Member Reviews
A tangled web of lies and dark family secrets are aplenty in this twist-turny psychological thriller. Maggie Malone of the Blue and White detective agency is hired by Helene to investigate her cheating property developer husband Gabe. Nobody is quite who they seem in this tale of murder and lies. Told from three perspectives, you will not see the shocking finish coming.
I keep picking up this book and putting it down. I am a big fan of this type of book but for some reason I just cannot get into it. Nothing the author has done it’s just me. I tried several times already and I really wanted to read this
Before I Find You is Ali Knight’s fifth novel, but it’s the first of hers which I’ve read. I was instantly intrigued by the premise: Maggie sounded like a version of Jessica Jones (well, without the superpowers!) while the family dynamic between Helene and Alice – both of who suspected the behaviour of the head of the family – had a lot of potential.
Unfortunately, it took me a while to get into Before I Find You. Maggie’s acerbic attitude was refreshing, but Helene and Alice were so similar that at times I found myself getting confused by which one we were following. Alice is a bit of a spoilt brat, but she’s lived such a sheltered life that her sudden confrontation with reality causes a dramatic shift in character which kept me turning the pages.
Meanwhile, Helene is the catalyst for the entire story – if she hadn’t seen a seemingly intimate exchange between Gabe and a woman at a gala, none of this would have happened – but her chapters for the middle of the story became unengaging. This is the problem when you have three viewpoints which all have their own interesting storylines: I was racing through every other chapter, but struggled to motivate myself to get through a couple of them.
It’s difficult to review a book like Before I Find You without giving spoilers, because I think the story is more successful when you don’t know what’s going to happen. What I can tell you is that there are going to be twists which you’ll never see coming, and you’ll have your heart in your mouth towards the end of the book. It helps that there’s a scene at the beginning of the book which the entire story leads towards – you’ll constantly be asking yourself how the characters find themselves in that situation.
Maggie is a very strong character, and the Blue and White detective agency has a lot of life left in it, so I hope that Ali Knight decides to revisit the agency in one of her future releases. I can’t see any plans for a sequel just yet, but I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.
This was great. The mystery at the heart of the story was thrilling, and definitely had way more twists and turns than I expected it to have. The characters were all quite realistic too, I love when fictional characters have little quirks.
The only, only thing i didn't particularly like was how the mystery of Maggie's past unfolded. It kept coming up at random points and didn't unfold naturally.
But great overall.
this was a well-written book, the main character intriguing and the story gripping and just about believable...
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This book was interesting as the start if the book was almost the end You start with the incident and then you go back and discover how it all came about. It took a little while for me to get into the book and get a connection with the characters but it certainly pick up its pace and became a rollercoaster of twists and turns at the end 💜
After a bit of a slow beginning explaining the back stories of each character, this story started to get going, but unfortunately I felt like it stalled and fell a little bit flat. The biggest thing for me was I was totally unable to warm to any of the characters and found it a bit of a slog to finish.
Thought this fast paced thriller, had plenty of twists and turns.
You think you've guessed it but OH NO you haven't
For me the downside was I felt the ending dragged on a little bit to long.
Thank you netgalley, Ali Knight, Hodder and Stoughton for allowing me to read and review this book.
I made the mistake of starting this book late one evening , the mistake being that I stayed up reading virtually all night as I just couldn't put it down
Before I Find You is one of those books that keeps you on your toes, it's unsettling and intruiging and it felt as though I was crashing towards an inevitable ending where I couldn't turn the page fast enough. Overall a great read, I enjoyed this unusual story and will look up more by this author.
Wow! Twists and turns like you wouldn’t believe. Just when you think you know what’s coming, something else happens. I bonded with one of the main characters, Maggie, and Ali Knight knows exactly how to build up a storyline. Brilliant!
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I really enjoyed the dark, twisty plot but on the other hand, I disliked all of the main characters. The latter was probably intentional on the author's part given the lies and murders that happen in the plot. I found it gripping though despite that and there were plenty of twists and turns to keep me guessing. Will definitely look out for more from Ali Knight in the future!
Sadly this one wasn't for me. Before I Find You follows three difference characters. Helene who believes her husband is having an affair, Alice his daughter and Helene's step-daughter, and Maggie Malone. The private investigator that Helene hires to help her uncover the truth.
The problem is that I seriously disliked all three characters. None have much going for them and all three carry pretty big secrets around with them. The problem is, that I couldn't particularly bring myself to care. I was tempted to abandon the book a few times but I had read so many great reviews if it that I wanted to keep going and see what twists it hand in store for me. Admittedly there were quite a few so it did keep you guessing, but half were predictable and the other half were just ridiculous. While I'm all for the suspension of disbelief when reading, this one just took it a little too far for me.
