Twists and turns, sad, scary and disturbing - this was a hard story to get into and then, although I didn’t want to read what was going to happen next as I sensed it would be not nice, I was hooked. The story of a normal family, or is it? Past events catch up with each character, bad choices in life affect their futures. I need to read a happy, fun story to get over this one! Don’t read it if you want sunshine and laughter.

Wow what a cracking read ead .A real page Turner with lots of secrets and twists that I never expected. Mark and Abi seem like the perfect family but when they have a student stay on an exchange visit things start to get intense especially between the children. A story that grips you from the beginning

Corinne is a french exchange student who comes to stay with Beth and her family Mark,Abi and their other daughter Eva,all is well when she comes but then she starts to dominate Beth even telling her what to wear and when they start to get closer still they look forward to Corinne going home.The family then agree to spend a week in France with Corinne's family with Beth already there having gone over earlier,but when things go wrong and Corinne's dad is killed in an accident when Mark is driving,Corinne cimes back to stay with Beth and then things take a turn for the worst.The book is well written and moves along at a good pace but i would not it had me gripped from page one it is more of a slow burner,i would recommend this book however and it is a decent 4 star read.

This book took me on one hell of a ride! It took me a little while to get into it as the beginning is quite slow but I am so glad I persevered and didn’t give up on it! Now that I have finished the book I can see why it was necessary for the slow start, it misleads you into a false sense of knowing.

The book starts with one of the characters being led into a police interview room, covered in blood and clearly in shock following some tragic event that has not long occurred, while keeping from giving much away. It then moves back in time, to the beginning of the events leading up to the resulting tragedy. It is very cleverly done. The author has you thinking you know the characters, when in fact, you realise you didn’t really know them well at all. I was thinking badly of a particular character for pretty much a majority of the book.

Following many twists and turns, manipulation and deception, secrets and lies. The book finally concludes with a bang! Unveiling shocking truths and tragedies that brings everything together, resulting in a HUGE SHOCKER of an ending!

Although I found it slow to begin with, once I managed to get past that, the book had me hooked! The character are well written and their development through the book is good. The characters on the pages create the atmosphere for what you are reading and you can really get a good sense of the emotions of the characters, especially Beth.

A domestic thriller that although slow to start, will keep you guessing and have you shocked to your core with its final events! Wow!


** I received an advanced copy of this ebook to read and review. Thank you NetGalley, the authors and publisher for allowing me the opportunity. What an intense read! **

This is the second book written by Karen Perry that I have read and it was certainly a compulsive page turner. It is hard to review the book without giving away any spoilers.
Suffice to say that there were lots of secrets, seriously screwed up situations and parts of the book where I felt uncomfortable reading, as if I were a voyeur looking in on something disturbing. The characters, whilst not all likeable, were interesting, complicated and cleverly portrayed.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest and independent review

4.5/5

This is a complex dark domestic thriller that is hard to summarise without giving too much away. But the arrival of Corrine, a french exchange student leads to events and revelations that no one could have see. Corrine and youngest daughter Beth become extremely close and Abi Beths mother is concerned with the amount of influence Corrine has over Beth. The fragile nature of teenage relationships is conveyed so well along with the desperation of wanting to fit in.

You know someone is going to die from the start but it’s not clear who or why right until the end. This is definitely a bit of a slow burner that gets darker and darker as the book goes on. There are twists all over the place and the ending was as hauntingly twisted as you would expect reading this.

This was eerie and beautifully written with well fleshed out but deeply flawed characters.

There are few parts where the plot line slows a bit but overall the ending is worth persevering through the slow parts.

Abi's daughter is taking part in an exchange programme with a french girl coming to stay with them. The mother calls before hand having a sense something bad might happen. How could anyone have known just how right she would be.

Well what a twisted story this was. As I finished I found myself needing to sit for a moment to digest what I had read. Its a very good story but it does tug you in many directions. The story jumps from the present day with Abi to the past and how everything came to be. The plot is quite steady but you know its building to something horrific. Throughout there are smaller stories that just add to the drama and help to tie in the story. Some I figured out but others were very clever twists to the tale. The ending is well done and leaves you thinking how on earth does anyone come back from that. The characters all have many flaws not making any of them overly likeable but I think that works really well with this. You're not sure where your sympathies lie. A dark, twisted thriller.

Stranger is a believable, complex domestic thriller from writing partnership Karen Perry, who show their skill in crafting a disturbing and compulsive tale set in a normal family environment. This is a really sinister tale of the cataclysmic effect that Corinne, a teenage French exchange student, has on an apparently normal Dublin family when she comes to stay. We know from the start that someone is going to die, but that adds to the tension as it’s not obvious right until the end who or why.

Beth is a troubled 15-year-old living at home while Eva is a high-flyer at university, so their mother Abi is pleased — at first — that Beth has a new friend. Abi’s house-husband, Mark, has his own problems and is dealing with the recent death of his sister. It’s Corinne’s gift for enticing everyone to tell her their deepest secrets that drives the story towards its shocking and unexpected conclusion. Assured storytelling and neat twists. A complex story with plenty of intensity, action, twists and an explosive and satisfying conclusion.

