Tag: Psychological

Posted in Netgalley

The Cliff Hanger by Emily Freud

Posted on by thelotusreaders

You think you know how this ends. Think again.

Goodness this was a wild ride, full of unexpected twists, characters that are pathological and a book being written within a book. Married couple Felix and Emma seem to have it all. They are the husband and wife team behind the hugely successful Morgan Savage thrillers. However, their latest novel isn’t coming as easily as their others. Felix is drinking to the point of blacking out and had an affair with a girl called Robin who worked for their publishing house. Emma is angry and popping anxiety pills any chance she gets. Their publisher Max, exiles them to the South of France in the hope that new surroundings for the summer will unlock their creativity. The house is beautiful, on a cliff overlooking the sea, when visiting housekeeper Juliette tells them a story about a painting that hangs in the house an uneasiness hangs in the air. The girl was prone to sleepwalking and one night got out into the garden and walked directly off the cliff edge. Sometimes, her cries can be heard at night. Under the sweltering sun, will the couple heal their differences or will they become trapped in a deadly game that beats the plot of any Morgan Savage bestseller. 

This is a slow burn thriller, but when it does start to speed up it’s like a runaway train. Emma seems quite rigid and tightly controlled, almost as if she’s stifling her true feelings or self. Felix appears to be the more relaxed of the pair, sociable and happy to succumb to the pleasures of France. The couple met in a New York book shop, where Felix was sitting with his well worn copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Emma had a studious air, probably from the extra large glasses she wore. Both had always wanted to write but hadn’t yet succeeded. Years later Emma has become a neutral wearing, elegant and sophisticated woman who doesn’t like to be out of control. As an editor she knows what sells when it comes to fiction and how to jazz up or change the structure of a manuscript to create a bestseller. She writes early in the day, always sending her chapter of the book to Felix by 10am and then relaxing by the pool. Felix receives the chapter alongside little notes with suggestions or directions for Felix to follow. He falls out of bed (or wherever he slept) whenever he wakes, often nearer to lunchtime than breakfast. He has a leisurely start with plenty of coffee and when he’s feeling human again he gets to the book. He accepts that this is the way their joint writing works, but since they’re in France why not take the odd day off? He knows that without Emma starting the novel he would struggle. He had dreams of writing a great literary novel one day, but it’s never happened. His skills lend themselves to being the face of Morgan Savage. He does the festivals and book readings, because his charm and abilities lend themselves to being out front. He even signs their books as Morgan Savage, so it’s usually him people recognise. Emma stays behind the scenes, preferring the work to the publicity. She starts the new book on their first morning and then pushes Felix into his chapter each day to keep the momentum. Even in the quiet it’s clear there are resentments between them, a marriage’s worth of petty differences building towards a crescendo. 

Over the days little snippets of their lives emerge until we finally see the full picture. The pace picks up and the chapters get shorter and I was soon racing through the chapters to see what would happen next. My other half found me sat on a kitchen stool, cooking and reading at the same time. It leaves you desperate to know what happens next. At one point I had to check how close I was to the end on my Kindle but found myself really confused when I still had 15% of the book left. I thought I’d reached the end, that’s how clever the twists and turns are. I loved the book within a book, especially the way they are writing characters that explored their own marriage. Each has their own version though and while Emma would signpost where Felix should go next, she would receive his chapter and find he’d develop a character with entirely the opposite emphasis and behaviour. They’re using their writing like couple’s therapy, working out the kinks and plot holes but also punishing and spiting their spouse at every turn. It gets even more exciting when the tone and quality of the writing start to change at one side of the partnership. There are mistakes in grammar and spelling, but is this a sign of deteriorating mental health, over use of drink or drugs or something more sinister. I found myself wondering whether I trusted either narrator. 

Juliette is the girl who services the property. A carefree and natural young woman who cycles the area doing odds and ends for work. She’s the epitome of the term free spirit and could be a prime opportunity for Felix to continue his philandering ways. However, he’s confused when Emma befriends her, despite them being so different. Emma is also affected by Juliette’s story of the girl falling from the cliff and even has a bout of sleepwalking herself. Felix finds her in a trance in the living room and convinces her to go back to bed. Is this a reaction to Juliette’s story or something else? Emma was starting to remind me of Parker Posey’s character in the latest series of The White Lotus, uptight and reliant on pills to function. Could this be why the quality of the writing deteriorates or is Felix busier in his blackouts than previously thought? Just because he can’t remember doing anything, doesn’t mean he isn’t. This was a great story to get my teeth into and honestly, if they’d come to me as therapist, I might have asked them if they’d considered living apart. It’s a toxic atmosphere from the moment they arrive, but just when you think you’ve worked out why and what’s really going on it will surprise you again. As we go back in time, using flashbacks to important events, we can see how their romantic and professional lives began but these glimpses started to make me question what I thought I knew. I wanted to race back through the chapters to search for the clues that brought us to the unexpected conclusion. This was a thrilling and atmospheric read, with a brilliant portrayal of how a relationship has become toxic. If you love relationship dynamics partnered with a whole amusement park of twists and turns this will be your next completely unputdownable read. 

Out 8th May from Quercus

Meet the Author

Emily Freud is the author of four thrillers: My Best Friend’s Secret, What She Left Behind, Her Last Summer and, coming in 2025, The Cliffhanger. She spent her career working on award-winning television programmes, including Educating Yorkshire, First Dates, and SAS: Who Dares Wins – as well as developing original programming for all the main broadcasters. 

Posted in Netgalley

Clear by Carys Davies 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger’s intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile, on the mainland, John’s wife, Mary, anxiously awaits news of his mission.

Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies’s intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us.

