Member Reviews

Thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for this Advanced Reader’s Copy of The Head Teacher by H.M. Lynn due to be published August 15, 2024.
Liz has finally attained her dream job – head teacher at St. Ann’s School. Someone doesn’t want her to keep her job, and there are a lot of suspects who do not want her to succeed. Will she find out who it is?
I had two reasons to be interested in this book – I am a former teacher, and I went to a Catholic school – this book did not disappoint. It seriously had me hooked from the beginning as there were many people who wanted Liz to fail in her job. The enigma was trying to figure out who it was. I was engrossed until the end when the big secret was revealed – not who I guessed!
This was a good thriller!
#NetGalley #HMLynn #BoldwoodBooks #TheHeadTeacher

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I really enjoyed this story and I love how the author lead us to possible outcomes of what happened but (spoiler alert: had to wait until the very end!!) as a school teacher, I love reading books that take place within a school. The characters and storyline were easy to follow along with and it was quite suspenseful! I recommend this book for others to read!

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Being a teacher myself, I knew I couldn’t pass up this thriller with a head teacher as a main character. And let me say, it did not disappoint!

Liz is starting her second year as the head teacher at a prestigious Catholic school. The previous year had been especially challenging for her family but they were working hard at mending their wounds and moving forward as a family.

As Liz plans and prepares for back to school assemblies with her students, she is horrified when she walks into the assembly to find the projector is showing a photo of her in her youth, having fun at a party, looking obviously drunk.

Trying to find the person behind the prank, she begins to question everyone around her including her best friend, her coworkers, and even her husband.

As more and more of her personal information, along with her daughter’s challenges the previous year, are shared Liz is certain someone is out to destroy her life.

Who has Liz angered? Who would want to hurt her both personally and professionally? And will she be able to stop them before she loses everything she loves?

This was a four star read for me meaning I was hooked quickly and stayed glued to the pages until the end. Being able to identify the person behind the cruel harassment fairly quickly made the read super suspenseful and enthralling as I waited for the other characters to put the pieces together. This is the first book I’ve read by the author and I can’t wait to check out more of her books! I highly recommend checking this thriller out!

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Loved this book! Couldn’t put it down and jumped between majority of the characters! I had guessed it right but not sure why till the end! Highly recommend! First one by this author and won’t be the last!

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Liz is a rather arrogant, self opinionated head teacher working at a catholic school. Her daughter, now 16, used to go there but moved recently due to an incident which the family kept private but citing that she would rather not be at the same school where her mother is head. Walking into an assembly one day Liz finds a picture of her from the past that she hasn't seen before up large on the screen for the world to see. She has her suspicions as to who may be targeting her, but when they involve her daughter things go from bad to worse. Who is doing their best to destroy both her and her family and why?

Oh this is a very clever premise and one I raced through. Usually I like the main character but in this case things were slightly different but I still felt for her predicament. A person who holds power and then the carpet is pulled from under them and they don’t know where it is coming from or what is coming next, how well thought out this is. A book I found myself turning ever faster, it’s a very engaging read. A very solid 4 stars and I look forward to more in this genre from this author (I know it’s rather different from her usual ones!). Nice one!


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“The higher you climb, the harder the fall.“

“I would never have been hired if they knew what I’d done—my past.“

This is the first psychological thriller by the author and thus can be regarded as a change of pace for her. In this case, her work is genuinely impressive! Many unpredictable episodes are revealed, and readers try to solve the mystery of what happened to her daughter last year and who is the culprit behind the turmoil in their family. Sometimes, it makes an unexpected twist, which is the story’s most exciting part. I highly recommend it to all thriller lovers!

Thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

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A great twisty read. I thought the main character was great and believable, I trusted no one in this book! I will be on the lookout for more books by this author. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

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This was a fantastic read that kept me guessing. The Author was a new one for me and I would definately read again. The book had a few too many chapers for my liking and I did find the book to almost be stalling at a couple points. Overall it did keep me guessing, certainly wasn't a fave for the month of June but I did give it 3.5 stars.

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This was an interesting thriller that fell apart at the end.

Liz is the Head Teacher at an elite English School. She seems to thrive in the job. Until all of a sudden she doesn’t, as weird stuff from her past becomes fodder for a very active rumor mill. Her daughter escapes to Singapore to live with her uncle and attend the school where he’s a teacher and severs contact with her mother. Her husband is convinced that she’s lost her mind and has almost convinced Liz that she has …

Until everything unravels in an implausible and improbable denouement. What began as a good story just fizzled.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

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𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝑰 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒖𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒆, 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒍𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏.

I related to the main character Liz on a deep level. While I don't personally know the stress of running a school, I know the stress of being a public school teacher for half of my life. Pressure over test scores, dealing with absent students, uninvolved parents, and difficult co-workers is all part of the job.

Liz had a difficult first year as the head of St. Anne's, a well-known and highly respected Catholic school. Besides learning the job, her teenage daughter had an absolutely traumatic experience that she is still mentally recovering from when Liz begins year two. When Liz prepares to head the back-to-school assembly for returning students, there on the giant screen is a photo of her from her younger days while enjoying a wild night out with a friend that all the students see.

And that's just the beginning for Liz. Someone has it out for her. Does someone want her job so badly that they are willing to destroy Liz by going after the one thing that's more precious than any job...her daughter?

I inhaled this book in just a few hours, and when I tell you that everyone was a suspect, I do mean EVERYONE. Many thanks to Boldwood Books for this early copy. At the time this review was written, this book is slated to publish August 15, 2024.

