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Thank you to @harpercollinsuk and @netgalley for the #gifted advanced digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Stacy Willingham returns with her second novel - another suspenseful and atmospheric mystery meets psychological thriller. I loved her previous book, Flicker in the Dark, but I think All the Dangerous Things was even better! Stacy's style of writing is so immersive and descriptive that I was captivated from the start.

Full of twists and turns, the plot fascinated me and I couldn't get enough. I enjoyed double guessing everything and I love how the story became layered and weaved together.

Themes of motherhood, mental health and sleep problems were all explored brilliantly. Isabelle's flawed and unreliable narration was the perfect accompaniment to the dark journey we are taken on and I was genuinely hooked.

I can't wait to see what this author writes next!

I loved Stacy Willingham's first novel, so I was really excited for this one and it did not disappoint. The twists in this book were so fun and I did not guess how it was all going to unfold, which I loved because I had no idea how this book was going to play out and therefore could not put it down. I do not want to say too much about this book because I feel it is better to ready it without knowing a lot about it. Love both books by Stacy Willingham though and cannot wait to see what she writes next.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

I absolutely DEVOURED this book. I read it in two sittings, I just had to know what was going to happen next. It was one of those books where you say to yourself “one more chapter” and then just keep going.

This is a mystery thriller following Isabelle who hasn’t been able to sleep properly since her son vanished a year ago. While presenting her story at a true crime convention in the hopes of getting new leads on the now cold case, she meets Waylon, a true crime podcaster. She agrees to be interviewed for the podcast but as she gets to know Waylon more and invites him into her home she feels more and more that he might be hiding something. Paired with her insomnia and his constant questioning, she feels that current events are reflecting events from her childhood that she has buried.

This was an excellently crafted thriller. We have a dual timeline (which if you know me you will know this is my FAVOURITE) which gives us not just the present story but also slowly pieces together Isabelle’s childhood and the events that happened then. The pacing of the reveals was perfect and the twists came out of nowhere in a fantastic way! I’ve read a good amount of thrillers at this point so I’m always trying to puzzle out what the twist is going to be and I was way off.

This book explores some difficult topics so please look up trigger warnings. I won’t go into what this book addresses in particular because it may be a spoiler but I will say I really appreciated the author’s note at the end and the obvious care she took with researching mental illness and how she addressed these. I also really appreciated the underlying theme of the repression of women by men and how women are constantly having to apologise for something.

This book particularly addressed something I am really passionate about, although I am not a mother myself I wanted to be a midwife and I am still passionate about advocacy for women, not just mothers but all women. This topic is the guilt women are made to feel about doing something for themselves or going back to work after they’ve had a child. Why is it that men are automatically entitled to go back to work while women are made to feel guilty for it? Why is it that some men (like Ben in this book) feel that having to look after their children on their own is such a lot to ask when a lot of women spend all day on their own with the children and that is just expected. I want to be clear that I don’t think all men do this, there are a lot of single fathers or stay at home fathers that are also doing the thankless job of raising children. This book really explores how a lot of women are expected to hand over their identities after having a baby and I think that is a really important discussion.

All that is to say I absolutely loved this book and I cannot wait to read A Flicker in the Dark and any future books Stacy Willingham writes! I will definitely be recommending this one! Check it out when it releases on the 2nd February 2023!

I read Stacy Willingham's first crime novel and was impressed, and I must say I'm impressed yet again with her second foray into crime fiction. Isabelle Drake's life is in tatters, her marriage has collapsed after the strain of her baby son's disappearance, however within this troubled woman (for all of the right reasons might I add) there is a strength of character/motherhood that makes her continue to investigate her son's disappearance, she is willing to put herself in front of whoever is ready to listen to her personal tragedy in the hope that somebody will appear in the police investigation. Add to the mix a woman who is suffering from sleep deprivation due to the trauma and a murky past and you have the perfect unreliable narrator who is full of self doubt.

Stacy Willingham has created a great thriller with plenty of twists and turns, a cast of characters who are believable, and a plot which is full of pace and vitality ensuring that you can't put this novel down.

This was my first book by the author but I've heard only praises for 'A Flicker In The Dark' so I was excited to read this one and I must say, this is one of the books that I really enjoyed reading. The pace was so fast I didn't even know when I'd reached 70% of it! I love how the author weaves intrigue throughout the story, especially by incorporating the past experiences of Isabelle into the present narrative.

