and Kit who in the aftermath of the eclipse witness an attack which has repercussions for the next 16 years.

Laura and Kit live in London and are expecting twins; Kit has been chasing solar eclipses since he was young and Laura has caught the bug. Being pregnant with twins Laura decides to stay at home whilst Kit travels to the Faroe Isles to see the March 2015 eclipse. Laura is anxious and nervous about his trip, for reasons that aren’t immediately clear, whilst Kit reassures her that everything will be fine. Interspersed with his trip are flashbacks to the first solar eclipse they saw together in Cornwall in 1999, the attack they witnessed and the subsequent court case and their resultant friendship with Beth, the victim.

I do love a book which is dual narrative (the story is told from both Laura’s and Kit’s point of view) and multiple time frames and, in less capable hands this may have felt clunky and choppy but the pages whizzed by. This isn’t really a whodunnit, it is more an explanation of what happened and whether everything is as it seems. The multiple view points mean that the story is built gradually with different perspectives of the same event. The tension is really ramped up and just when you think you are on solid ground Kelly pulls the rug out from under you.

I loved the way the book was separated into sections represented by the five stages of a total eclipse of the sun; first contact, second contact, totality, third contact and fourth contact representing the different pieces of the puzzle coming together. There are also some absolutely beautiful passages describing eclipses, which were spine tingling and really made me want to go eclipse chasing!

I also admire how Erin Kelly didn’t shy away from the difficult subject matter of rape and a rape trial. The courtroom scenes are particularly well written and are tense, horrifying and upsetting. This is a book which is centred on a heinous act and tackles head on the criminal justice system and the treatment of rape victims both in court and in the media.

This is an exceptionally clever psychological thriller which kept me guessing and hasn’t been far from my thoughts since I finished it and i’m sure that this is going to be the book of 2017. Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the advanced copy in return for a fair and honest review; it was my pleasure.

There is so much I want to say about this book - the themes it raises and the twists it takes make it perfect for long discussion. However, I also don't want to give anything away - because this book completely took a turn I wasn't expecting, coming like a bolt from the blue and leaving me slack jawed in disbelief and how-the-hell-did-I not-see-that-coming astonishment. I wouldn't want to spoil that for anyone.

He Said / She Said begins with Laura and Kit, as in the blossoming stages of a new romance, they go to Cornwall to watch the Eclipse. Immediately Erin Kelly creates a feeling of intensity, enhanced by the atmospheric, heady environment and the phenomenon itself. I remember both Eclipses (1999 and 2015) which provide the back drop for this story, and while something that was only mildly interesting to me at the time, found it a fascinating and original driver for this book, being both beautiful and menacing, peaceful and dangerous in equal measures, with a different perspective depending on the place or angle you see it from.

This book tackles the extremely sensitive subject of sexual assault and both the attack itself and the following court case are traumatic, uncomfortable and shocking. It switches between what happened during the trial and its aftermath, and the present where Kit and Laura are in hiding, clearly traumatised and terrified. But what led them to this position? Erin Kelly cleverly leads the reader on a merry dance, subtlety planting seeds of doubt into your subconscious before landing that lightening bolt twist to throw it all back up in the air.

I'm not sure I'd say this was a pacey and fast read, it's far more subtle and clever than that. It is gripping though, especially from around half way through when I found myself completely drawn into this eerie, twisted story of half-truths, obsession, power and fear and the resulting catastrophic consequences. If I had to be nit picky, then I'd say I was less interested in Kit's present day chapters earlier on as they went into a bit more detail and science behind the Eclipse chaser aspect. Overall though, I'd say He Said / She Said is a sophisticated, thought provoking psychological thriller, which drips with atmospheric tension and bowls a twist to knock you over.

I did not expect He Said She Said to have such an impact on me. I didn't know a huge deal about the story before, granted - I decided to read it based on the brief synopsis but found myself completely immersed in the dark, twisted and disturbing story!

The narrative switched between the present day and the past storyline, when the attack described in the synopsis takes place. It slowly unravels more and more of what happens, with some dark secrets along the way. Without giving anything important away, it’s really a story of secrets, guilt and how different people deal with traumatic events. It's also about how an incident's consequences and effects can affect different people in different ways.