Clear is so beautifully set within some very significant events. In the 19th Century evangelical worshippers moved away from the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church of Scotland. Also, there was a second wave of Scottish landowners driving their tenants from the land, choosing to make a better profit grazing sheep, know as the Highland Clearances. Our characters are deeply involved with these events. John Ferguson has been a minister in the Church of Scotland, but his conscience draws him away towards the Free Church. This leaves him without an income since the new church isn’t yet established. John’s wife Mary may be the answer, because her brother-in-law asks a landowner if he could offer John a job. The job has one purpose, travelling to a remote island in the North Sea close to Norway. There he has to evict the landowner’s last remaining tenant, a man named Ivar who is barely scratching a living with a handful of livestock. However, Ivar doesn’t speak English, but an old dialect that’s a mix of Norwegian and Gaelic. John has just one month till the boat returns to take both of them back to Shetland. How will he convince Ivar to leave? 

The story is focused on the relationship these two men have to develop with each other and it starts in a way neither expect. The bailie’s house is empty as he’s already left the island so John plans to make it his base, but needs to find somewhere locally that he can wash. He finds a spring and decides to bathe, but he slips and falls down a cliff. Ivar finds the unconscious man and takes him to his own hut. As John slowly regains consciousness and begins his recovery, the two man have to work out a way of speaking to each other and eventually John has to explain what he’s there for. As we watch their relationship grow and how they work on communication, Mary has grown worried about John. She thinks he may have taken on the task without enough preparation and she decides to travel out there and join him. The narrative felt like being a fly on the wall to to these events. Once the three are together I had the strange feeling that this was really happening and I was simply watching history, bearing witness to the emotions flowing between them. 

This is such a gentle story that contains so much. Instead of pushing an agenda or viewpoint, the author just lets it play out naturally. Nature is so much more than just a setting, it’s life itself. The island is mercurial, with it’s changeable weather creating the mood. Ivar lives entirely off this land, his life a routine of hard work and at home he spins wool or knits. Even the regular agent who collects rent for the landowner is paid in wool, feathers or wrack. Ivar is part of this island, a bear of a man with only his animals for company. There’s a purity to his life that’s almost spiritual, an interesting contrast to John’s organised religion. There’s so much going on under the surface of the story, told in the tiny details of everyday life: their gestures, the intimacies they share and how those connections change as a language is formed between them. It’s interesting to see the established dynamic of John and Ivar affecting how Mary settles into the cottage. The men’s connection brings the three of them into a unit, so that they don’t feel like a married couple and a lone man any more. Each of them forms a strong connection with each other and the landscape. I found reading this an almost meditative experience, because it’s so slow and calm. The ending came suddenly and was a shock. 

Published by Granta 7th March 2025

Meet the Author

Carys Davies’s debut novel West (2018) was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, runner up for the Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize, and winner of the Wales Book of the Year for Fiction. Her second novel The Mission House was first published in the UK in 2020 where it was The Sunday Times 2020 Novel of the Year.

She is also the author of two collections of short stories, Some New Ambush and The Redemption of Galen Pike, which won the 2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She is the recipient of the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize, the Society of Authors’ Olive Cook Short Story Award, a Northern Writers’ Award, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, and is a member of the Folio Academy. Her fiction has been translated into nine languages.

Born in Wales, she grew up there and in the Midlands, lived and worked for twelve years in New York and Chicago, and now lives in Edinburgh.

Posted in Orenda, Random Things Tours

Son by Thomas Enger and Johana Gustawsson

Posted on by thelotusreaders

The blurb on the back of this novel promises an electrifying blockbuster that will be the start of a ‘nerve shattering’ new series. So there’s a lot to live up to, but don’t worry Son definitely delivers. To use a rather impolite phrase, this is a therapist’s wet dream of a novel – hidden characters, unexplained black outs, grief, trauma and an investigator who is dubbed ‘The Human Lie Detector’. I was definitely in my element here. Kari Voss is the centre of this tangled web, a psychologist who specialises in memory and body language making her a perfect consultant to Oslo’s police force. When two girls are brutally killed in a summer house in the village of Son, it’s a crime that’s closer to home than she would want. The girls, Eva and Hedda, were best friends with Kari’s son Vetle when they were younger. In fact it was while on a holiday seven years ago that Vetle disappeared in nearby woods and was never found. The girls are now teenagers and were planning a Halloween party for their friends, but were found tied to dining chairs with their throats cut. They were found by a third friend, Samuel Gregson, when he turned up to start the festivities. However, there was someone else there, someone who left slippery marks in the blood that has poured onto the floor. He’s the first person that police chief Ramona Norum arrests and starts to question. When Kari is asked to consult she knows this will be difficult, not only is she friends with the girl’s families, but their lives are inextricably linked to her missing son. How will she negotiate all the emotions this case will unleash and stay focused enough to find the girl’s killer? 

Often with thrillers, I find they’re full of action, twists and turns that are really addictive, but have no emotional depth. The characters are often one dimensional and it’s hard to care about what happens to them. There’s no danger of that here. This is the perfect combination of twisty and unexpected, but underpinned with huge emotional weight. It’s deeply unsettling, with a questionable suspect and an equally unreliable narrator. Not only is Kari still dealing with the trauma of losing her son, she’s also grieving for the more recent loss of her husband. She can’t sleep and seems to running on empty from the start. Yet, the way she observes people is so detailed and it seems almost effortless. This goes way beyond the basics like crossed arms meaning someone feels defensive. In a lecture she tells students that in the space of an ordinary conversation we give away over eighty-five non – verbal signs about the mood we’re in. She’s not afraid of giving an unpopular opinion either. She absolutely backs the science and her ability to analyse people, whether they’re claiming to be innocent or guilty. I loved the tension created by the authors as they played with her expertise and her emotions. Is she detached enough to make a sound judgement here? As if that isn’t enough, there seem to be instances where Kari loses time. She wakes up in the car on her own driveway with no recollection of the journey home. She seems to have been on autopilot, so caught up in her own thoughts she hasn’t noticed the journey. She had similar blackouts after her husband died, but what has triggered them? When the young man arrested at the scene of the crime also seems to have experienced a black out I wondered whether he knew her history. Could he be deflecting attention from himself because he knows Kari’s secret? Or is Kari more liable to believe a story like that because she’s experienced it herself? It’s this complexity that makes the plot and Kari herself more fascinating. 

