This book started well and I did read through to the end but, I must admit, I ended up almost skimming, just to see what happened. The premise was good, really good, but the unravelling was contrived and the behaviour of the main characters rather unrealistic, in my opinion.

This was a good story that had it been executed better would have been a 5 star read. There was just so much stuff that seemed too implausible or far fetched that it kind of ruined the book for me. On the positive side it's fast paced, hooks you from page 1 and is a fairly quick read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this review copy.

My first Richard Parker book. I’d heard such good things about this book and this author that I had to give it a try. The book begins quite shockingly with 4 year old Cooper being abducted from his garden whilst his mum, Lana, is watching from the kitchen window. She manages to foil the kidnapper, but he whispers to her that he’ll be back tomorrow. Some months later, Lana is still trying to find out who the kidnapper was. She uses an app called “Right Where You’re Standing” which identifies murder scenes as she convinced that it will lead her to the kidnapper. On a family holiday to an Amusement Park, Cooper is again abducted. Her husband, Todd, is also attacked and left in a coma. She finds that a picture of her and her family has been posted on the app and listed as potential murder victims. Can she work out who is behind all this?

I enjoyed this book, if that’s the right word! The first part is quite shocking with Cooper and his attempted abduction. As a mother myself, to put myself in that position would be absolutely horrifying and I think the author managed to get the fear spot on! The story starts with a bang, but for me slows up in the run up to the next abduction in the amusement park. I don’t really get why Lana would focus so much on the murderer app, and so obviously put it before both her husband and child. Again, the next abduction gets the fear factor spot on. Being in a busy park area, lots of people and children and you can’t see where your child is. I’ve been in that situation – only for a minute or so – but the fear is immense and I felt every bit of Lana’s fear whilst reading this!

I won’t spoil the book by giving away any of the story, but safe to say this was a creepy thriller which puts you on the edge of your seat. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep your guessing all the way through. The first part for me was a bit slow, but it certainly picked up again and by the end I couldn’t put it down! It kept me awake until the early hours just to finish it! If you like your thrillers, then this is the book for you!

Brilliant. This is an extremely scary novel. Well written, numerous twists and utterly believable. I read it til 2 a.m. to finish it as I couldn't put it down. An attempted kidnapping of a little boy leaves Lana (the mother) petrified and assuming the worst about everybody. Then on a trip to an adventure park her worst nightmare becomes reality as her husband is attacked and son taken. From there the twists keep coming as both parents search for their son. A fantastic novel. Well done Richard Parker.

Every parents worst nightmare is a child abduction. This is the twisted story of four year old Cooper's parents frantic search for him after he is snatched away at an amusement park. There was a couple of twists and turns but for the most part I thought it was a fairly vanilla plot that I wouldn't term a real page turner. Although I have never been in this situation so don't know how I would react, I thought the two main characters weren't overly believable and some of the plot points didn't seem realistic. Thanks to Net Galley and Bookouture for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ohhh i totally loved this book. Faced paced, gripping and it sucked me in from the very first page. This book was a real page turner. I found the characters to be believable in this book, especially Lana. I could feel her anguish and desperation in her quest to find Cooper, her missing son. I felt like i was going through every moment with her. Well done Richard in writing such a great book and i will definitely be reading more of your novels in the future.

Fast-paced thriller that was difficult to put down. From the near abduction of young Cooper, the reader begins a journey that intertwines the efforts of his parents, Lana and Todd, to put the terror behind them while trying to find the man who promised to try for Cooper again. Several threads are woven together into a surprising climax guaranteed to leave the reader satisfied.

Wow this book was good, it was full of tension and was charged with emotion. It was a well constructed plot, the ending was excellent never guessed the outcome at all. A solid 5 stars!

Before reading this I didn’t realise Richard Parker had written books called Stop me, scare me, stalk me and follow me - well this book is all of them and more. Child abduction, people in scary masks, and a frantic search around an adventure park in the middle of nowhere.