The characters in He Said She Said are so well crafted – I really cared about Laura and Kit as we learn more and more about them because they're so likeable, so because of this some of the book’s events felt like they shocked me to my core! They’re both ‘eclipse hunters’, so they spend a lot of time travelling to see eclipses around the globe (something that had never occurred to me as hobby for some reason) and it was interesting to read about this. I myself think eclipses are really interesting but couldn’t personally see myself ever crying over one – but perhaps I’ve just never had a powerful enough experience…

I loved the way the story really kept me guessing so you never quite know the real version of events, with lots of tangled emotions creating a really absorbing and, at times, dark novel. It’s also a story that left me really thinking about not only the characters themselves, but their lives and the book’s ending after I finished reading it which doesn’t always happen with other novels. As well as being thought-provoking and addressing important issues around how the law deals with victims of certain crimes (and it dealt with this issue really well, I felt), it was also very interesting and truly entertained me, Plus that ending left me reeling!

A well-written, tense thriller with a difference. Highly recommended!

1999.  In a field at an eclipse festival, 21 year old Lara comes across what she instinctively believes is a rape. Something about the look in the man’s eyes, the blankness in the woman’s, the harness of the scene. Despite the man (Jamie) saying it was consensual, not what it looks like, and the woman (Ruth) saying nothing at all, Laura calls the police – setting in motion a chain of events that will change her life and that of her boyfriend (Kit) in ways neither could have predicted.
2015, Laura is six months pregnant and suffering from anxiety.  She and Kit are married and he is about to leave her for a trip to another eclipse festival, bringing back memories of that fateful summer and what happened next.  Told in chapters that move between 1999 and 2015 and Laura and Kit’s stories, He Said/She Said slowly unfolds into something more than I originally expected (though given Erin Kelly’s other work shouldn’t have been surprised about).
Slowly, a tale unfolds not just of rape but of it’s impact, on the victim, the perpetrator, families, friends and witnesses.  He Said/She Said looks at consent and sexuality, why we view women’s in one way and men’s in another.  Somehow it does all this not only well but in the context of a thriller that had me turning the pages, desperate to know what would happen next.  It is a real testament to Erin Kelly that she can weave such a tale sensitively but also with such darkness and edge.
And it is a dark book, one that makes you question yourself and your assumptions and doesn’t shine any of the characters in that good a light.  As Kit and Laura’s stories unfold you realise that nothing is quite as it seems, that truth – odd as it sounds – can be subjective and is often also about perception, what we perceive to have happened.
Given the subject matter, this isn’t always an easy read, but is a good one.  Laura and Kit are so well drawn I felt I knew them.  I was happy when they did the right thing, disappointed when they didn’t. Ruth and Jamie meanwhile became larger than life, seen as they were only through Kit and Laura’s eyes.  Did I believe them, like them, loathe them?  Hard to say at points.  I definitely didn’t trust them or their truths.
And, by the end, wanting to the know the truth was consuming me as much as it was Laura.  I didn’t just want to know, I needed to know.  And what I found out left me shocked.  It wasn’t the ending I expected.  It was, though, probably the right ending for this twisted tale, one I highly recommend and liked a lot.

This was one of the best thrillers I have read for a long time, Erin Kelly’s writing style is reminiscent of Mark Edward’s. I thought He Said/She Said was fantastic and it certainly held a lot of surprises for me right until the end.
One of the things I like about Erin Kelly is that she doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable truths like the one outlined below:
“We stand side by side in front of the speckled mirror. Our reflections avoid eye contact. Like me, she’s wearing black and like mine, her clothes have clearly been chosen with care and respect. Neither of us is on trial, or not officially, but we both know that in cases like this, it’s always the woman who is judged.”
The book is mostly told from the perspective of Laura over various times and dates, there are also a few chapter written from the perspective of her boyfriend Kit. The majority of the book is set in 2015 where a heavily pregnant Laura is struggling to keep her anxiety under control over someone named Beth coming after them.
Laura’s anxiety is focused on Kit’s upcoming trip to the Faroes to try and view an upcoming eclipse.
“Kit once described real life as the boring bit between eclipses but I think of it as the safe time. Beth has crossed the world to find us twice. We are only visible when we travel. A couple of years ago, I hired a private detective and challenged him to find us using only the paper trails of our previous lives. He couldn’t trace us. And if he couldn’t do it, then no one else can…This total eclipse will be the first Kit has seen without me since he was a teenager. “
She is worried because Beth knows her and knows that to hurt Kit is to hurt her.
Kit and his brother always used to go and watch Eclipse’s with their dad in locations all over the world. His dad was a ‘functioning alcoholic’ throughout most of his childhood and eventually ended up losing his job and being told that he was in liver failure but couldn’t be added to the transplant list because he was still drinking. Kit had a lot of his firsts during these trips: first smoke and first drink of alcohol and almost his first kiss. Eclipse’s hold very special memories for him.
“Chile 1991 was the eclipse of the last century…I was 12 years old and I knew that I would devote the rest of my life to recapturing the experience.”
Kit knows that Laura’s anxiety is heightened and that she is thinking about Beth because she keeps brushing at her arms, something she started doing when her anxiety first began. She gets like this with every eclipse, even though it’s been nine years since Beth’s last known movements.
A lot of the flashbacks in the book centre around an event that occurred at an eclipse festival in 1999. Laura travelled to meet Kit at Lizard’s point to watch the eclipse and whilst she is there she stumbles upon a girl being raped. Her actions after and subsequent friendship with the girl set into motion an unstoppable chain of events.
“I have replayed that moment in my head so many times since then. If I could live the Lizard again, would I pick up the purse? There is a part of me – the cocksure insistence of hindsight – that says I should have left it on the ground and gone back to Kit. Even knowing what followed, I don’t think I could have walked on by. Perhaps though, I would have gripped Kit a little tighter, for a heartbeat longer and savoured perfection while I held it in my hand.”
Reading the book for a second time in order to review it I noticed a lot of things I didn’t notice the first time around and I enjoyed the book just as much.