No one is what they appear here. As Kari starts to ask questions about Eva and Hedda, it turns out that they aren’t always the polite children or young teenagers they appeared to be to the adults in their lives. Everyone has different layers, choosing what to reveal and to whom they reveal it. The authors are very clever about the amount of introspection they use, creating a hidden layer to the crimes and a breathing space between the character driven chapters and the ones filled with nail-bitingly intense action. Then they throw in another twist, to keep you engaged, leaving me unsure of my own deduction skills. There’s even subterfuge in the title, Son is a place that’s slightly north of Oslo, steeped in Nordic history and full of that unsettling atmosphere that I find Nordic Noir is so good at. Yet it’s also a person, so missed by those who love him and inextricably linked to this landscape, that has potentially become his final resting place. I was compelled to read this to the end, taking it everywhere with me on holiday so I could grab a chapter in a coffee shop or even in the car. This is an engrossing and addictive start to a promised new series and I’m already craving the next instalment.  

Out on 13th March from Orenda Books

Meet the Authors

Known as the Queen of French Noir, Johana Gustawsson is one of France’s most highly regarded, award-winning crime writers, recipient of the prestigious Cultura Ligue de l`Imaginaire Award for her gothic mystery Yule Island. Number-one bestselling books include Block 46, Keeper, Blood Song and her historical thriller, The Bleeding. Johana lives in Sweden with her family. A former journalist, Thomas Enger is the number-one bestselling author of the Henning Juul series and, with co-author Jørn Lier Horst, the international bestselling Blix & Ramm series, and one of the biggest proponents of the Nordic Noir genre. He lives in Oslo. Rights to Johana and Thomas’ books have been sold to a combined fifty countries and, for the first time, two crime writers, from two different countries, writing in two different languages, have joined forces to create an original series together.

Posted in Random Things Tours

My Sister’s Killer by Mari Hannah

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’ve slowly been collecting the Stone and Oliver series over the past year, after one took my fancy in Northumberland’s famous Barter Books in Alnwick. Since then I’ve grabbed the paperbacks wherever I found one so I could read them all in order. Then this blog tour offer came along so I jumped at reading one completely out of sequence. Now I can’t wait for the rest of the story! 

Frankie Oliver and David Stone have been working together in the same MIT for the a few years, in their Newcastle headquarters jokingly referred to as ‘Middle-Earth’. However, the novel starts in a much darker place, many years before, when another detective is called to a body found on some waste ground. Horrified, he drops to the floor unable to contain his devastation. The body on the ground is his daughter. It’s such a powerful and emotive opening, leaving us in no doubt that this is a defining event for the loved ones of this girl. An absence that they still feel every day. For her dad it’s complicated by the fact he’s a murder detective and he missed Joanna’s last call. It’s arguable that this case is the very reason that her sister, Frankie Oliver, became a detective. She and David are an incredible team at work and have the potential to take their relationship further. It’s clear there’s been some ‘will they won’t they’ over the course of the previous novels. Now Frankie is taking a break from the team in Newcastle, a promotion to DI means she must fill a post back in uniform for a while, based out of the most northerly police station in the county, Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Frankie accepts and the team organise a leaving ‘do’. It’s there that Dave overhears an argument that immediately propels him back to the murder of Frankie’s sister. What’s said between the two men outside the venue sparks an idea in Dave’s mind. He has had an idea of how to investigate the cold case, but knows that he doesn’t want to bring more pain to the family. Hopefully Frankie’s secondment to Berwick means they won’t have to. 

Meanwhile Frankie’s first job is an RTC on the A1 and in the total chaos she finds a little boy handcuffed in the back of a van. The driver and passenger are dead and the van is a write off so Frankie can’t believe this little boy has survived. As she rescues him, an onlooker tells her that a man escaped out of the back doors straight after the crash. This opens up a trafficking case that might take her straight back out of uniform again. The boy, Amir, takes to Frankie. Possibly the first person in a long time who has made him feel safe. She shows a real maternal side with him and her sister-in-law Andrea is sure that Frankie’s sister Rae will feel the same. Andrea and Rae have been looking at fostering, much to Frankie’s surprise. Could they be the right fit for this terrified boy? Dave has been missing Frankie’s presence but he knows that solving the case of what happened to Joanne matters to her more than anything. He has just one officer -Indira- and a limited time scale to investigate. Frankie is the only person he wants to talks to but she can’t know until and if, they make an arrest. Especially since he suspects the murderer may have been closer than they ever imagined.