I read somewhere that this is Bookouture’s scariest thriller yet - it’s very unsettling and gripped me early on that’s for sure. I was screaming at a character before the first chapter has ended! The idea of the RWYS app and all that results was scary and all too realistic. That was a clever development and I’d never read of this in a novel before. I imagine there is such an app somewhere and this could be developed in future novels which I would like to see. People can be really grim and macabre!

The three stars is because of the ending and a story which ran alongside the main one which I felt was distracting. The settings are all fictional but I’ve placed the map in Ohio since Coitsville is mentioned and there is such a place and a prison nearby.

Such a big fan of Richard Parker. I loved this book. It keeps you guessing all the way never knowing what might happen next. When Cooper goes missing on a family holiday his parents will stop at nothing to find him. A very big thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for a copy of this book to read and review

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview Hide and Seek by Richard Parker.
A parent's worst nightmare - your child is kidnapped and you are left with despair and hopelessness. That's what happens to Todd and Lana - an average couple living in the suburbs. One day, Lana witnesses a masked man taking her son, Cooper, from the yard. She manages to rescue him, but Lana and Todd suffer the after affects of this tramatic incident.
A year later, Todd and Lana win a vacation. This is just what they need to forget everything. That is until Cooper is taken again, and the nightmare begins again.
Great suspenseful book that is fast paced and well written. 4 stars...RECOMMEND!

My review as posted on Goodreads:

This book opens with a hauntingly sinister prologue in the garden of a house. The three main characters are soon introduced. Parents Lana and Todd and their son Cooper.

The characters are believable. The story is set in a couple of fictional settings in rural USA>
The plot is fast moving.
This book is not high-brow literature, but it is a pacey crime thriller.
As the novel builds to its conclusion there are several twists in the tale. In fact it turns into a real psychological thriller!
I will certainly be looking out for future books by Richard Parker on the strength of this book, which is the first of his books which I have read.

I give thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for a copy in exchange for this review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had recently read Richard Parker's 'Be my killer' which I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was extremely excited to read this one.

The story follows a married couple Todd and Lana. They have a son named Cooper. Someone attempted to kidnap Cooper and the family was living in fear after that. It had especially affected Lana. She uses an app which identifies murder scenes and murderers. Someone posts a photo of her family on this app and that is when things start happening...

The book starts off really well and it is quite fast paced and there were some really interesting twists along the way. I would have given it a 4-star rating but the end did not do it for me somehow. It just seemed a bit implausible.

It is, however, still a good book and the plot was very interesting. I will definitely look out for Richard Parker's next book.

A rollercoaster of a ride from the very first sentence. Beyond every parents worst nightmare, this story delivers a terrifying plot that keeps you guessing. The sort of read you won't want to put down until you have finished it.

This book would, I truly believe, make an excellent motion picture - one that would keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time. As a book? Sorry, but it just didn't do it for me.

It's not the plot, which is solid even though it's not terribly original. A child is kidnapped, his parents (one of whom has a deep dark secret) are distraught, police are not doing what parents think they should, parents set out on their own to find their child against all sensible advice and chaos ensues. Rather, my difficulties come from the writing; transition that is sadly lacking (or worse, nonexistent) and way too many unclear antecedents and misplaced modifiers. Consider, for instance, this gem:

"...<i>woman chatting to a doctor in a pink smock</i>."

Well, as it turns out, the doctor was a guy; so no, I rather think he wasn't the one wearing pink.

The story begins as Lana Cross thwarts the would-be kidnapper of her 4-year-old son Cooper. Before he gets away, the mystery man - dubbed "Mr. Whisper" - has the last word: "<i>Tomorrow</i>."

Scared out of their wits, Lana and her husband Todd pick up Cooper and leave the home they love for a small apartment in the city. For months, the kidnapper's tomorrow never comes; but convinced that someday it will, Lana determines that she, and only she, must find Mr. Whisper before he makes good on his promise to return (why, exactly, she thinks that way remains a mystery to me). She taps into a crime-scene-finder iPhone app and does some mostly futile digging around, but that all but stops when she and Todd learn they've won a free two-week vacation to an adventure park.