I really do think that this could just be me though, as I really have seen so many great reviews for it. Perhaps for some reason, it just didn't settle right with me.
This was an easy book to read, but difficult to put down, especially the second half of it. The first half of the story sets the scene and then you are treated to unexpected twists and turns. I would recommend this to anyone who doesn’t want to go to sleep.
This story centres around wealthy property developer Gabe Moreau from the perspectives of his beloved daughter Alice, devoted wife and doting step-mother Helene and Maggie, a private detective who specialises in catching cheating partners. Helene hires Maggie when she suspects her husband is having an affair but with little evidence to find, Maggie soon starts to break her own rules. Meanwhile, Alice starts to become involved in her father's property development business and stumbles upon a threatening note to him.......
The first half of the story is paced slowly as it builds to a twisty, fast-paced dramatic second half that will keep you well and truly gripped to the very last pages.
Many thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this ARC for which I have given my voluntary and unbiased review.
"Maggie is a husband watcher. A snooper, a marriage doctor, a destroyer of dreams, a killer of happy-ever-afters. She runs her own private detective agency specialising in catching out in those who cheat. And she is bloody good at it.
Helene is a husband catcher. A beautiful wife, a doting step-mother, a perfect home maker and a dazzling presence at parties. She has landed herself with one of the most eligible bachelors in town - handsome property developer Gabe Moreau.
Alice is just a teenager. A perfect daughter to Gabe, a kind stepchild to Helene, a tragic girl to a dead mother. She lives a sheltered but happy life, until she finds that handwritten note 'You owe me. I'm not going away.'
All three women suspect Gabe Moreau of keeping secrets and telling lies. But not one of them suspects that these lies could end in cold-blooded murder"
I really struggled with the beginning of this book, i felt that it took too long on the background of the characters and the build up to the major incident in the plot. I didn't trust any of the characters and had absolutely no empathy for them but this changed about 60% into the book. It started to get more interesting (even though i still had no idea what was going on) It is told from the different characters viewpoints so you have no idea who is lying or not. I started to really like Maggie and started to root for her.
I worked out who one of the characters was quite early on but when the plot twist was revealed it was completely bizarre and i found it very hard to believe which is what has made me rate this book 3 stars.
Really enjoyed this book with varying twists and turns. It was well written and captured you into the story and the feelings of those associated.
I was sent a copy of this book for my honest independent review.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable thriller which kept me engaged from start to finish.
An interesting cast of characters who you are never sure about their reliability!
I loved the Female private eye who reminded me of the wonderful Cormorant Strike in Robert Galbraith's. television dramatisation. Feisty,unrelenting and funny without realising it. She usually just investigates marital infidelity,however she ends up with a much more complex case, a rich husband, a trophy wife and a brat of a daughter.
Well worth reading. Make sure you have plenty of time as you won't want to put it down
With a title like “ Before I find you” I could not resist this book.
Private Detective Maggie specialises in catching out cheating husbands. Helene is a new client beautiful, doting step mother and has bagged herself Gabe a wealthy successful property developer. She had seen him with another woman and now wants to know if he is having an affair.
This book is full of secrets and lies. Loved how you knew at the start of the book something bad has happened, then the next chapters count down to the fateful day. Thought this was a very clever ploy to keep the tension and mystery going.
A slow burning start, but oh man the last few chapters had more twists than a Blackpool roller coaster and there were so many reveals that my head was spinning like a fairground Waltzer.
Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.
I'm not quite sure what to say about this book. Yes, I did read it and it did finish it, more to simply satisfy curiosity than because I was really enjoying it. I'm never a great fan of books written from a variety of viewpoints and this was the same. Three totally unlikeable characters were the 'narrators' and so it was hard to really care about any of them. I had guessed the 'reveal' and I must say I was disappointed in the ridiculous ending. Not really for me.
Don’t be fooled into thinking this is your typical wife scorned psychological thriller. There are lots of secrets and lots of things these characters would rather keep under wraps. The story is told in reverse with each chapter being told from either Maggie, Helene or Alice’s point of view. It works backward towards a particular day when everything becomes clear and all the secrets are revealed. I found this a really clever way to tell the story as you know the plot is working back towards something but you don’t know what until the final chapters.
I have to say, the last few chapters were a complete whirlwind, and just when I thought the final twist had been revealed I was shocked yet again when more shocking truths were uncovered and more devastating actions were taken. Towards the end I literally couldn’t put it down.This was the first book I have read by this author and the way she created suspense throughout means this will definitely not be the last I read of her work. Thoroughly recommend for all psychological thriller fans.