This really is a nail-biting story, written in very short chapters that are easy to devour very quickly. So many have a cliff-hanger ending too. The setting is beautifully captured in it’s contradictions: the modernity and buzz of Newcastle with the contrast of the wild countryside and beautifully rugged coastline. There are differences in policing too as we can see from Frankie’s time on the Scottish Borders. I really fell in love with Frankie’s family, because they are so loving and nurturing with each other. I could see how taking in Amir could be the best thing for him, but it could also put the tightly knit Olivers under stress or even into danger. I kept thinking about how distraught the family would be if something happened to him or to those like Andrea and Frankie who are trying to put the child trafficking gang out of business. The author cleverly uses these family dynamics, as well as Dave and Indira’s gentle and nuanced interviewing on the murder case, as a contrast or perhaps a breather between Frankie’s more nail-biting action sequences. The only drawback was that I’d be so desperate to know what happened next for Frankie that I might not take in all the detail of the quieter chapter in between. Of course that says more about my lack of patience than the book. As for the relationship between Frankie and Dave, I was very much invested despite not knowing everything that’s gone before. I can see both their perspectives and there are so many reasons not to take a risk, but if we never take a risk we might never know what might have been. It reminds me of the inspirational quote about fear of falling; ‘but imagine, what if you fly?’ 

Meet the Author

Multi-award winning Mari Hannah is the author of the Stone & Oliver crime series, the Ryan & O’Neil series and the DCI Kate Daniels series.

In July 2010, she won a Northern Writers’ Award for Settled Blood. In 2013, she won the Polari First Book Prize for her debut, The Murder Wall. She was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library 2017 as the author of the most enjoyed collection of work in libraries. In 2019, she was awarded DIVA Wordsmith of the Year. In that same year, Mari was Programming Chair of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Festival. In 2020, Mari was named as DIVA ‘Wordsmith of the Year’ and won Capital Crime’s ‘Crime Book of the Year’ award.

She lives in Northumberland with her partner, an former murder detective.

To find her or see where she’s appearing, visit her events page at: marihannah.com or follow her on Twitter @mariwriter.

Posted in Netgalley

The Psychopath Next Door by Mark Edwards

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When I want a thriller that I’ll absolutely devour in one or two sittings, I always reach for Mark Edwards and his latest is very unsettling. Fiona Smith is new on the street and is trying to get to know her neighbours. Ethan and Emma Dove seem like a lovely couple, in fact they’re the ideal family. Their kids Dylan and Rose are targeted by the two tearaways who live across the road who circle the other teenagers on their scrambler bikes, as their German Shepherds circle their terrified cockapoo Lola. Fiona intervenes and when later one of the boys has a terrible accident their parents are convinced someone caused the tyre blowout that resulted in a head injury. It couldn’t have been Fiona could it? The boy’s parents can’t find a trace of Fiona online so no red flags. However, the elderly lady called Iris who lives on the corner, she’s sure she’s seen Fiona before but can’t quite put her finger on where. When Fiona offers to look after Ethan and Emma’s daughter Rosie for the summer she has definitely become a feature in their lives. Their son Dylan is unsure. He definitely doesn’t need a babysitter, but it isn’t just that. Fiona unnerves him. He’s noticed that when no one is looking her expression becomes neutral, like a robot. Rose is enraptured though and they begin to visit Fiona’s favourite places and play chess together when it’s raining. All the time Fiona is monitoring Rose. Has she seen a glimmer of herself in this ordinary seeming teenage girl? As Fiona starts to test out Rose’s limits, Ethan and Emma are oblivious to what’s happening to their daughter. 

The action takes place over one summer, with steadily rising tension. I can promise you that you’ll reach a certain point and won’t want to put this down. Ethan and Emma have a fairly ordinary family life with the usual ups and downs. I felt Ethan was much more fleshed out than Emma, he’s recently taken the risk of opening a vinyl record store and taking the move further out of London. They had a recent crisis in their relationship after Emma became close to a work colleague – something Ethan describes as an ‘emotional affair’. Fiona is very amused by this description and sees it as a potential opportunity to drive a wedge between them. I was surprised that they so readily agreed to leaving Rose with their new neighbour, after all their knowledge of her is vague at best. They haven’t even been inside her house. However, I did understand the financial pressures and needing to be two working parents with teenagers pushing to do different things. Fiona is a godsend, a very rare adult that Rose enjoys being with. They definitely seem to have a bond, but is that down to a shared psychology? Rose could just be doing that teenage girl thing of being fascinated with a woman who isn’t her mum. Fiona allows little slivers of rebellion, like watching a horror film that her mum wouldn’t approve of. This builds a web of secrets between them and lets Rose feel like a grown-up. 

Psychologically, the story is fascinating. The word ‘grooming’ has to be applied here. Fiona is very aware of the protection her gender affords and a further layer is afforded to mothers. No one suspects a mother and her daughter, it’s the same reason that female murderers become so infamous: women are creators not destroyers. There’s also the nature versus nurture debate, is Fiona simply harnessing a tendency already present in Rose or will her grooming bring out behaviour that would have otherwise stayed dormant. There are some heart-stopping moments as the novel comes towards the final showdown and I was absolutely gripped. I love that Mark Edwards doesn’t follow the usual tropes of thrillers, because I kept thinking that once Rose realises her full potential there would be no going back. Psychopathy has some treatment options available, but current thinking is that it’s an inherited or genetic condition where the areas of the brain controlling behaviour and impulse control are underdeveloped. Treatment is a combination of psychotherapy, behavioural training and an emphasis on the importance of connection to family and the wider community. However, it is a disorder that can only be controlled rather than cured. Once someone has been shown that society’s rules can be broken can they ever truly go back to how they were before? One thing that really stood out to me was that Fiona’s house has no books! Always a bad sign I think and as a piece of advice on dating it was invaluable; if you go home with someone and they don’t have books, don’t sleep with them. I won’t ruin the book by saying too much, but I highly recommend it to those who enjoy devouring thrillers. In fact if you’ve never read Mark Edwards before go and take a look at his previous books too. You won’t be disappointed. 

