Cracked

“Seven patients. One dark secret. Phillip Walton was murdered. Jenny hasn’t seen him since she left Hillside Psychiatric Unit eight years ago. She wanted to forget everything about her time there, so she kept her secrets buried deep. But now the police are knocking at her door with evidence of her involvement in Phillip's death. Jenny desperately needs to speak to old friends and old enemies, from those dark years at Hillside to clear her name before more of her past is unearthed and her new life is destroyed. Because they are the only ones who know what really happened at Hillside. About the secret that Phillip kept for them all. “

I couldn’t put this book down. It surprised me to find out this was a debut novel. I was engulfed in this story from the first chapter and find it really hard to stop reading it until the end of the book. But before anything else I just wanted to say that this book may be a trigger for people with mental health problems.

The plot is really interesting and the setting of a psychiatric hospital was hugely captivating.
The story narrates past and present events and each chapter just makes you want to keep reading.

The portrayal of different psychological problems was spot on and you always questions the reliability of the characters. The descriptions were spot on and the feelings of the characters were really well portrayed throughout the story.

I could absolutely empathise with Jenny and just wanted to keep reading to find out more about her. I really loved Alicia too and really enjoyed her story too. I couldn’t warm up to James and really didn’t like one of the detectives but that’s probably because I was too invested in Jenny and hated the way he would speak to her.

I just wanted to read more and know more about all the characters and I didn’t even guess how it would all wrap up in the end. I also really enjoyed how it ended.
There were some tiny details that I didn’t particularly like but overall they didn’t make any difference to the plot so I can say that I really loved this read.

There are certain triggers in this book so I would advise anyone who are more sensitive to mental health problems to be careful if they decide to read it but overall I found Cracked to be a fantastically written and compelling book and would highly recommend it to fans of psychological thrillers.

I would like to thank Netgalley, Hodder & Stoughton and Louise McCreesh for an advanced copy of Cracked in exchange for an honest review. I look forward to reading more novels by this debut author!