It would be wrong to classify this solely as a thriller as it deals with many other topics like grief, loss of a loved one, postpartum psychosis, insomnia, sleepwalking and emotional manipulation (TW!). It also shows how nothing about grief actually makes sense.

Isabelle is strong to push through all the allegations leveled against her and trust in herself to find her son when no one did. She isn't a person without faults and has a cross to bear from her past. Her narrative shows us how sometimes, we're naivë enough to see life through rose tinted glasses and how it is always the mother that is blamed for everything that happens to a child while the smallest contribution from the father is applauded by the society.

This one is a heavy read and I really loved how it all wrapped up in the end.

Isabelle hasn’t slept since her little boy got missing from his bed a year ago. She is beside herself with grief. Her marriage broke and she is doing absolutely everything to try to find out what happened to her child. But she is also feeling guilty because she is not sure if she did do anything to him herself. She used to be a sleepwalker and something terrible happened in her childhood which she can’t remember. Sleep deprived as she is she is torn between guilt and grief when things suddenly begin to unravel.

This is a slow burning psychological thriller which is carefully padding around its sensitive topics. It is also a well-crafted and complicated story with many layers. At first I could not connect to Isabelle. She is wrecked because of her lack of sleep and she is not able to make rational decisions. But as the story develops I warmed to her. It is a sad story about women and how they are supposed to act as mothers.

Last year I enjoyed the authors book “A Flicker In The Dark”. I liked it a bit more than this one. “All The Dangerous Things” is maybe a bit overcomplicated and packed with too many dramatic things. It is also very slow and sometimes I wished the story would put on speed. But it is still a very well written and excellent crafted book. I am looking forward to Stacy Willingham’s next one.

A really good read, my first by this author and I know it certainly won’t be the last.

I found this to be an intriguing storyline with many complicated characters (all is explained why in the authors note) all of these characters had a good part to play in the story which had me guessing at what had happened, and then all was nicely tied up at the end. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

My first 5 Star read of the year!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this ebook in exchange for my honest review.

A very intriguing book this one. Initially you aren't really too sure which path it is leaning you towards as there is almost 2 storylines running but eventually the muddiness clears and the pieces start to piece together and it is that point you really get into the storyline and where it is really taking you. A bit of perseverance required with this book but it eventually turns into a cracker.

A really clever plot but the characters and their motivations didn't quite chime for me. I thought it wrapped up nicely, but sometimes a book doesn't quite fit you and this was one of those times. Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to review.

Isabelle Drake hasn't really slept for a year - well, apart from the odd occasion when she lost track of time or drifted off for a moment. It's now a year since her son, Mason, was stolen from his bed in the middle of the night and Izzy is consumed with guilt that she heard nothing and particularly about her relief in the morning when she thought he was sleeping in. In that year she's done everything she could to raise awareness about the case. She does interviews and when we meet her, she's just been to TrueCrimeCon where she gave a keynote presentation. On the plane back, she's approached by a podcaster, Waylon Spencer, who points out that she could do a podcast and get to so many more people than she could by giving speeches to a few hundred people at conferences.

It's tempting but in Isabelle's sleep-deprived state, she's not sure who she can trust. She and her husband, Ben, split up after Mason's disappearance and he's now told her that he's seeing someone else. She could turn to her parents but there's a problem there too. As a child, Izzy had sleep problems and a history of sleepwalking. There was an incident in the family; she always thought that she might have been responsible and that her father, a congressman, had smoothed it over with the local sheriff. It also leaves her wondering if she might have had something to do with Mason's disappearance.

It's a year since I read A Flicker in the Dark and I knew then that Stacy Willingham was going to be an author to watch. We had a twisty plot, great characters and evocative writing. For me, there was only one, very slight drawback: I was only a few pages in when I guessed what was going to happen. Would that happen again? Well, there's the twisty plot, great characters and evocative writing - but I was nowhere near guessing what had happened. The plot is an absolute cracker. I didn't guess the solution but it's totally satisfying. All the clues were there: I just missed their significance.