Out now from Thomas and Mercer

Meet the Author

I write books in which scary things happen to ordinary people, the best known of which are Follow You Home, The Magpies, and Here To Stay. My novels have sold over 5 million copies and topped the bestseller lists numerous times. I pride myself on writing fast-paced page-turners with lots of twists and turns, relatable characters and dark humour. My next novel is The Wasp Trap, which will be published in July in the UK/Australia and September in the US/Canada. 

I live in the West Midlands, England, with my wife, our three children, two cats and a golden retriever.

Posted in Throwback Thursday

Silence Is A Sense by Layla AlAammar

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Even though I’m so late reading this book, in a way I’m glad. For the past two years we have been embroiled in the aftermath of the previous government’s decision to house asylum seekers at the the now closed RAF base close by. While many of the community were worried about the issue, our reasons for concern were very different. When a local meeting descended into a heated exchange, it became clear that despite our concerns for the asylum seekers, we couldn’t voice them because of the sheer weight of people strongly opposing the plan for other reasons. Local concerns became lost in the wider debate on refugees. The campaign was targeted by far right organisations that didn’t really care about reasonable concerns, they just wanted to use the opportunity for their own political gain. Known fascists became interested and the gate to the base became a makeshift camp festooned with flags, stop the boats banners and others claiming asylum seekers were paedophiles. It became really hard to drive past and see all this racism and misinformation on the gates of such an iconic base, ironically known for it’s fighting against a fascist regime taking over Europe. We became part of an organisation set up to support the asylum seekers as they arrived into this hostile environment. When the new government changed course with the policy, we were relieved to know that there no longer fascist organisations camping out up the road. This book gave me more insight into a refugee’s journey.

The writer cleverly chooses a fragmented structure to tell her heroine’s story. Named ‘The Voiceless’ she writes about her experience as a way of processing her story and communicating it to other people as far as she can. Her memory comes in snippets, so her narrative moves back and forth in time and might seem a bit sketchy. Imagine everything you have is taken away from you. Your home is rubble, everything you owned that said something about who you are is gone with it. You have no documents to prove your identity or your education. Everyone you have known is either dead or scattered to the wind. She has escaped Aleppo with nothing. If you think about how your belongings, choices of clothing and your photographs say something about who you are, now imagine it gone. How do you keep a sense of self? Especially when you’re seeing or subjected to atrocities like killing, abuse and rape. Your psyche becomes shattered. Our narrator is trying to record those fragments, to bear witness and also to put the bits of herself back together. It might feel strange, even jarring at first but it’s supposed to be. It’s meant to confront and make you think.

The author shows us how she tries to embark on a future and make connections. She’s starting a journey of self-discovery, rebuilding herself in this new environment. She writes from home and watches her neighbours, keeping her eye on them. It’s called hyper-vigilance and it’s hard for her to drop these habits even though she’s now safe. Her muteness isolates her from others, in fact many people assume she’s deaf as well. She takes small steps outside, using the shop and going to the mosque and starts to meet people. Her observations of her neighbours are quite humorous as she gives them names that reflect their behaviour – the Juicer and No Light Man. Her insight into us is brilliant. She has that outsider’s gaze and because she doesn’t want to reveal too much about herself at first, she can use these observations. She writes about the people she sees, the strange way of life she can observe with so much scrutiny because it’s alien to her.

Slowly she starts to process and share her own story. She once had a somewhat privileged upbringing, she was well-educated too but war has left her with nothing. Then there’s the war, loss and the terror of trying to get to a place of refuge; a refuge that isn’t always the safe place it seems. She slowly makes space for new people in her life. I felt like her writing and sharing was helping her heal, remembering the trauma and processing it fully helps make room for growth. As someone who advocates writing therapy I found this so moving. The author has captured this process so beautifully as the writing becomes less fragmented and less about the past. This is such an important story and I’ll be buying the book for a few friends who I know will want to read it and maybe a few who wouldn’t. The sections of her time in Syria and travelling to the UK is so evocative, I defy people not to be moved by the raw truth of her experience.

Posted in Netgalley

Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell

Posted on by thelotusreaders

 

This book was so beautifully written and so deeply painful that I was out of breath towards the end. When I put it down I had to sit in silence for a while and just digest it all. It’s the story of a woman trying to leave a relationship that is tying her down and eating her alive. Everything she was before – bright, intelligent and full of life – has been worn away. Enduring her husband’s treatment, as well as having two children in four years, mean Ciara has had enough. She can see his behaviour as a pattern and despite being absolutely terrified she needs to find the strength to go. Ciara has no real support, her family is Irish but live in London and despite her yearning to see her mum sister the law states that she can’t take the children out of Ireland without the written permission of their father. Her only option is the housing office, present as homeless and hopefully get some emergency accommodation. As she meets other women in the same situation, she founds out that emergency and temporary have a very different meaning to the housing department. They offer her a temporary hotel room, but some women on the floor have lived there for a year so it’s going to be a long slog. This small double room with one bed and no view is the first place they’ve felt even remotely safe, even if they do have to go down a separate staircase so they don’t bump into tourists. Will Ciara have the strength to stay away and build a new life for herself? 

Money is something else she needs to work on because she knows nothing will come from him, even when she knows she is pregnant for a third time. They can’t live on what the government provides. It’s only going to cover day to day subsistence and she needs to be able to put money aside, to rent somewhere that’s a new home for them all. She needs to find a place where they can put themselves back together. I loved the solidarity between the women living in the hotel. They work together, being there for each other’s kids when they need to interview or view houses. They make each child’s birthday special, as well as decorating the whole corridor for Halloween and Christmas. Some of the hotel staff help too, particularly the porter Diego. Ciara lands a job doing what she did before the girls, teaching English as a foreign language and having to learn Irish on the side. It’s a hard way to live, having to get about on foot and working on her Irish after she’s put the girls to bed. I was saying in my head ‘please don’t go back’ over and over. 