Just occasionally a real gem of a book comes along and this is one of them. One that makes you want to read and read and not put it down. One that has you slightly tense and on the edge of your seat. A book to make you gasp and shriek and think-OMG!! What a read!. Laura and Kit are unwittingly walking at a festival when they think they witness something. I’m not going to say too much as it will spoil the whole enthralling read. Characters come to life before your very eyes and are they who or what you think? A book that keeps you enveloped so much so that even when not reading about it you are thinking about it and where it could go. I feel very honoured to have read this pre publication and will certainly be looking for more from Erin- this is one stunning read. (Have I mentioned that!?!). A book to blow you away, a book to remember. If you want that one true gem- then this is it.
I voluntarily chose to read this ARC and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased

Now that I've picked myself up off of the floor and my hands have stopped shaking from the adrenaline, I can almost, just about, think straight enough to sum this book up. It's not easy though!
He Said/She Said is f**king brilliant.
There ... I just swore in a review (sorry mum!) But it's justified, and the f**king needs to be said in the right way, the kinda way where it comes right from your stomach because my god this book is just that ...
F**KING BRILLIANT!!!!!!!
Kit and Laura, loves young dream, both a little lost until they happen upon each other at university and their fates are sealed, its practically love at first sight, they become a couple and start chasing eclipses together.
Perfect.
Until that happens. Then that ... and that ... and then before they know it, their perfect life isn't so perfect anymore and they are living a life neither of them could have imagined.
Fearful. Scared. Isolated.
With only each other to trust and rely on, what will happen if the past catches up with them?
I was instantly hooked on this book, Kelly weaves a beautiful yarn, the story is intricate, it's delicate and it's shocking.
One of my favourite things about He Said/She Said is it's simplicity, we aren't dealing with twenty-thousand possible suspects/outcomes/twists/turns/craziness that are just impossible to keep up with, Kelly introduces us to just the right amount of characters, in my opinion, giving us the chance to really get to know them, to see where they fit in the plot and to understand and appreciate their reason for being written.
We are taken on a journey with Kit and Laura, a journey that spans fifteen long and difficult years; we love them, we fear for them and we are rooting for them to overcome what life has thrown at them, through no fault of their own ... Or was it?
There is nothing superfluous about Kelly's writing, each chapter brings something to the table and that is a skill.
I was reminded of BA Paris' Behind Closed Doors in that respect; another author who doesn't fill page after page with a load of old tosh to make their book bigger or to flesh out a story line that doesn't need fleshing out; readers hate it and thankfully, I'm seeing less of it nowadays (thanks everyone!) Not only does it make the reader happier and keep them more engaged, it shows the incredible skill of the author.
He Said/She Said is around the four-hundred pages mark, depending on the format, and Kelly fills them all to perfection. I doff my hat!
I cannot discuss the plot, it would be far too easy to let something slip and as this is a serious book review blog and not a Facebook status spoiling the last episode of Broadchurch (you know who you all are!!), I refuse to let that happen.
Instead, I will finish with this, if you like a book that will toy with your senses, that will make you gasp, that will make you desperately reach for the matchsticks so you can read just one more word (yes I was that bad at one point) then buy this book.
He Said/She Said is right up there with The Opticians Wife by Betsy Reavley and The Sister by Louise Jensen in terms of it's utter brilliance and true keeping to the genre 'psychological thriller'.
Quite simply, it does not get any better than this.
#sleepstealer

‘It’s going to be a classic he said/she said, textbook case decision by jury. Half the female jurors are already in love with him.’

