I enjoyed this book at first but then there were to many characters that i began to lose the plot and then the ending disappointed me.

Thank you netgalley for a copy for an honest review

Gloria Harkness lives in a rundown farmhouse but she’s satisfied with it, she lives there rent free to look after the dog of the owner who know lives in the nursing home down the road along with Gloria’s 15 year old son Nicky. He has a terminal condition and she is praying he doesn’t outlive the dog as otherwise she can’t afford his care.

Driving home in the rain one night she almost runs into another car, the driver of which pursues her to her home. It is her childhood friend and secret sweetheart, Stephen “Stig” Tarrant. He tells her he’s being stalked by a girl he knew at his high school Eden, “An alternative school for happy children,” According to the brochure but the locals described it as “A load of hippies running wild in the woods.” It was closed down after a suicide but Stig is still worried about something he heard that night and it seems the woman stalking him is too. But all Gloria can see is the boy she knew. She lets him. The discovery of the stalkers body plunges them into a dangerous mystery.

As you’d expect with a book of this genre there are plenty of twists and turns in the storyline. Nothing is as it first appears and no one is whom they seem.

But it is written very well, the protagonist is quite an unusual character but as it is written from her point of view this is much easier to accept than it otherwise would be. She knows she’s a bit of a misfit but doesn’t labour the point. And we see her doing so many good turns for others that it’s impossible not to warm to her.

The twists and turns keep you on your toes, I honestly had no idea who the murderer was or why they were doing it until it was revealed, yet despite that it was believable in a way that things are when the far-fetched marries the mundane.

If you’re into thrillers for your holiday read you could do worse than packing this one!

4 Bites.

NB I received a free copy of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review. The BookEaters always write honest reviews

Too disjointed

Gloria Harkness reads her disabled son Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child Garden of Verses without fail at the same time each evening despite the fact that he is totally sedated and has a prognosis no parent wants to even consider.

Her son is accommodated in a home owned by her landlady, Miss Drumm, who is also a permanent resident. In return Gloria cares for Miss Drumm’s elderly dog and each day rocks the stone of the property to ensure the Devil trapped inside does not escape.

Yes. It’s weird isn’t it and gets weirder when a stranger arrives on her doorstep one wet evening. He turns out to be a boy she sat next to at Primary school before his father started “Eden”, a free-thinking school. An accident at the school resulting in the death of one of the pupils led to the school’s closure and the “Stig”, the stranger and Gloria set out to solve the decades old mystery of what actually happened with startling discoveries.

My overall impression of the story is that it was disjointed and didn’t flow. The use of nicknames and the complex web of family and relationships also didn’t help the reader and a pen and paper kept close to hand would be useful to keep track. The two main characters are well formed though and are a case of opposites being attracted to each other.

In the end though the story is just not at all believable or is not written so that the reader feels it could be. It’s a work of pure fantasy and has a poor ending as everything is wrapped up in a feel-good fashion in the last couple of pages.

It barely scrapes 3 stars

mr zorg

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.