Ciara’s husband terrified me. He follows a pattern, having love-bombed Ciara in a whirlwind romance he changes straight after she moves to Ireland and they’re married. His restrictions and rages, plus the birth of both girls have left Ciara stuck at home, friendless and a constant target. I recognised the fear she was feeling on a daily basis, quietly tip-toeing around him, desperate to avoid igniting his unpredictable rage. Trying to keep her girls shielded from the worst. I have to make an admission here so that you can understand the strength of my reaction to this novel. For four years, after I lost my husband, I was in an abusive relationship. I was incredibly vulnerable and although he didn’t touch me physically I was terrified of him. I was subjected to manipulation, rage and withdrawal of affection all because I was terrified of being left alone. I was so scared he would leave if I didn’t keep him happy and then I’d be left alone with my grief. I’d needed a happy ending so badly, I sleepwalked into a nightmare. I allowed myself to be totally disrespected and abused. I know it wasn’t my fault. He is responsible for his own actions, but I still felt so much guilt about when the relationship was failing. So for me this book was really personal and it was so well-written that I felt Ciara’s story bodily. When I finished my chest was tight and my throat was sore. I felt absolutely wrung out. 

Ciara wondered what would happen when he was awarded visitation by the courts? She knows he won’t hurt the girls but he might use them against her. What if he doesn’t bring them back? This particular fear heightens after she goes into labour early. How can she hand over a completely defenceless baby? It’s clear to see his misogyny when he reacts to finally having a son and I feared that he might keep him. I felt really uncomfortable about the nestling crows he brings home to Ciara when they’re still together. They’re in their nest, barely a few days old and he wants to hand rear them. They are so bald and vulnerable and I was scared he would hurt them, but he seems to enjoy the control he has over these helpless creatures. After Ciara flees he is left with one crow, now feathered and able to leave the nest he keeps it in the house, shitting and shedding feathers everywhere. He tethers it with a long lead outside, showing it the freedom it could have but keeping it for himself. It feels unbearably cruel. It’s such a clever and chilling metaphor. This is not a comfortable read, especially if you’ve been through an ordeal like Ciara’s. What helps is when an author is brave enough to use their own experience or research to get it right for readers who’ve survived abuse. He author has written this so carefully and made Ciara’s life so real that I felt seen. I find that the more I read about other experiences of coercive control and psychological abuse the stronger I feel. Yes, I was left with tension, but I was also left with triumph. It is possible to leave men like this. It’s possible to live a full and happy life. I read on hoping with all my heart that Ciara would make it through and build a new life for her and her children. Underneath my fear I was storing up hope for her. I hoped she knew how much strength she had. She could leave. After all, I did.

Out on 30th Jan from Simon & Schuster

Meet the Author

Roisín O’Donnell is an award-winning Irish author. She won the prize for Short Story of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards in 2018, and was shortlisted for the same prize in 2022. She is the author of the story collection Wild Quiet, which was longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien Award. Her short fiction has featured in The Stinging Fly, The Tangerine, the Irish Times and many other places. Other stories have been selected for major anthologies such as The Long Gaze Back, and have featured on RTÉ Radio. Nesting is her first novel. She lives near Dublin with her two children.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Every Move You Make by C.L. Taylor 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Alexandra, Lucy, Bridget, River and Natalie. Five friends who wish they’d never met. Because the one thing they have in common is the worst thing in their lives: they are all being stalked.

When one of their group is murdered, days after their stalker is released from prison, time stands still for them all. They know their lives could end just as brutally at any moment – all it takes is for the people they fear the most to catch up with them.

When the group receive a threat that one of them will die in ten days’ time, the terror that stalks their daily lives becomes all-consuming. But they know they don’t want to be victims anymore – it’s time to turn the tables and finally get their revenge.

Because the only way to stop a stalker is to become one yourself…

After starting the novel with a tense and terrifying narrative of a woman being stalked, the author jumps forward and shows us how the loss of Natalie has affected those around her so deeply. For a handful of mourners, her loss is a terrible reminder of how they met and increases the fear of their own fate. Natalie’s friends tell their stories through the WhatsApp group they share. Alex, Lucy, Bridget and River are all victims of stalking. They formed their group to support each other and as a way of looking out for each other, using it to check in when outside their homes and when they return. However, when a very clear threat is made against them, they have to protect themselves. What lengths will they go to? The structure takes us between characters giving us a little bit of their story each time. Each of their stories slowly weaves together to create a whole; the phrase ‘one more chapter’ is very apt for this book. Sometimes you get caught up in a particular story, reach a cliffhanger and realise you have to read through three more chapters to find out what happened. It’s a interesting mix of characters, choosing women of different ages and a man shows us that it’s not only young women who are victims of stalking. I could sense that there were secrets to unearth with all of them and I found myself unable to fully trust anyone. They were complex and I thought the author explored their character and the group dynamics really well. I found myself switching between who I mistrusted and why. This suspicion did ramp up the tension not to mention the thrilling action scenes. 

The other aspect of this novel that is brilliantly executed is the description of the psychological impact that the stalking has on each character. We can see each character dealing with their situation differently, based on their personality, past experiences and who is stalking them. Some know exactly who their stalker is, while others are stalked by a complete stranger. The author manages to put across the constant vigilance, that feeling of always looking over your shoulder and the fear of what the stalker might do next. She shows how some stalkers escalate, keeping their victim behind closed doors, terrified to venture into the outside world alone. There’s also an element of victims taking their power back and carrying out acts of retaliation. The remaining four of the group do this by tagging their stalkers so they can monitor their whereabouts at all times. To do this without the stalker realising is incredibly dangerous. As each chapter counts down to the potential murder of one of the victims, the sense of fear really does set in and keeps those pages turning. 

