3-4 stars. Some parts of this book is absolutely excellent and provides the wanted and needed twists, thrills, and chills I want in my thriller books, but in other parts it was extremely slow and hard to enjoy. I found myself putting it down in those parts and moving to other books, which made me feel it never got to that 5 star read I love. Overall, well written and a fun read, that does provide enough shocks and thrills to make it worth reading.
Will make sure I buzz it up!

This is a tricky one for me to rate.

On the one hand, I found it a very quick read that kept me turning pages because I wanted to find out what would happen. Although Sam isn't a very likeable character, she is an interesting character and that matters more.

On the other hand, I found the writing itself to be quite rushed and inconsistent. The tenses are all over the place – a story being told in present tense does NOT need to use past perfect to describe things that happened previously. It can just use past simple as a person would if genuinely narrating a story. ("I'm going to the shops. Yesterday I stayed at home." Not "I'm going to the shops. Yesterday I had stayed at home.") This was so irritating and distracting that I found myself skim-reading in places in an effort to ignore the clunky narrative style. And since Sam is supposedly an author (a very tired trope; why do authors constantly write their characters as authors?) she should know better!

Overall, I think the story had a lot of potential but it could have done with another round of editing – not just proofreading but solid copyediting or even structural work from an experienced editor.

I'm not sure ....I enjoyed it but I'd forget about it in a couple of days and the main character annoyed me for the way she was

A decent mystery thriller. Did Find the book a little slow at times, but an enjoyable story all the same

This sounded like a really good premise for a book, I was drawn to it from the blurb…. However, unfortunately I couldn’t finish it, I felt like it was going nowhere fast and I lost interest, it just didn't grab me.

20 years ago
4 girls played ‘Never have I Ever’
It started as fun
A laugh, a joke
It ended in death

Present day and Sam, one of the 4, returns to Ilfracombe, hoping the past is the past and no ghosts linger
Of course, its not and of course they do

She soon starts to receive cryptic ‘Never have I/you ever’ notes and her life starts to become another game, but this time a game of survival

I loved the setting in Devon, fab descriptions of Ilfracombe and the surrounding areas, especially pleasing was the part about ‘little Switzerland’, the reference to the 90’s throughout were great and any book that mentions ‘Teddy Ruxspin’ gets a plus point!
Interesting that Sam was an author and the references to her fans and people who read and also stalkers of authors were at times maybe a bit too throwaway in their brashness towards readers and what kind of people we are!!
The characters were in the main relatable although Sam ( as quite a few leading characters seem to ) had ‘ a rush of adrenaline’ sometimes twice in a page, overuse of a description loses its shock value sometimes and did for me in this case
The story itself is fast paced and exciting and the writing ( for me ) was clear and easy and the finale was well done and pretty scary
All in all a good read, enjoyable and passed all the red flags that make a good psychological edgy thriller
8/10
4 Stars

A pretty decent mystery thriller about how carefree childhood games could come back to haunt adulthood.

Sam the main character seems to be having a smooth life with her small family, until she moves back to her hometown and mysterious foreboding messages started coming on her doorstep.

I couldn't really relate to Sam's character as she came off more as a controlling bully especially in her relationship with her husband. Speaking of the husband, there wasn't much details about him, so I couldn't really place him effectively in the narrative. Also the first part of the novel was hampered by too much description which slowed down the pace.

However, the second half picks up and becomes more interesting, Although I did predict the ending, I enjoyed following how the puzzle's pieces would come together in the end.
3.5 *****

Thanks Netgalley, the publisher, and author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sam has left her teenage years behind. She's a well respected author, married with a baby and life is going OK. That is until she returns to her childhood home and her past starts to threaten her present. A note through her door - Never Have I Ever Been Punished For What I Have Done. She is thrown back into her past where she, along with her three close friends, played that game. Starting off small, the dares swiftly escalated until that fateful night, the night before Sam was due to leave with her parents, when... well, that'd be telling... Many years have past but someone hasn't forgotten. Sam thinks she knows who but, as her life starts to crumble before her, as more of her past starts to bite her, she realises that it is very much back in her preset and threatens to engulf her once again.
This is a strange book. A lot of the past is hinted at throughout the book. Sam's childhood with her three friends and what they all got up to and what fuelled their fires that they started (not literally). Switching back to the present and Sam, returning home, starts to try and get to the bottom of who is targeting her. And, I guess, more importantly, why? As she digs around in her past, pulling more and more people into her plight, the truth of what happened all those years ago starts to come clear. Well, I say clear, it's actually a bit on the cloudy side all the way through. Is she misremembering or is she hiding the truth - consciously or subconsciously?
I didn't really like Sam. Or her husband Mo. I can't imagine how they got together or why they are indeed still a couple! Their relationship didn't quite work for me but I guess it did for them, to some extent anyway! And then when Sam went digging up all the past, spinning her web around all sorts of extras, well, I really just wanted to slap her.
This wasn't a book that really kept my attention wholly as I was reading it. I do admit to keep putting it down to do other things that popped into my head that needed done so I guess maybe my attention wandering didn't really help me connect fully with what I was reading.
The ending did justify the journey however. When all was finally revealed, most of what I had previously read did start to make more sense and the majority of my reservations throughout were satisfied. I've never read this author before so I did have an element of blind trust that it would all come out in the wash and I was happy that my trust was rewarded. I do fear however that maybe others won't make that leap and fall by the wayside. if you are struggling I would encourage you to keep going if you can. Never know, you might be surprised at what you find.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book

Unfortunately had to give up on this book as it is so slow, so mundane and uninteresting about every single detail and observation that happens to the main character in her everyday life, and ultimately I found the book could not hold my attention.