The characterisation is excellent. No one is perfect (so few of us are) but every character is totally believable. Willingham captures so well what it's like to be sleep-deprived and the pure terror that overwhelms you when you lose a child, even when they're just not where you expect them to be for a moment or two. She's excellent too on the nuances of relationships, those little signs that tell you all you need to know. The book was a delight to read and I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.

I'm going to leave you with an example of Willingham's evocative writing:

...her voice like silk that's starting to tear.

Ms Willingham is on fine form as she sets the scene for a complex psychological thriller, with added tension from kidnap, murders and true crime podcasts. It’s not always easy reading, in that the reader is drawn into the tortured mind of the lead character as she struggles with incidents from her childhood as well as the trauma of the abduction of her toddler child. Some readers may feel that the middle passages were unnecessarily extended, perhaps to maintain the tension at 11 out of 10 for as long as possible, but - on balance - I would encourage any reader experiencing the same doubts at the half way stage simply to persevere. The writing is crisp, the plot complex but just about credible and the pace i# nicely judged. Overall this novel will keep most readers guessing until the final pages. Recommended.

This is a great read with some great twists and turns.
Isabelle is heartbroken that her baby son has been taken and has been missing for a year. Her husband seems to have accepted that he’s gone but Isabelle can’t move on, not knowing what happened to him.
Isabelle does speeches to try and get the word out about Mason but her husband does not agree with this.
They have separated since Mason went missing but is still around.
At one of the events Isabelle is asked to do a podcast and initially turns it down, but on further reflection she decides to give it a go.
There’s chapters from Isabelle’s childhood too and these create layers in the story in the present day.
This is a great read that I really enjoyed.
Thanks to Harper Collins and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

All the Dangerous Things is a gripping thriller filled with twists and turns. It is fast paced and is set in dual timelines. I could t put it down.

Do you enjoy psychological fiction that keeps you enthralled and guessing until the very end? Then you won’t want to miss this review of a thrilling new novel about an abducted young boy. In this emotionally charged book, readers join in on the search for a missing child by following every twist and turn of his mother’s journey to discover what happened. From heart-stopping suspense to spine-tingling surprise endings, this story will have you breathless from start to finish! Discover what makes this psychologically complex tale such an engrossing read.

It's a tangled web of mystery and intrigue in All the Dangerous Things - a psychological thriller that will make you question everything. A year has passed since Isabelle lost her son Mason, who was taken from his crib under mysterious circumstances; something happened between Isabelle and her family before this event occurred, but it's been kept hidden like an unsolved puzzle waiting to be put together. Isabelle is determined for justice by enlisting True Crime hobbyists, podcasters, and anyone else willing to help find Mason so she can get some closure on these events full of dark secrets!

I really enjoyed Stacy Willingham’s previous book, A Flicker in the Dark so this was an easy pick for me, and I think it just might have the edge too! Willingham has managed to take the common and simple act of sleepwalking to a whole new level, who knew it could be so dangerous and so creepy, not just for the sleepwalker themselves but for those around them too? Isabelle honestly tells the police she was asleep all night, she just doesn't mention the sleepwalking that she thought stopped when she was a child.

I felt the characters grow on me from the first page and I was completely engrossed in their story, wondering what had happened and considering many options but none prepared me for what had actually happened in the dramatic ending. The pain and suffering Willingham describes are palpable, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how Isabelle must have felt through that year her son was missing or what the other characters had gone through, some with much more sympathy than others.

This is a true-to-life yet completely unbelievable account of how Isabelle finds out what happened to Mason. It’s a harrowing and dark story you would never want to imagine could possibly be real and you would hope never would be but it’s so well written that it could be factual. All The Dangerous Things has some chilling and harrowing scenes both from Isabelle's childhood and her current life, she doesn’t know what’s real or not after the sleep deprivation of being a new mother and then having no sleep at all since he disappeared. She can't trust herself or her decisions and her husband has just left her to it and carried on with his new life.

I loved the ending, with a couple of twists I didn’t see coming, it was a little too neatly wrapped up but very satisfying at the same time. I stayed up far too late reading (no wonder I always need a nap!) but it was worth it.

A highly recommended read!

This was an enthralling story, so true to life, with some believable characters and a story line both chilling and possible. I liked the conclusion which gave closure to the feelings the story generated.