Dark, twister, and eerie in the extreme, Stranger is a completely gripping portrayal of the dark underside of family life. Misdirection is everywhere, twists and turns around ever corner, and while it took a while to get into, I soon became addicted, flicking through the pages to find out what secret would be uncovered next. Yes, it is very much a slow burner, but worth it in the end.

Disclaimer - I was fortunate enough to be provided with an advance reading copy of this book by NetGalley. This has not affected my review in any way, and all opinions are my own.

What an opening chapter !! This one got my interest from the very first pages.

Abi is happily married with two daughters, Eva and Beth. Eva is getting ready to head off to university but Beth is struggling with school, where she doesn’t seem to have any friends.

All that changes when foreign exchange student, Corinne, comes to stay. Her and Beth seem to hit it off and are inseparable but little things that Abi notices between the pair puts her on edge.

This is a book full of secrets and lies. Although the opening is a shocker that gets you hooked straight away I did find the story slows in various places but not enough to put me off reading until the very end !! This is more of a domestic mystery so if you are a fan of that genre you will love this, just stick with the slower areas because it is definitely worth it!!

Thank you to Penguin Michael Joseph UK and NetGalley for a digital copy of this book.

This is a complex thriller involving teenage relationships; full of tension, jealousy, bullying and a wish to fit in.

Beth is a lonely child, frozen out of a normal school life by a group of girls, one of whom used to be her best friend. When Corinne, a French exchange student comes to stay, Beth thinks she has found a real friend but then events take stranger and stranger turns.. After Corinne's visit, Beth and her family follow her back to France and the situation becomes even more complex.

This is a well written and very cleverly plotted novel. The dramatic ending is neatly signposted by flash forwards. It is a bit of a slow burner which gets darker as it progresses. It is definitely worth sticking with. The characters are believable and I felt a real sympathy for Beth. An enjoyable read with an important message about the insidious nature of bullying.

Thank you to NetGalley and Michael Joseph for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a bit of a slog for me , i found it quite slow to get going . I did enjoy it when I finally got into it .
When Beth has an exchange student visiting she is very excited as none of her old friends bother with her and actively bully her constantly . She is desperate for a friend , enter Corrine who soon has Beth under her spell , Eva her older sister has her own secrets and can't stand Corrine , Corrine is getting a little bit too close to Mark the dad . Eva seems to be soaking up all this families secrets whilst hiding some of her own .
A good read but I did find some bits a bit too far fetched

This is a good read but a bit of a slow burner.
Beth is a lonely teenager who has been dropped by all her friends so her family are happy when an exchange student comes to stay.
Corinne is a bit of a strange one but her and Beth become close friends.
It’s a bit hard to summarise the book as it will give away the main points of the story but I can say there’s a lot of secrets that come to the surface, and Corinne always seems to be part of it.
I think I struggled a bit with this book as I didn’t like any of the characters so there was no-one I wanted to support.
This is a good read but it took a while to get into.
Thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph UK and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Slightly mixed feelings about this book; I enjoyed it less than others by Karen Perry and I don’t really know why.

It’s quite a slow start as the reader is introduced to happy family. Mum, working and successful, dad, stay at home father and two girls. French au pair arrives to help and it soon becomes clear that the veneer if middle class comfort and respectability is not at all as it seems. In a way, these are ordinary people going about their lives, but I didn’t really have any feel or connection with any of them. The pace begins to build and the later exposés are uncomfortable. However, as I wasn’t totally engaged, I didn’t get the tension or sense of shock that I’d expect. It’s well written, but lacks something that takes it towards the exceptional.

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

I struggled with this one. For me the characters just didn’t come to life and by the time I’d got halfway through the book I was starting to skim read and had to force myself to get to the end.
The story is fairly complex, intertwining a variety of teenage / young adult problems. There were some unexpected twists toward the end but it just wasn’t for me.

This book was not for me and at 10% was a DNF, it all felt a bit uncomfortable tbh and not somethimg wanted to read,have lobed the authors previous books and will definitely read the next one

Having loved every single one of their books, Karen Perry is one of my all-time favourite authors. But, sadly this one just wasn't for me. I felt uncomfortable from the off with the early hints of what might be to come. With a cast of adolescent girls and young adults combined with a theme of sexual relations and abuse I really didn't enjoy the story line and wouldn't have picked it up had I known.

This gripped from the start ut then seemed to slow down and the development of the story lost its edge. However it was still a very good complex psychological read that kept me tryng to evealuate what was going to happen next.I could not believe in the characters and felt that the situation of the whole story was unrealistic. after the slow parts the story picked up into an amazing crescendo of an ending that really made the reading so worthwhilee.

I found it difficult to get into this book after the first few attention grabbing pages, and even by the end I didn't fully believe in the character of Corinne. However, the final third really whipped along with satisfying twists and revelations.
Thank you to netgalley and Penguin Michael Joseph for an advance copy of this book

Compelling Psychological Suspense...
Compelling psychological suspense, both chilling and twisted in equal measure. Characters are credible and the storyline engaging from first to last page and whilst pacing is variable the tension mounts well. A menacing read.