Thank you for the opportunity to read Never Have I Ever in exchange for an honest opinion.

Sam is doing well in her career, she has a husband and a baby and life is going well. That is until she gets the note through her door that stops her heart in her chest. Never Have I Ever Been Punished For What I Have Done.

Sam is catapulted back to those teenage years spent with her best friends, teasing out each other's secrets by announcing things they had Never, ever done. Pushing each other's boundaries, growing closer and growing up. If only they'd stopped there.

I don't know why, but I do feel like I was reading this at the perfect time of year, with Halloween quickly approaching and everything. It was a good book, with thrills you don't expect and a plot twist at the end (that I didn't expect). I will admit that Sam frustrated me as a character, but more for the way she treated her husband through all of this. To some extent I can understand it, now knowing the ending, but there were times where I did want to shake her and go 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST ASK FOR HELP'. Maybe that's the point though. But overall it was a great book, not my favourite thriller, but it was well written and I did want to keep reading it, so that's a good sign.

Childhood games come back to haunt Sam when she moves back home. This is a book with a little of everything, mystery, marital troubles, paranoia. It was a little slow to start off, but about halfway through I was hooked. Pretty decent book, once it picks up.
I received this through Netgalley and submitting an honest review.

Unfortunately I had to give up on this book. I couldn't take to the main character and it just seemed repetitive and not much happening in the 40% I read. Sorry this wasn't for me.

This psychological thriller is written form Samantha's point of view about a game played with school friends 23 years earlier that has come back to haunt her after moving back to her home town, Ilfracombe.
This was a very easy read, but I wish we had more of an insight to Samantha's husband, as she seems very over-powering and controlling which made it hard to believe she was the one being bullied and not the bully. The setting was perfect, as I live in North Devon it was nice to mentally walk around rather than actually
trying to imagine, and Lucy's descriptions were spot on too.
I did find this story very easy to get into and found the hours whizzing by without realising. Although Sam came across quite unhinged throughout so I wasn't surprised as to why she doesn't have friends, it was still gripping and wanting you to know more and the ends tied everything up nicely.
I would recommend to those who like a good suspense novel that is very easy to read.
3.5 stars rounded to 4

This book really touched me. I felt the main characters were multi-dimensional and really cared about their fate. Very well written and insightful.

I really liked the cover. It is very appealing designed. The writing style is pleasant and very fluently to read. The characters are very well described and look well thought out and consistently interesting. The tension is always present. The descriptions of surroundings, feelings and scenes were also very good. The story is told pleasant and it succeeds from the first pages to dive directly into the story. The storyline as a whole is very coherent and it seems very understandable and authentic. A very fascinating story that you won't like to stop reading.

Found this book amazing! Would love to read more of her books.
5**** from me
Would definitely recommend this to others

Twenty years ago, four teenagers discover a new game and add their own rules. The game spirals out of control.

Now a woman gets a note through her door which chills her blood,
'Never have I ever been punished for what I have done.'

The premise of this story reminds me of ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’. But it is an intriguing premise. After all, haven’t we all done things in the past that we wish would stay in the past?

At the outset of the book, I liked Sam. As the book continues though, I begin to question whether Sam is mentally unwell. Could she be doing these things to herself? What did she do in the past that was so terrible that someone would taunt her about it 20 years later?

Sam’s husband Mo initially seemed like a pushover. As the book continues and we reach the conclusion, the author has done a great job of turning the table and making you see we have an unreliable narrator in Sam.

When Sam meets her ex-boyfriend, Mike, I expected that the book would at some point result in Sam and Mike reuniting, particularly given Sam’s desire to keep meeting Mike a secret from her husband. But Mike is the opposite, being very open and honest with his wife. I can’t quite determine whether that was because he was so frightened of losing Kat or whether he genuinely was such an honest person.

Kat certainly doesn’t seem entirely honest - one face for Mike, another for Sam. But is that unexpected? When we come towards the conclusion of the book and Sam is doing everything she can to save her child, isn’t Kat really just doing the same thing for her marriage when she confronts Sam? That is arguable, but I am still not entirely convinced by the character of Kat.

The actual Never Have I Ever which has resulted in this whole tale was not entirely a surprise. I had worked out that this might be what the author was leading up to but there were still aspects of the ending I was surprised by. And I have to admit, I am still unsure of whether what Sam did was what resulted in the death - or whether someone else had played a part.

By the end of the book, we’ve discovered that Sam isn’t mentally unwell, just an unreliable narrator and someone who has twisted the past - intentionally or unintentionally - to suit herself. I didn’t like her as much by the end!

Overall, well worth a read.

Thanks to NetGalley who provided me a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.

An interesting premise, how childhood games can continue to impact upon us as adults. As a main character I did not warm to Sam, she was not particularly endearing and I felt exhausted at times as to the way her mind would run away with possibilities. I did guess the ending but overall, it was a readable thriller, not my favourite ever but an OK way to pass the time.

Sam has just moved back to her childhood village with her husband and young son.
Something happened years ago before she left which relates to a twisted game of never have I ever and the story follows sam as she deals with the present threat and remembers the past.
it kept me intrigued throughout and I enjoyed the plot however I am not a fan of Sam! - I guess that’s kind of the point though? ... interesting story and I enjoyed the fact that Sam was a writer. I would probably actually read the series she was writing! 😂😂

I found this book to be very slow, not much happened and I am afraid I gave up, so can't really leave a review.