Kit is an eclipse chaser. Not long after he meets and falls in love with Laura, he convinces her to go to Lizard Point in Cornwall to watch the 1999 eclipse. While they are there, Laura stumbles across what looks like a rape. The young woman doesn’t speak but the man tells Laura, ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick’. Laura doesn’t think so and phones the police. This takes place 16 years before the novel begins.

In London, 2015, Laura is pregnant with twins, the product of three rounds of IVF. It means that she won’t be travelling to see the eclipse but Kit, who she’s now married to, is heading off to the Faroes. We learn early in the novel that something terrible has happened in relation to Beth, the woman who was raped.

Beth has crossed the world to find us twice. We are only visible when we travel. A couple of years ago, I hired a private detective and challenged him to find us using only the paper trail of our previous lives. He couldn’t trace us. And if he couldn’t do it, then no one can.

The story unfolds across the two time periods and, in the 2015 section, via two narrators – Laura and Kit. It’s no mean feat to plot a book across time periods and narrators but Kelly guides the reader smoothly between sections. She uses the different narrators for dramatic irony allowing the reader an insight into a couple of whopping secrets the couple have been keeping from each other.

Thematically the novel explores female friendship and marriage but these are largely considered through the lens of the rape and its aftermath. The perpetrator, Jamie Balcombe, is ‘public school, lovely-looking boy. His dad’s a big cheese, CEO of a FTSE 100, was in the same year as Prince Charles at Gordonstoun’. I can’t be the only reader to be reminded of the Brock Turner case as Balcombe relays the way in which his prospects at a big architectural firm have been damaged by the accusation. Kelly treads a fine line in terms of the way she presents events and how she uses them to serve the plot, exploiting the doubt that society creates around female victims. It’s difficult to say much more without ruining any of the plot but I was satisfied with the outcomes Kelly presents.

I don’t read a lot of psychological thrillers but when I do pick one up, I want to be taken by the hand and guided, via some flawless writing, up entirely the wrong path. While I’m eagerly looking for the foreshadowing, I want to be so wrong that the twists are shocking while still making perfect sense. I’m a demanding reader but with He Said/She Said, Kelly pulls this off with aplomb.

In a recent blog post, Kelly stated:

I’ve said before that Barbara Vine, Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith hugely inspired my work and they still do, but I don’t consciously measure myself against them like I did in the beginning. Anxiety of influence has been something I have gradually shrugged off over six books. This, at last, is all mine.

If this is book is all Erin Kelly then Erin Kelly has a new fan who’s keen for more. He Said/She Said is a gripping, satisfying, intelligent read.

If you want to check out the opening for yourself, He Said/She Said is this week’s Book at Bedtime on The Pool.

A thoroughly enjoyable read which kept me gripped to the end.

Sorry but I found this book quite slow and wasn't for me. Thanks anyway.

What I Thought:

I’m going to start off by saying this is going to be a short review. It’s no reflection on how much I enjoyed this book – I loved it! But I want to avoid any spoilers so minimum plot discussion to follow!

In 1999 the first total eclipse visible from the UK since 1927 occurred. In deepest darkest Cornwall there’s a festival to celebrate. Kit is a well established eclipse chaser and Laura joins him for her first one, clouded out they miss out on the best views of the eclipse, however they stumble across the aftermath of a rape. He Said/She Said is told from the dual points of view of both Kit and Laura, and the story is split into 5 sections, mirroring the different stages of the eclipse. The action in the story moves between the present day and the past, telling the story of how Kit and Laura met, moving through the festival and the attack, and then covering the aftermath.