I don’t generally read a huge amount of thrillers, however having read A Flicker in the Dark and now All the Dangerous Things by Stacey Willingham, she will be an auto-buy author for me forever more. 4.5⭐️

All the Dangerous Things is a dark, tense and gripping thriller. Similarly to A Flicker in the Dark it has duel timelines of then and now, along with a brilliantly unreliable narrator. I urge anyone reading this book to read Willingam’s authors’ note, but only once you’ve finished the story. Her point on the conditioned nature of female guilt really made me think and casts a whole extra layer onto the story itself. There are significant trigger warnings to bear in mind with this novel, however to list them would give too much away, so please do ask if you’d like to know.

All the Dangerous Things is centred on Isabelle, who’s son Mason was kidnapped a year prior. She’s been unable to properly sleep since and is desperate to find out what happened. With no new information everyone else is trying to move on, but Isabelle can’t. Teaming up with true crime podcaster Waylon, she furthers her investigation into her son’s case. But Waylon has motives of his own and as long-forgotten memories of Isabelle’s past resurface, doubt begins to cloud her sleepless nights.

This story is full of so many twists and turns it was almost impossible to put down. Willingham is a master at feeding us pieces of information to keep us guessing and still being able to bring in a shocking and unexpected reveal. Isabelle is a deeply unreliable narrator, given her extreme sleep deprivation she is left questioning herself over what is real and what is not. Yet more than this she is a women who has been lied to by some many, and left harbouring guilt that was never hers to carry, but that has poisoned her outlook.

This is a story where there are no black or whites, everything is shrouded in murky grey. The characters are complex, deep and ultimately flawed. It’s hard to say much without giving anything away, but again I’d urge you to read the author’s note here too.

If you want a fast paced, dark and twisty thriller, look no further.

✨Book Review✨
All the dangerous things - Stacy Willingham
I’d rate it 5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I absolutely devoured it ! I had high expectations for this one since I gave @stacyvwillingham ‘s last book 5 stars as well and thought it was incredible ! This one was just as good !
I flew through the pages ! Not only did I keep wanting to know what would happen next, but I also loved how wonderfully each character’s arc was carved out ! Beautiful writing as usual! And I must say, what I love the most about the author’s writing is that, even though she writes thrillers where there isn’t much room for drawing in serious emotional topics or building an attachment
between the characters and the readers, the author excels in doing so ! I genuinely felt I cared for the charcters, and the way they acted ; the emotions they felt - the same ones that many of us feel and how accurately she’s depicted it in her writing is very impressive ! The author’s note was such an important addition and I highly appreciate her writing about a topic where women’s inherent emotions are portrayed so well. I’d like to thank the author for writing such an amazing book that all women can relate to!

This is a fast-paced thriller, with a great plot, and phenomenal writing (both in style and context) It is emotional and suspenseful ! Very easy to follow the characters and the story and one that you’ll definitely end up reading in one sitting !

I cannot wait to see what she writes next !

This is a really twisty thriller with a dual timeline narrative. Isabelle’s son went missing a year ago and she’s unable to move forward. She can’t sleep and is determined to find out what happened to him. It sounds straightforward, but Stacy Willingham knows how to build tension and take the reader down blind alleys.

Is Isabelle a reliable narrator? She a flawed character and it’s difficult to judge where the truth lies. She’s a mix of doubt and determination and although the plotting is quite slow paced, it’s complex and packed with surprises. Very strong sense of setting and I was sucked in to this creepy tale very quickly. A great read which raised the pulse rate more than once.

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

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A great debut, good writing, great plot full of suspense. A recommended read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this nerve-wracking dramatic thriller by Stacy Willingham. Just when I thought I had figured it out where it was going, I was taken by surprise as it twisted in another direction!!

Set in Savannah, Georgia, lsabelle has been unable to sleep since the abduction of her young son Mason one year ago. She attends a True Crime conference to publicize her story and hopefully find the person who took him. Unfortunately her efforts are not appreciated by the local police or her husband who left her. She struggles alone until she meets a True Crime podcaster who offers to help.

The strength and vulnerability of Isabelle is expertly captured as she wavers between self-doubt and conviction. We see another side of her as she lovingly recalls how close she was to her sister Margaret when they were children and she was a frequent sleepwalker.

All the Dangerous Things is a superbly written five star read for me!