Member Reviews
Anything for Her is the author's third psychological thriller. I've read the first book, The Hidden Legacy, but not the second. The books are all standalones with new characters, so it doesn't matter if you haven't read either of the previous two.
Billy Orr is a nice guy with a troubled past who has returned home to help his dying sister. He finds himself caught in a web of lies when he meets his ex-girlfriend Aimi and she asks him for a favour. I wanted to shout at him for being so naive as I wasn't convinced Aimi could be trusted. I figured it would end in disaster - and it certainly didn't go as Billy had expected.
The narrative switches easily between past and present and also between the multiple voices. The writing is great, with lots of vivid descriptions of people and places. The plot is a twisty one, cleverly constructed, and the tension builds up gradually as the book progresses.
Anything for Her certainly kept me guessing - I wasn't sure exactly where the plot was heading - or why - until the final pages. A great ending to a book of family secrets, past relationships and manipulative people.
Bloody hell, what a thrilling ride that was!...5-well-deserved-stars. The book and the plot was absolutely brilliant. This had me hooked right from the start.
When Billy returns home to spend time with his dying sister, he bumps into his ex-girlfriend Aimi, the love of his life. He might not have seen her in eleven years, but Billy’s never forgotten her. He’d do anything for her then, and he’d do anything for her now.
When Aimi tells him that she wants to escape her abusive husband, Billy agrees to help her fake her own death.
Once Aimi disappears, Billy must face the possibility that perhaps she had different reasons for disappearing – reasons that might be more dangerous than she’s led him to believe.
My heart went out to Billy throughout this book. First, his sister is dying, and then he discovers the love of his life is being abused by her husband, and then she uses him to fake her own death.
I thought the ending was shocking, but brilliant. It was the icing on cake. I feel like the whole book justified that ending.
Many thanks to Net Galley and Bonnier Zaffre for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
I found this book to be very far fetched and not at all like I had expected
Ok, I’ll just come out and say it. This book was awful. It was almost a DNF but I struggled through it and read most of it while walking on a treadmill because I felt like it would be a waste of time if I wasn’t doing something else productive while reading it. You get the picture.
Billy is a severely disturbed and confused individual who has always been in love with Aimi. In fact, she’s the one who got away. When Billy arrives in town to see his dying sister, Mia (perhaps the only character with her head on straight), he runs into Aimi at the grocery store. Aimi coaxes Billy to help her run away from her abusive husband, a man who belongs to a powerful family in town. The book is long and drawn out and although the ending is pretty shocking, it is not unbelievable. I feel like the whole story could have been written in one or two chapters.
Thank you to Netgalley, G.J. Minett, and Zaffre for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Don’t have a review on this book as I have only got a little bit . I really disliked this book . Sorry to say I didn’t like it .
When Billy returns home to spend time with his sister, he bumps into his former girlfriend, Aimi. He may not have seen her since they were teenagers but he's never forgotten her and his feelings for her are still as strong as they were back then. Aimi tells him she wants to leave her abusive husband and she needs Billy's help to fake her own death. But can Aimi be trusted?
Wow, what a ride! G.J. Minett sure knows how to spin a web of deceit and lies. This is one of those stories where you can't trust anyone. Every word that comes out of these characters' mouths needs to be weighed up carefully and even then, it's hard to know if what they say is the truth or not.
I really liked the way the author tackled this story. Anything For Her has an incredibly intricate plot which is brilliantly constructed. Yes, it takes a bit of concentration and focus as the storyline switches back and forth between various time periods but it also enables the author to end certain chapters on a bit of a cliffhanger, ensuring I was gripped and eager to find out more.
Joe is an incredibly fascinating character. You never quite know how he's going to react to certain situations and he's not the most reliable person either. Maybe you think it's a tad weird that he'd go out of his way to help someone he's not seen for so long. Or that he could possibly still be in love with her after all this time. But I think his backstory explains that quite well, when you realise at which point in his life he met her.
I've read all three of G.J. Minett's books and I think this is his best one yet. Utterly compelling and absorbing throughout with the most satisfying conclusion. If you've not read anything by this author before, I heartily recommend you fix the error of your ways.
Interesting novel imtertwining the question, "how far would you go?", with the underlying question, "how does our past shape our present?". Billy has lead a fairly mundane life until he crosses paths with Aimee, his teen love who remains foremost in his heart a decade after they parted ways. Pulled into her plot to disappear, Billy spins finds himself on the brink of real trouble. Stepping back to analyze the situation, Billy ultimately figures out how Aimee has used him as well as her affect on the lives of his dying sister, brother-in-law and the Vedra family into which she had wed and tried to escape. Not only does he unravel the mystery that Aimee has become but he rewrites the script for how her scheming will allow him to finally escape the mundane life in which he often daydreams of escaping.
This’s was not a particularly good book, the story was a bit silly and far fetched..
What a man will do for love and how guillable he was.
This is the second book I have read by this author, having requested the title partly based on the description of the book and partly due to the fact that I enjoyed his previous work.
The concept that someone would do something for their first love solely down to the fact that they still had feelings for that person kind of intrigued me. How far would you go to try and rekindle a relationship with them? And would that person feel the same way?
