Michelle MCdonagh has written another wonderful story ,full of mystery and drama ,it pulls at the heart strings in so many ways .It will keep you reading and forgetting all else .

I loved Michelle McDonagh's previous book, There's Something I Have to Tell You, so I was very excited to see her new book Someone Knows available on Netgalley, and thrilled to be given access. And once again, this writer has delivered in spades!

Cara has always known she was adopted, and never felt the need to search for her birth mother. After all, in a 20th century Ireland that had values that would've been more appropriate for 19th century Ireland, a woman might have any number of good reasons to give up a child.

But when her mother dies unexpectedly early, as a young mother herself, Cara feels the void keenly. And when she accidentally finds out that her birth mother was a murder victim in one of the most publicised cases in recent history, she tumbles down a rabbit hole that seems almost endless.

Her search for answers not only jeopardises her relationship with the loving family in which she has grown up, it potentially puts Cara herself in danger, and opens an incredible can of worms which shows the excoriating impact of secrets, conservative values, and corruption - both financial and moral.

This is a gripping, beautifully-crafted novel with characters that spring vibrantly to life. It will linger in the reader's mind long after they have finished turning the pages.

Overall I enjoyed this book but I did find predictable moments in the writing, I would read more by the author in future though.

I really enjoyed McDonagh's debut novel, There's Something I Have to Tell You last year, it was original, well written and clever . Somebody Knows is a quintessentially Irish story. Again, it was well written and I thought it opened really strongly and I was quickly drawn into the story. The descriptions and warmth of which Co Galway is captured is really gorgeous and vivid and the story is a decent one. However for the plot to work there needed to be quite an array of characters introduced and I think as a result the main character and her close family didn't get fully developed as a result. As I said this is very much an Irish story, shades of it will be familiar to a lot of Irish people even though this is a work of fiction and so I found it a little predictable and there was no real sense of mystery as the book wound its way to the conclusion. I think the ending was only ever going to go one way.
Nonetheless , it was a good and engaging story and I did enjoy reading this but just not as much as I did her debut. I am looking forward to book three. Wishing the author continued success.

Quite a few shocks in the opening bits of the book, that the rest, for me, never quite lived up to.
There were still plenty of surprises to be had, and a good description of small towns and how name means a lot.
The ending, I saw that coming miles away.
Overall, an enjoyable read.