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This was a great twisty read.

Liz has been promoted to her dream job as head teacher of a prestigious school.

It would seem someone out there isn't happy about this and things start going wrong in her life with her family being targeted.

Liz goes through the list of suspects trying to figure out who is trying to ruin her life and who is sharing her secrets.

I figured out quite early on the 'who' and then the 'why' so i just sat back and watched it unfold.

Thanks to netgalley for the opportunity to review this book this is my honest opinion.

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A teacher at a catholic school has their life turn upside down.

I wanted to enjoy this book, but it was a couple of miles past realistic and a little too chaotic.

Liz’s character isn’t fully developed and I could not become invested in this story.

A good quick beach read for those who need a bit of escapism.

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This was a great read, I really enjoy books set in schools and really liked Liz, the main character. I liked how she attempted to keep her family together and the twists and turns were great. A really solid thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed.

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wow, what a book - absolutely loved it, kept you guessing all the way with so many twists, i stayed up until i had the book read, could not put it down - great read. cant wait to read other books.

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I'm not sure what I think about this book. Liz is the headmaster of a catholic school, yet she has non-Catholic secrets she doesn't want brought to light. Suddenly a bad picture of her shows up, her daughter disappears, and there are negative things written about her and her daughter. I don't know. I didn't like any of the characters. I didn't think it had that much that hooked me. It was ok. Didn't see the ending coming, but then again I wasn't able to get invested that much to guess.

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This book was a solid four stars for me. I felt like the character of Liz was completely believable when it came to how she was trying to succeed at her job and how she reacted when things from her past that were supposed to be secrets were brought up over and over again throughout the story. I felt like none of her reactions were outlandish and were very relatable to someone who was in her situation where she was trying to protect her child and also find the truth when no one was willing to believe her. This story was very fast paced and kept me wanting to read more to find out what the actual truth of everything was. I really like a story that has me questioning every single character until the end.

Thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts in this review are my own.

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I read a copy of this book on my kindle thanks to the publishers at Boldwood Books and NetGalley, in return of an honest review - All views are my own.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

THE HEAD TEACHER…what can I say? This book had me screaming out at the characters as I was reading. Trying to guess who it was that destroyed the head teachers world! This is a captivating read and one that I do highly recommend.

Liz (head teacher), her husband and daughter’s lives get utterly turned around as the new school year starts. Liz works at St Anne’s, an extremely well known and respected Catholic School. It’s her 2nd year as head teacher and she really hopes it would be a much better year than the last. Her family have been through a lot over the last year, especially her daughter.

The daughter moved schools after issues she had where she had her heart broken (no spoilers). Liz and her husband supported their daughter through it and everything seemed to be going well, their daughter a straight A student across the board and Part of an orchestra where she played the oboe. She seemed happy to be starting a new school, her parents paying out for a private school.

Liz has her first week back at school for the new school year and term, she does all the back to school assemblies for the school year and when she hits the sixth form assembly a wave of panic hits her, a photo from her younger days which she used to rebel on the fact she was bought up catholic although they weren’t her beliefs. It was time that her life changed and her past caught up with her.

At the same time her daughter who had started sixth form in the private school received text messages of the photo that was shown in the assembly hall. At this point little did the pair know their lives were going to change whilst also tearing the family of 3 apart.

I read this book in less than 24 hours, I was hooked. Baring in mind this psychological thriller is the authors first in a new genre I have to say she has done amazing! So many twists and turns, trying to figure out what happened a year ago with her daughter and then thinking you knew who was the person destroying their family but then suddenly the plot changed.

I really connected with the characters especially Liz. I felt every inch of her confusion, her paranoia. I felt like I was also inside her head as the author pursued such an intense dialogue from within side her head and the thoughts Liz had.

The way the story was written and the way that her husband and best friend believed she was struggling mentally and everything that was happening was of Liz’s own doing leading her to doubt herself and myself also is just remarkable.

This book really was a “who-did-it” I was so set on the character I thought was accountable but my gosh. I was so incredibly wrong, I had my ideas and did suspect the character to begin with and throughout some parts however those suspicions where quickly dismissed as the I was led to believe it was seriously somebody else.

I absolutely loved how it did get very fast passed when Liz finally figured it out and I felt I couldn’t breathe. The build up of the story was really well written and it was a lovely read.

I really hope that this author continues to write some more books in the genre as I really believe she will go on to write some absolute masterpieces!

I really do recommend this book, I will be thinking about this one for a while.

Let me know what you thought of this book!

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Another great thriller. This is going to be a must read this summer. The story was very engaging and thrilling, and it kept me returning pages from the very beginning to the very end.

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Thank you NetGalley and Boldwood Books for the eARC.
This was a decent read, but I just didn't like the protagonist. She's the head teacher a prestigious school, well qualified, but she came across as too bossy and wasn't well liked by the rest of the teachers. There's trauma in her family life concerning her daughter, but even so she seemed too bossy and uptight.
Terrible things start to happen via the internet, there's definitely someone who's out to get her. Her husband and her co-workers think she's losing her mind and don't believe her.
It's quite a tense read, hard to put down, but I couldn't get over my dislike of her. Good ending, though.

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Oooooh now that was some crazy revenge!!! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one! This book has some fantastic characters and it had great suspense, intrigue, action, murder, mystery, crazy revenge, a great who done it that I did guess early on but I could not figure out why?! lol the storyline was very interesting and had me glued to my kindle! I highly recommend reading this book! It was a great read! Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me! Don’t miss out on this thriller!!

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