That's great, they say - we need to get away (my reaction would have been more like, "</i>Are you kidding me? What kind of scam is this</i>?" but then it's different strokes for different folks). And surprise, surprise - once they get to the park, the worst happens: Todd, who leaves Lana to take their son on a ride, is knocked unconscious and Cooper vanishes.

Getting a call to meet up from who she assumes is the kidnapper, Lana rushes off without telling anyone, even passing on heading to the hospital to visit her seriously injured husband. But wait, there's more: Apparently, Todd isn't as bad off as the doctors think; he, too, disappears from right under their noses. From that point on, the action really begins to heat up as Lana goes her way and Todd goes his - mostly for totally different reasons (remember that deep, dark secret)?

From that point on, it's impossible to explain what happens without giving away too much. I will emphasize, though, that the last half of the book was noticeably better and for the most part held my attention quite well. For that, I'm happy; when I'm given the opportunity to read an advance copy of a in exchange for an honest review (as with this one), I make it a rule to not give up till I at least pass that point. In this instance, that worked out for the best even though overall this book really isn't my cup of tea.

It is my absolute pleasure to be taking part in the blog tour for Hide and Seek by Richard Parker. I think I hid it quite well, but I was somewhat of a fan of his last offering, Follow You, and so I was delighted when asked by Noelle from Bookouture if I’d take part in the tour.

Okay. So I may have lied a little earlier. I was absolutely useless when it came to hiding my feelings on Follow You. I loved it and shouted about it as often as I could to anyone daft enough to listen. It ticked all my boxes, a delicious blend of gore and sickly dark humour which had me chuckling into the small hours. So my expectations were quite high when it came to reading Hide and Seek. I am absolutely delighted to say that every one of them was met.

More a creepily unnerving story than a full on gore fest like his previous offering, Hide and Seek is the story of a young family thrown into turmoil by the attempted abduction of the young son, Cooper. Although the first attempt is thwarted by his mother, Lana, his whispered promise that he will return has them all on edge, none more so than Lana who makes it her mission to find the man repsonsible for their terror. When Cooper goes missing, could it be that the same man, a person Cooper knew as Mr Whisper, has returned?

From the very outset of this book I was hooked. It seemed innocuous enough a start. A woman grappling with her laundry as her son plays outside. It takes only a small fraction of time for everything to change and from this point on you get the ultimate sense of pace and jeopardy which will prevail throughout the whole book. As Lana fights with the man in the mask to keep Cooper with her, you get the feeling that her whole world is shifting and what follows is somewhat inevitable and yet no less unnerving and heart thumping.

Lana’s obsession with finding the man who tried to take Cooper dominates the early part of the book, her quest even taking her to former murder sites, every killer, at least in her minds eye, a potential match for the man she is looking for. So it is somewhat of a surprise that both she and her husband Todd overlook what, to even the most oblivious reader, is obviously setting them on fast track to impending doom. They say you should never look a gift horse in the mouth, but when the horse comes fully dressed in a Snip the Squirrel mask, it should at least set some alarm bells ringing. Read the book and believe me that will make a lot more sense.

Although completely different in tone, I still really enjoyed this book. There were less of the shock, bam in your face moments, it really wasn’t that kind of story, but there was a growing sense of unnease with every passing moment, and a slow build of the tension to a highly dramatic conclusion. In some scenes I was almost holding my breath, poised on the edge of my seat, desperate to see what would happen. While I anticipated that some of Lana’s so called friends probably couldn’t be trusted, I definitely didn’t call the who, the why or the how. And as Lana was led on a wild goose chase in search of her son, Todd was dealing with a problem of an entirely different nature. His ‘situation’ led to some of the more, how should I put it, wince inducing moments of the story, showing that Mr Parker’s thirst for blood isn’t entirely sated just yet. Not on the same level as its predecessor, but still able to make the skin crawl.

