A new book from C.L. Taylor is always a “drop everything must read ASAP”.

I’ve been a huge fan ever since The Escape then The Fear, the two first psychological thrillers I ever read.

It’s Always The Husband is a school gates mums thriller with newly divorced Jude arriving in a small town and finding herself attracted to widower Will. Will, whose first wife died and whose second wife vanished, raising eyebrows and suspicions.

There’s a lot of characters, subplots, secrets, shocks and twists. C.L. Taylor’s writing is as great as ever, I’m just not the biggest fan of school gates thrillers. Like putting together a thousand piece jigsaw, without the box for reference, you only start to see the bigger picture nearer the end.

It’s very good, and I enjoyed reading it, but I do prefer a more direct approach.

Recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley and Avon Books UK

Just loved this, one of the best things i have read for a while.
A big cast of characters, many very unlikeable.
A missing woman, murder and mystery.
I changed my mind several times about who did what and the ending was a real wow moment.
The talented author C L Taylor has written a real cracker of a story.
My thanks to netgalley and the publisher for my copy.

This is a brilliant thriller with several different mysteries going on which makes it difficult to guess what links and who did what. To.d from the perspective of 3 different mums there’s Jude who’s new to the area and who’s daughter is new to the school, Sorrell who used to be part of the clique but isn’t any more and queen bee Victoria. The main mystery is that of Robyn’s disappearance a while back and the cliques belief she was killed by her partner Will and they’re especially suspicious because his first wife died in an accident at home. It really does spiral from there with blackmail and murder added into the mix but for me it was the relationships between the different characters both in terms of the clique and romantic relationships that really made this such a solid read. There’s a lot of secrets that emerge as the story progresses, lots of surprises and I couldn’t have even started to guess the different perpetrators. This ends on a creepy note which I really loved.

The school gates clique, always an ordeal and at St Helena’s Primary it’s no different. Victoria Routledge, queen bee and demon of the PTA, rules the roost, with her trusty acolytes bobbing along in her wake. For newcomer Jude it’s her worst nightmare. All she wants is for her daughter Betsy to be happy after her last school experience. Keen to keep her distance from the ‘Mamas’, Jude chats along to single parent Will, and is more than happy when his daughter Milly befriends Betsy. When Jude realises that the clique have little or no time for Will, and she hears some cruel accusations, she is determined to find out what’s going on, even if it means gritting her teeth and getting into the inner circle.

What an absolute joy this book is! The horror of running the school gates gauntlet when you are an outsider is so perfectly illustrated, and the character of Victoria is spot on.

The start of the the book is character overload, but that adds to the feeling of the situation, and as each character establishes their place in the hierarchy all becomes clear.

An excellent plot with Taylor’s always exquisite writing, and the characterisation is perfect. And those last two chapters! 😱

I loved this book and thoroughly recommend.

Thank you NetGalley and Avon Books UK.