Wow! I loved C.J. Tudor's debut, The Chalk Man. But she's definitely taken a step up with The Taking of Annie Thorne. The two books are similar with regional, small town settings and a past history that threatens the present day. Something happened to Joe Thorne's little sister, Annie. Something dark, macabre and tragic. And it's happening again.

I enjoyed the character of Joe and his cynical approach to life. He's returned to his home town of Arnhill and his old school to teach English. At this point, I'd like to point out that not all teachers are alcoholics but sarcasm does seem to be a default setting for most teachers. Sometimes it's the only way a teacher can cope. And it's certainly the only way that Joe can cope as he confronts his past and the truth about his little sister.

As the story unfolds, the creepiness that's there from the beginning, begins to ratchet up until it reaches screaming pitch. Cleverly, C.J. Tudor doesn't explain everything leaving the reader's imagination to conjure up possible answers. And I think I can get away with saying that the ending is just as chilling as the beginning. A truly magnificent book!

I first came across CJ Tudor when I read by chance her debut novel 'The Chalk man' after been intrigued by the title and description. I really enjoyed that book and could see that there was more to come from this new author, so when I heard this book was due out I was very keen to review it.
Excellent plot and the main character Joe is so interesting. The suspense / tension builds throughout the length of the book and by the end I was unable to put my kindle down.
The main character Joe Thorne is not a character you automatically like, he is an ex-gambler and owes money to a lot of evil people and a pathological liar. When Joe receives a mysterious email, he returns to Arnhill and applies for the position of an English teacher position at his former school. Memories flood back on Joe seeing old aquaintences and places, most of which he would rather forget. Arnhill is the place where his sister 8 year old sister Annie disappeared only to be found a couple of days later, but she was never the same. Joe now feels that there is unfinished business that requires sorting.

I would like to thank Net Galley, Penguin UK and Michael Joseph for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Excellent book, well written and with first class storyline, full of twists and turns with surprise ending. Very much enjoyed reading and found it hard to put down.

The Taking of Annie Thorne is the second book by C J Tudor and I found it just as enjoyable as her debut The Chalk Man. This story has a very dark feel to it and no doubt will haunt my mind for a while to come.

Joe Thorne returns to his hometown Arnhill to settle old scores with his former school pals. With no good childhood memories due to his Dad and his beloved sister Annie dying there and a somewhat strained relationship with his Mother his return is not a welcome one.

This creepy tale certainly made me use my brain in understanding as I found Joe to be a deep, loner and weird type. My eagerness to find answers had me desperate to read on in to the early hours.

A fabulous well written psychological thriller that was a pleasure to read. My thanks to Net Galley for the ARC digital copy. This is my own opinion of The Taking of Annie Thorne

Wow! This is one compulsively creepy story! The first thing I should say is that I'm a bit of a scaredy cat, but I so wanted to read this... and although it scared the bejesus out of me in several places and I had to stop reading it before I went to bed, I'm so pleased I pushed my boundaries!

I loved the main character and his sense of humour - that really added something special to the story and he reminded me of Elvis Cole from the Robert Crais books - that same type of wise-cracking banter that you know is going to get him into trouble. But although he provides light moments, he is surrounded by darkness - some of it of his own making, but some of it ancient.

I thought the setting was perfect and loved the contrast between a run down pit village and the supernatural. Phew! I need to detox on a few romcoms now...

A very enjoyable book., I hovered between 4 and 5 star rating so I rounded down to 4 stars. The main character I would describe as an anti-hero and I absolutely loved the sarcastic approach. There were some excellent sentences that made me stop and think 'why can't I ever think of things to say like that?'. For example 'Happiness is overrated..... If you bought it on Amazon, you'd demand a refund. Broke after a month and impossible to fix. Next time will try misery - apparently that s**t lasts forever'. The primary reason for me not giving a 5 star rating is I found myself linking this book with Stephen King's novel 'It' except only one of the gang of kids returns not most/all of them. Have a read of this I'm sure you will enjoy the style and narrative.