Billy and Aimi dated for a while when they were teenagers, and their relationship came to an abrupt end when Aimi's parents divorced and she was forced to move away from the area to live with her father. Now 11 years later, Aimi is married to the son of an influential local "businessman" with fingers in many pies, many of them rather dubious. Billy is back in the area visiting his sister who has some difficult news to share with him, and bumps into Aimi in the local supermarket where they swap phone numbers. From there on in Billy finds himself getting in deeper and deeper with Aimi and her in-laws, not really knowing whose version of recent events to believe. I felt very mistrusting of Aimi yet the pressures her family were putting on Billy made me wonder whether maybe she was genuine. She recruits him to help her fake her own death and before long questions are being asked of Billy that even he cannot answer, despite him being heavily involved. Things just don't add up for anyone - not even Billy.
Billy seems a very troubled young man, and I wondered whether he perhaps had signs of autism or something similar. Aimi certainly underestimated him, as did a few other characters. He has a very methodical way of dealing with life which is probably why he was such a whizz kid with computers - his mind works in a logical process like a computer and this only helps him deal with the fallout of Aimi's disappearance. It may take him a while to work it out, but slowly but surely he gets there and ultimately has his own solution to the whole situation.
The ending surprised me - while I was expecting some kind of extreme action to conclude things it certainly was not what the author had in store for Billy and Aimi and their families.
Once again I enjoyed the author's work and I found it a very quick read. I will definitely recommend this to friends and family.
Anything For Her is about Billy who returns to his home town to visit his poorly sister and bumps into his ex Aimi whom he hasn't seen for 11 years but never stopped loving. Even after all the time that has passed he'd do anything for her so when she reaches out to him, he doesn't hesitate to offer a helping hand. I'm really sad to admit that I couldn't really get into this book. I really wanted to like it and maybe it was just wrong timing for me to read it. I found it somewhat difficult to connect with or understand the characters and the story line often felt like it was dragging. I thought it was all a bit forced and just didn't feel the mystery it was supposed to convey. I'm really glad I'm in the minority with this as most people seem to really enjoy it. This makes me want to give it another go some day, but for now it's not going to be making its way to my favourites.
I have mixed feelings for this book. It was a slow start. You do feel for Billy, although what he did to his father’s corpse was quite strange. He is, I guess autistic. However, the story did get interesting, with the arrival of Aimi . There were some twists and turns that add some tempo to the rythme. Although I didn’t see the ending coming, I find the last part awkward. The land lady snooping in your private affairs, just to fill up her journal, was rather disconcerting. Also, if he had tied up the body to a mini fridge, how could it be a swimming accident? And how did the body wash to shore if it’s tied to something heavy? I might give this author another chance. This would be a good book to read by the beach.
3* Love is Blind Stars
This story took me a while to get into, as it was rather slow in the beginning but then it gained momentum with many twists and turns to be had along the way.
The story was told in multiple voices some of them alternating between the past and present. The characters were very complex and interesting and had me guessing who was a friend or foe. I did connect with Billy and felt desperately sorry for him and all the heartache and hardships he had to endure in his young life.
This book certainly covered the topics of families, relationships, secrets, lies, deception and manipulation and as for the ending, well, what can I say, I never saw that coming!
Thank you Bonnier Zaffre and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.
another thriller story I had so much fun reading it. thanks to the publisher for accepting my request. Over all, the story ain't the really bad. the characters were good as well. I would absolutely recommend you to read this one.
A really good suspenseful read full of twists. I loved the author's previous books and this is just as good.
This book was SOOO GOOOD!! I loved it and absolutely could not put it down! From page one, I was completely engrossed. Amazing plot, well-developed characters, Tons of twists and turns in the story made thrilling and suspenseful. Honestly I practically read it in one sitting although I had to deal with my life so I had to put it down here and there. Great book! Will not disappoint!!! Thanks so much NetGalley!!
Brilliant read from GJ Minett, yet again. I wondered if this would live up to his first two novels and it did. Clever, original plotting with interesting characters.
Billy Orr returns to his home town to visit his sister, Mia, who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. It brings back distressing memories, for both of them, finding their parents dead after committing suicide when Billy was a teenager.
On this visit Billy bumps into his first ever girlfriend, Aimi, in the local supermarket. She seeks his assistance in faking her own death, to escape from her abusive husband, whose family are well known and powerful in the local community. Although Billy agrees he soon realises that, despite the careful planning, her husband and his family are not going to let this go. Billy is thrown into turmoil.
It begins to unfold that the disappearance involves more people than Aimi had led him to believe. There are several subplots with twists and turns and a refreshingly engaging ending.
Sadly this book, despite a really descriptive opening, didn't capture my attention immediately, maybe I'd been spoiled by reading some really cracking books in the last few weeks.
I really enjoyed this book. It had plenty of twists in the plot. A real page turner. Highly recommended.
Many thanks to Netgalley and GJ Minett for the copy of this book. I agreed to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.
Read this book in one sitting, something I rarely have time for but this book was one of those ones that demanded you keep turning the pages! A must read, had me gripped from start to finish. I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.
I would like to thank Bonnier Zaffre and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘Anything For Her’ by G J Minett in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
Following the death of their parents Mia and Billy are very close and when Mia is diagnosed as having a terminal illness Billy rushes home to spend time with her. But Billy bumps into his ex-girlfriend Aimi from when they were at school and Aimi asks him to help fake her death to get away from her abusive husband and his controlling family. When Aimi does disappear the police believe Billy knows more about it than he’s saying.
I enjoyed reading ‘Anything For Her’, it had a clever plot, the characters were interesting and the storyline involving. There were enough twists and turns to keep me guessing and a conclusion that was surprising.