For me the story took a little while to get going, having seen He Said/She Said popping up in WWW Wednesday posts on a few different blogs, I would say I’m not the only one who found this, but once it kicked in, wow! Erin Kelly created a world that kept me turning pages. I loved seeing Kit and Laura’s relationship develop, Erin Kelly does a wonderful job in capturing the changes within their relationship over the years, from the glow of the early relationship, to the changes that come both from being a part of a long term relationship, but also occur as a result of their unique circumstances. Erin also does an incredible of building suspense, with a series of twists and turns that keep you guessing and doubting yourself, becoming about much more that just the he-said-she-said scenario that the title suggests, and despite being a regular reader of all things thriller I have to admit to being caught out on at least one occasion!

Would I recommend it?

I honestly cannot recommend this book enough! If you like a good thriller go out and buy this book! I’ll certainly be hunting out some of Erin Kelly’s other books.

Plot and writing wise, I felt He Said/She Said was very vague and wishy-washy. I didn’t think that plot point and backstory were explained very well, I understand the tool of holding information back to achieve suspense and keep the audience interested but this was a bit too vague and held back for me to be intrigued by.

Personally, I felt the best part of the book were the courtroom scenes. These felt a lot more authentic than the rest of the plot and I would definitely read more by Erin Kelly if she focused on these and wrote courtroom based novels. The rest of the plot didn’t really fit for me, especially the eclipse chasing aspect. Yes it enabled some aspects of the plot to fit together, but overall it just felt like unnecessary padding and unneeded extra detail.

Kit Mc Call has travelled the world chasing solar eclipses since he was a child, with his father and twin. He meets Laura Langrishe at university and they become soulmates; living together and viewing eclipses together. In 1999 they go to a festival in Cornwall and Laura witnesses the aftermath of what she interprets as an obvious brutal rape. The victim, Beth is traumatised and says nothing. Kit sees the offender at the scene, but does not see what Laura has witnessed.
Then story alternates between 2 time periods: 1999 and onwards, and the present: 2015. Chapters are written from the view of one of the 3 main characters. The rape case in 2000 comes down to one person’s word against another - the He said/She said of the title. Laura feels sure of what she’s seen, but under harsh and humiliating questioning from a defence barrister, tells a white lie in order to secure a conviction. She’s horrified at what she feels she was pressurised into doing and knows that Kit would never be able to forgive her for this perjury. She anxiously keeps her secret, terrified he’ll find out, or that Beth or others may tell him.

After the court case Beth becomes increasingly dependent on Laura, trying to build an unhealthy friendship that Kit is increasingly wary of. In his eyes it becomes obsessive. Beth uses the solar eclipse sites to track them down. They become increasingly reclusive, changing their identities, their home and using no social media.

The story builds with incredible tension – we are drip fed details of what has happened to Kit, Laura and Beth since the court case in 2000. Lies, omissions, embellishments, events being altered to fit agendas – all leading to drastic consequences. Mental instability, obsessive friendship – you’re never sure of the truth; you never know who is telling the truth as they see it, who’s omitting parts to suit themselves or who’s downright lying. You don’t even know for sure if a rape has taken place.

This book makes you question everything you read in it – every character, every conversation, every occurrence, every responsibility. It does not let you settle, anywhere! How one decision can lead to so much trauma, grief and ruined futures is astonishing! Everything is open to question and it isn’t until the climax of the book that you realise quite how much has been covered up and by whom. Very tense, and with good twists - I found it thoroughly entertaining, and a super read – I will be looking to Erin’s other titles now.

Fantastic dark story telling that compels you to keep reading, even as your mind burns as you wonder what next.
Gripping.

t is 1999 and Kit and Laura, eclipse chasers, are on the Lizard , Cornwall, to view the fist major eclipse to be visible in Britain for many many years. In the immediate aftermath their lives are changed forever when Laura witnesses a rape.
After a brutal court case,the victim, Beth, turns up unexpectedly on their doorstep and the lives of Kit and Laura are soon entangled in a web of lies and deceit.
In alternating chapters Kit and Laura retell their version of events over the ensuing 15 years from 1999 to present day 2015.
It would be remiss of me to reveal anymore of the plot other than to say the the rape is the catalyst for everything that subsequently happens.
It is a mark of a great psychological thriller when you cannot guess what will happen next, when the next twist in the plot takes you totally by surprise. Kelly achieves this with great skill, teasing the reader, and building the tension as the story reaches its dramatic conclusion.
The characters are multifaceted, never quite what they seem to be on the outside, there is always something new to discover about them.
He Said/She Said is a fantastic, tense, dark, intelligent psychological thriller that had me gripped from start to finish and I could have read in one sitting if work had not got in the way.