A brilliant and wonderful dark scary read. This is as good as the Chalk Man. Joe is not a likeable character as the story unfolds but this is a compelling read. I read this in one sitting. Perfect reading for a very windy and rainy winters night. What did happen to Annie? This story is about bullying and wanting to belong and being scared to tell the truth. It is about myth and fact mixed together. A great scary read right up to the end.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

This is the second book I have read by CJ Tudor ,I loved The Chalk Man and The Taking Of Annie Thorne in my opinion is even better .This is a terrifying,creepy thriller..Joe Thorne who grew up in the old mining village of Arnhill returns as a Teacher in the local school he once attended ,with a burning desire to dig up the past and find some closure as he has never got over the death of his young sister Annie .The story is one of those that grabs you from the first chapter and never lets go .Such a clever plot told in past and present time.a story with mystery ,a little bit of the supernatural , revenge and murder .Fabulous ! Many thanks to the Publisher ,the Author and NetGalley for my preview copy in return for an honest review .

Did not enjoy this book anywhere near as much as the first novel. Disappointing story and even more of a disappointing end.

The Taking of Annie Thorne is the second novel of CJ Tudor, published as 'The Hiding Place' in the US. While I haven't read The Chalk Man, the high praise did not escape my attention, so I was very keen to try this new author.

Joe Thorne is an ex-gambler who owns lots of money to bad people. After receiving a mysterious email, Joe returns to his birthplace of Arnhill to apply for an English teacher position at his former school. Seeing old friends and places brings back memories that Joe would rather forget, but he has some unfinished business in Arnhill that needs sorting out. Arnhill is the place where his sister Annie disappeared when she was 8. Annie was found a couple of days later, but she was never the same.

Joe is a piece of work! A pathological liar with a deeply engraved sense of sarcasm and a weakness for booze and gambling. He is not the kind of character I would be normally fond of. However... when I learnt about Joe's relationship with his sister Annie, my heart melted. I got to believe that deep down Joe was a good guy who wants to do the right thing.

When I started reading the book, I was immediately pulled in. The writing was superb! The right amount of creepy and engaging, with a witty dialogue. I couldn't get enough. CJ Tudor has an undeniable skill in writing dark stories depicting the chilling atmosphere of a small town with interesting characters.
Somewhere around half way through the book, as the full story of Annie's disappearance slowly unfolds, the writing gets very grim, sick even, and I started to feel really uneasy and perhaps less invested in the story as this caught me by surprise. The reading experience turned out to be much more disturbing and darker than I expected, horror-like I would say. What I did love were the the numerous twists that I did not see coming, the last one left me gaping.

As much as I enjoyed this book, I'm now off to look for a fluffy, heartwarming book to steady my heartbeat!

Many thanks to Penguin UK - Michael Joseph for an advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Out on 21 February 2019!

C J Tudor is one of a few authors who can really set my nerves on edge. The Taking of Annie Thorne is both satisfying and complex. Joe, is a creepy central character and the dismal small minded and claustrophobic Midlands former mining town is an ideal setting .

Joe returns to his old school as a teacher intent on uncoveringthe truth around the disappearance of his sister years earlier. He’s seedy, rundown and difficult to like, but compelling nevertheless as layer upon layer of secrets are revealed. Kept me gripped as a thriller right the way through and a couple of scenes, particularly in a disused mine shaft, are genuinely chilling.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

Set in Nottingham, a child goes missing and then came back not the same person. The brother returns to his roots and the past all comes back to haunt him. Another fantastic book from CJ Tudor, you won't want to out this down!

Wow, this is a fabulous, scary, menacing story, that had me gripped all the way through. It's every bit as good as C J Tudor's wonderful previous book the Chalk man and similar in style and type of setting, though both are very different, stand-alone novels. This is a superb horror story well worthy of comparisons to Stephen King.

Our protagonist is Joe Thorne, he's a teacher who returns to his childhood hometown, an old pit village called Arnhill, near Nottingham, to take up a position teaching at the local school he was once a pupil at. Joe is quite a complex character, though one I really liked. He obviously has a bit of a past, both back when he was a boy and in the intervening 25 years since he left school as he seems to know a few really dodgy characters and it isn't long until he starts bumping into folk from his childhood, this is a small town with that claustrophobic feel, where everyone knows everyone else and you just can't avoid anyone for long.