I love the style of Richard Parker’s writing and the way he can make me invested in the characters, even if I don’t always entirely like them. Not that I particularly disliked any of the characters in this book, with the exception of the obvious Mr Whisper. I admired Lana’s tenacity, even if I did question the sanity of her actions. Even Todd had his moments, his actions, while misguided, all done for the sake of his wife. They both took mad risks in order to save Cooper, ones which almost beggared belief. But let’s face it. It wouldn’t have been such an interesting story if they’d just sat back and left everything to the police now, would it?

I was suckered in from the off and sense of duty (and self preservation) were the only things that could stop me from racing through to the end. Fast paced, short chapters had me turning the pasges well into the night and if I hadn’t had to pretend to sleep before I had to go back to work, I would have finished it in the same evening.

Chilling, thrilling and proof positive that it is absolutely right to have a natural suspicion and perhaps even hatred of American squirrels, I loved it. Cant wait to see what Mr Parker offers up next.

I found myself hooked right from the very first page. Richard Parker has a way of crime thriller writing that draws you right in and doesn't let you go once he has your attention. Hide And Seek starts with a bang and stays that way until the very end, and was just the fast-paced, entertaining, somewhat dark and disturbing thriller I was looking for. The plot is both interesting, slightly twisted and quite intense... The use of the Right Where You're Standing (RWYS) app as part of the plot and plot twists is an interesting and original touch; cybercrime is something we are becoming more and more aware of these days and I liked how this element was incorporated into the story. The many plot twists kept you on the edge of your seat wondering about the who, what and why... And the journey itself was something to look forward to. The only thing that slightly bothered me were the characters. Lana seems a bit hysterical and paranoid (even though I admit she isn't in an easy situation to begin with) and I didn't always agree with Todd's actions and the way everyone handled the situation in general. Sometimes I wondered about the credibility of the parents really being this involved in an active investigation? This doesn't take away the fact that I was still able to thoroughly enjoy this serial killer/kidnapping rollercoaster ride and fans of the genre will be in for a treat.

I received a copy of Hide and Seek from NetGalley for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture Publishing, and Richard Parker for the opportunity. This book will be published August 31, 2017.

I really liked this book! It was fast paced and once I got started, I didn't want to put it down! It had great developed characters, especially Lana. I could really feel her fear and desperation to save her son. My only real issue was the strange side story with the father. I don't feel like it added anything to the story and it was a distraction for me. The twists and turns in the story kept me guessing until the end and the reveal was one I definitely didn't see coming. I will definitely be checking out Richard Parker's other books!

A good book, dragged a little in places but I enjoyed it overall.

OMG! Richard Parker certainly knows how to grab the reader’s attention, with a “heart thumping” opening chapter I found myself well and truly hooked. Imagine one minute your child's having the time of their life and the next minute their gone, taken by a stranger, it's got to be every parents biggest nightmare, the author expertly builds on this fear making Hide And Seek a highly unnerving read.

Lana is very protective of her son Cooper and rightly so, when Todd is snatched and her husband Todd’s left unconscious Lana’s worse nightmares become reality. As if this wasn't enough to capture the reader's attention Lana receives messages telling her to visit a school which was once a murder site and so begins a twisted game, what follows is a tense and riveting read. As I started each chapter I found myself becoming more apprehensive as the author reveals more details of why Cooper was taken.

The author never gives to much away in Hide And Seek, almost up until the final thrilling chapter your waiting for the big reveal. I love it when an author does this as I find myself constantly trying to second guess where the plot is leading, and I'm even more impressed when I get it WRONG or I have “I never seen that coming”moment which happened a few times whilst reading this book so well done to the author.

If you read Richard Parkers previous book Follow You I'm sure you will be expecting some gruesome scenes, but Hide Is Seek is very different to his previous book this one very much builds on the fear of loosing a child and the threat from an unknown person, personally I enjoyed this book more, it's well written with an intriguing plot that's guaranteed to keep the heart racing. Told in short thrilling chapters, each one leaves you wanting to read “just one more”. Would I recommend this book? It's definitely a big loud “yes” from me.

Review maybe altered slightly and edited prior to publication on my blog