Reading this in the same week that Louise, Hannah and Julie Hunt’s killer was found guilty of their murder really hit home. Misogyny and violence against women seems to be on the rise at the moment. Often violence follows months or even years of abuse, coercive control and stalking. It also seems that women are losing trust in the system that’s designed to protect them, especially since Sarah Everard was killed by a serving police officer. Here the characters are avoiding telling the police and I was left wondering it was disillusionment with the police force or whether some characters had something to hide. For the person who once professed to love you, to exhibit such abusive behaviour, must be terrifying. In fact it is often walking away from the relationship and cutting off communication that leads to escalation, just when the victim is settled and starting to feel safe again. The author’s writing brings the truth of this issue to light, because it shows how important it is to have all the parts of a story. The problem is, stalking is often a case of one person’s word against the other. The book’s structure shows how one person’s account either illuminates or throw suspicion on someone else. Whether they’re guilty or not can depend upon their eloquence and ability to charm others. This is such a timely novel and it was interesting to read how the author’s research and personal experience informed her story. For me it was this personal insight that made her story feel so authentic.

Available now. Published by Avon Books

Meet the Author

C.L. Taylor is an award winning Sunday Times bestselling author of ten gripping psychological thrillers including EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for autumn 2024, THE GUILTY COUPLE, (Richard and Judy Book Club 2023) and SLEEP (Richard and Judy Book Club 2019).

C.L. Taylor’s books have sold over two million copies in the UK alone, hit number one on Amazon Kindle, Audible, Kobo, iBooks and Google Play, and have been translated into over 30 languages and optioned for TV.

Her books are not a series and can be read in any order:

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Last Days of Kira Mullan by Nicci French

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I always jump at the chance to read a new Nicci French book. Also they’re so prolific that it’s easy to find earlier novels in charity shops. This novel is set in a Victorian house split into flats and it’s newest residents are Nancy and her boyfriend Felix. Nancy is recovering after a psychiatric episode and a stay in hospital. Thankfully her voices have subsided but she’s fragile and moving to a new part of London has been destabilising. After venturing out for a walk she starts to experience voices again and in her confusion she rushes back to the flat. At the front door she bumps into a young woman wearing very striking green boots with yellow laces. The woman speaks to Nancy but it doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t help that she’s trying to distinguish between which voices are real. All she knows is that the woman was distressed and possibly needed help. Only 24 hours later the young woman is found hanging in the basement flat. Her name was Kira Mullan. Everyone seems sad that Kira committed suicide but for Nancy, something feels off. She isn’t sure that Kira did kill herself. How can she convince the others that she’s telling the truth when nobody trusts her?

This novel was absolutely gripping with brilliantly written main characters and a haunting central victim in Kira. I loved the idea of following the story through Nancy who has been struggling with her mental health and a clever, perceptive detective in Maud. The authors have cleverly placed Nancy on shifting sands – not only has she had a period of psychosis but she’s moved house and into an entirely strange area of London. She’s also lost her livelihood as a chef and could be living in a building with a murderer. She’s also without a touchstone in her life. I know exactly who to go to and ask whether I’m the asshole? I have friends who will tell the truth about whether I’m over-reacting or if something is genuinely wrong. This was invaluable when I found myself in an emotionally abusive relationship. I’d hoped that Nancy’s boyfriend Felix would be that person but I’d noticed a few red flags. He’s very attentive and seems to want her wrapped up in cotton wool, but Nancy is doing all the right things. On the day after she’s heard voices she asks to see the psychiatrist who changes the dosage of her medication and goes for counselling. She’s resting and doing her breathing exercises. In fact there’s very little else she can do. The authors leave us constantly wondering about her; is she paranoid or are the other residents out to get her?

Felix claims he only wants people to look out for her but Nancy feels like her space and autonomy are being encroached on. Felix tells the other residents everything about her history, including the psychosis, even the doctor who lives across the hall. He even gives next door neighbour Michelle their door key so she can let herself in, much to Nancy’s shock. His actions have actually left Nancy more vulnerable, leaving her open to abuse from others that they can deny. Who’s going to believe the mad girl? Nancy doesn’t think she’s paranoid but can see that her actions might seems excessive: she goes through Kira’s bin; steals a used condom from the flat and goes to look at the apartment with an estate agent; she also tells the police and Kira’s mother that she doesn’t think it was suicide. Just as she thinks she’s getting close to answers she is sectioned again after Michelle informs Felix that she threatened her. The authors show us how vulnerable mentally unwell women are in the care system and NHS, even though they’re designed to protect them. Not only is her liberty taken away and she’s prey to unscrupulous carers and nurses. In this upside down world, the more she protests her sanity the worse things become. She loses whole days to medication and is told by one male nurse that her life would be easier if she was ‘nice’ to him. So Nancy bites him. She has only one choice here. Be obedient, ignore the barbs and smile sweetly through visits she doesn’t want. It’s the only way she’ll be free. 

I loved the relationship between the detective Maud and Nancy. Maud is so perceptive and their experiences do mirror each other in a way. Maud knows that as a woman in the MET she is in the minority and she’s fully aware of the type of man that can be hiding behind a uniform or a title. In their respective institutions Nancy and Maud are trapped within a system they can’t change. Maud knows that if she becomes emotional or passionate about a particular case she will be seen as an irrational or hormonal woman. If she’s assertive and asks for what’s rightfully hers she’ll be called a bitch. In order to get the cases she wants and stand up for women like Kira and Nancy she has to play the game. It seemed to me that Maud saw the red flags with certain people whether in the flats or the house next door. She never holds Nancy’s illness against her and accepts that although she’s been struggling, she still might have something useful for solving the case. She also has a network of women within the system who will do her favours, such as looking over autopsy results and giving a second opinion. I loved the way she handles herself and her confidence in very dangerous circumstances. This was a gripping and psychologically brilliant read. I’d didn’t work out all of what had happened in Kira’s final days but the end was satisfying and I reached it very quickly because this is quite the page turner. 