He doesn't want to avoid people though, he's come back to confront a terrible event which happened when he was 15 and discover once and for all what happened to his little sister Annie, whom he adored. At only 8 years old she went missing. He has had a cryptic anonymous message saying only, it's happening again and he is reluctantly drawn back to this gloomy place, shadowed by the traces of the old mine which created the town in it's heyday, then virtually destroyed it following it's closure. Now turned into a piece of parkland the Pit looms around every corner and it's influence remains in the very air of Arnhill.

Like the authors first book, it is told in dual time as Joe narrates it now and then takes us back to when he was a lad, when the story of what happened to little Annie is the stuff nightmares are made of.

This is one heck of a scary book, creepingly fearful it oozes with a malignant miasma that taints everything it touches. Even the house Joe rents has its secrets. There is a taint of a murder which was committed there, we are treated to chittering, skittering creepy crawlies, and the overwhelming sense that something, or someone is out to get Joe.

Several storylines intertwine and we are never quite sure who, of the many brilliant characters can be trusted and who is to be viewed as an enemy. If you like something to send shivers down your spine this is the perfect book to curl up with by a cozy fire this winter, but maybe not when you're completely alone in the house.

Annie Thorne was 8 years old when she went missing for 48 hours, only to die some months later with her father in a tragic traffic accident, in which her older brother Joe was badly injured. Years later, Joe returns to his home town, a hopeless, depressed, mining village. Joe is now a teacher but also a drunk and a gambler, with no living family and few friends. Joe has large gambling debts, for which he has already been crippled in one leg, and now he hopes to use events from his childhood to raise funds to pay off his debts, save his life and settle old scores.
This is a dark story, with both horrific and supernatural aspects. The main characters are for the most part unpleasant. There is evidence of ancient evil powers possessing both people and places. There is unremitting darkness for most of the book, yet the twist in the ending makes it worthwhile.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Michael Joseph for a free advance copy in exchange for an honest review of the book.

I really enjoyed this book - it was fast paced and dramatic. I enjoyed the characters and felt their motivations were realistic and believable. Loved the touch of gothic, too!

⭐️⭐️⭐️

But disappointing for me sorry.

The characters were all unlikeable and although I can see what the author was trying to do creating a suspenseful almost horror story, something didn’t click for me.

The last third picked up the pace and I did enjoy this section however I felt the end let it down, the ‘twists’ at the end didn’t really add anything to the story.

I’m obviously in a minority though judging by the 4 and 5 stars others are giving it.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. I have read one other book by this author and really enjoyed it and this book was just as good. A MUST read

I really enjoyed reading this book,I enjoyed The Chalk Man, and I think this was even better.The main character was not obviously likable but I warmed to him, faults and all.The story was interesting and unpredictable,and kept me guessing.I loved the fact that it was different to the usual thriller with dark undertones of horror thrown in.It was edge of my seat reading as it developed and became increasingly scary.I had no idea how it was going to pan out.It was a cracking read, thanks very much to netgalley and the publishers for an ARC.

Twisting and full of intrigue, this is an excellent thriller which will give you the creeps.

Having very much enjoyed The Chalk Man, I was keen to get my hands on The Taking of Annie Thorne. I hoped that Tudor would be able to produce something of the same quality and was not disappointed. The gentle drip-feed of information, the slow reveal of the characters' histories and the shocking twists and turns right to the final page all kept me hooked, although I didn't dare read it too close to bed-time!

This is a must-read for 2019.

I loved loved loved The Chalk Man and so was desperate to get my hands on The Taking of Annie Thorne. I read it very quickly after receiving it but had to take a little time to collect my thoughts on the novel because it was not at all what I was expecting. It was part psychological thriller, part horror story and fully creepy. It made me think of well loved Stephen King novels and kept me guessing throughout. Like King, CJ Tudor gives good characters, they are believable and multi-faceted.

Joe Thorne returns to his hometown. A place filled with bad memories and dark secrets. His sister disappeared a number of years previously, throwing the family into turmoil. When she returned twenty-four hours later she was not the same person who had left. There are many twists and turns in the novel. The tension is built well throughout and really ramps up as the end approaches. I couldn't put it down and if I was forced to then I raced to get back to it. In true horror style there were occasions where I was reading with my hands over my eyes.

I will definitely be keeping an eye out for CJ Tudor's next book.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers and the author for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.