Out in hardback from Simon & Schuster on Jan 16th 2025

Meet the Author

Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together.

Posted in Back of the Shelf, Throwback Thursday

The Lingering by S.J. Holliday

Posted on by thelotusreaders

In the free reading time I have towards the end of the year I’ve chosen to read the back catalogue of a few authors and S.J.Holliday happened to be someone I was really interested in. I love most of Orenda Books’s authors and I first came into contact with them through S.J. Holiday’s book Violet, which was one of my first ever blog tours. I loved the psychological aspects of the book and the way the author saw women as they really are – the heroes of their own stories, making autonomous decisions with the potential to be just as violent and chaotic as a male character. I’ve had The Lingering on the shelf for a while, but something made me take it down last week to read while soaking in the bath. Ali and her husband have made a huge decision. They’ve sold up almost everything they own and joined a commune of people living in what was an old psychiatric unit. At first they’re unsure of the group and their surroundings, but as her husband starts to settle in, his wife Ali seems less able to. Is it the strange house, with it’s abandoned wing full of old psychiatric equipment? Is it the sceptical locals? Or do Ali and husband Jack have dark secrets of their own?

The setting of this story is so gothic and atmospheric, with a dark history that slowly reveals itself both through local’s stories and the things left behind – physical and paranormal. Angela, the other narrator in our story, is the keeper of these stories and an amateur investigator of the paranormal. She has the house wired with sound equipment and cameras, particularly those areas where her sixth sense starts tingling. One of those areas is the bathroom adjoining Ali and Jack’s new bedroom, but also in the attic room above. I was slightly alarmed by the way she was watching the new couple, in a detached way almost like they were animals in an experiment. She seems like a new age, tree hugging, ethereal type of woman who has really bought into the ethos of the community. Ali notices her reverence in the rituals they share as a group and in the meditation sessions. Her name outlines her role within the group, she is the angelic and slightly naïve little sister to the others. Yet there is another side to her, the side that enjoys the stories told by locals like Mary in the shop about the house’s witches and the later rumours surrounding the asylum. She seems to enjoy the intrigue and proves to be quite the detective when it comes to Ali and Jack, showing a sneakier and unpleasant part to her character. The house itself is a labyrinth, with secret rooms and endless corridors. That strange juxtaposition of the natural and the man made felt wrong. All the hospital equipment and furniture just sitting there as if still being used, whilst the outside elements and nature are starting to encroach inside left me feeling uneasy. I felt as if any moment Ali or Angela might look in the mirror and see a busy ward behind them, like a glimpse through time.

In my closest city of Lincoln there is an old Victorian asylum on the outskirts, now slowly being developed into residential spaces. For years it remained deserted and derelict, with a strange aura around it. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a 19th Century nurse at one of the broken windows, because it was untouched all that energy still seemed present. Local explorers did search around inside and take pictures of the iron bedsteads and old medical equipment just lying around as if someone had only just left the room. The mould, piles of rotted leaves, cobwebs and dirt added to the sense of abandonment. You certainly wouldn’t have found me in the there at night! This was exactly what was running through my mind as I was reading and it set me on edge. This house felt as if some parts were inhabited by the living and others by the dead. I won’t spoil the scary moments for other readers, but Ali’s first experience as she climbs into the bath after their long journey would have sent me running back up the drive. It has double impact because not only is it inexplicable, it’s an echo back to events that really happened in the house’s past, events that are haunting even without their ghostly context.

I didn’t trust anyone after a few chapters, despite at first happily reading Ali’s experience and trusting her account. As a reader I’m used to fictional communities like this being sinister under their surface mantras of love and light. Yet Angela makes discoveries that put the couple’s story in doubt and I began to wonder about Jack. What had forced these people to leave behind two respected professions and could it have something to do with a box of hidden news cuttings? One of the most tense sections of the book had nothing to do with the paranormal and involved some of the villagers. Late night Ali notices a 4X4 vehicle coming up the drive with a large lantern on the roof and several men inside, most of them holding a gun. As she goes outside to confront them they explain that they’re merely ‘lamping’ nearby and have an agreement to flash their late at the community leader’s bedroom window so he knows they’re nearby. Much as it seems ridiculous to flash a light in someone’s window so you don’t disturb them, their excuse is a plausible one and it’s something I often see in the fields surrounding us. Yet there is an undercurrent in their conversation with Ali and when explaining what happened she does reference Straw Dogs, a violent 1970’s film where an academic and his wife move to the country and are terrorised by the villagers. However, her reaction is excessive and made me wonder what had happened in the past to trigger her that way. The author flips us between Angela and Ali, building the tension towards some sort of confrontation. Will Ali find out that Angela has been watching them and explode or will Angela’s snooping reveal something dreadful about the new recruits? I loved the hauntings, especially the emotive little child’s wet footprints that dot around the place. Do these apparitions have a malign purpose or are they simply trapped in a place where traumatic events play over and over like a continuous cinema reel? This is a brilliantly tense and spooky read that seems perfect for autumnal evenings, but might put you off baths for a little while.

Out now from Orenda Books

Meet the Author

Susi (S.J.I.) Holliday is the bestselling Scottish author of 11 novels, a novella and many short stories. By day she works in pharmaceuticals. She lives in London (except when she’s in Edinburgh) and she loves to travel the world.