THE WARNING

5 stars out of 5

Within a few chapters after starting this book, I had a bad feeling. Oh no, I said to no one there, not another woman with a bone in her teeth who refuses to let go and can't listen to reason. Now that I've finished, I've changed my attitude to so what? This book is WAY too good to get hung up on a single character (especially one who does, for the most part, have good reasons for being so obstinate). The story is riveting and truly hard to put down; I actually asked my sweet husband to record one of my favorite TV shows so that I could finish the book and watch the show later.

Three years earlier, Zoe Monaghan and her husband, Jake, lost the younger of their two sons. Ethan, age 14, and his best friend Josh somehow fell into a nearby river and drowned after inexplicably sneaking out in the middle of the night; both deaths were deemed accidental. Unable to deal with the emotional upheaval, Zoe, Jake and their remaining son, Harley, move to London, leaving Josh's parents, Roberta and Adrian - who simply can't afford to relocate. At their new location, Jake and his friend Liam are working hard to get their business going, so Jake isn't around to offer much emotional support for his wife and son.

Out of the blue, Zoe - a nurse at at a fertilization clinic - gets an anonymous email claiming that Ethan's death wasn't an accident. While Jake is dismissive (and isn't willing to stir the coals of an old and very destructive fire), Zoe is determined to get to the bottom of the message. She's not sure it isn't a prank at this point, but neither is she willing to disregard it. Ignoring advice from Jake and the local police, she sets out to contact anyone and everyone who knew Ethan and Josh back then to at the very least find out why they went to the river in the first place. By all accounts, Josh is headstrong almost to the point of incorrigible; but her son, she insists, had his head on straight and wouldn't have gone along with anything he felt was wrong.

As time - and more mysterious emails - go along, readers learn that just about everyone involved has secrets (some much darker than others). Some offer clues to the drownings, while others threaten to disrupt the lives of the major characters for totally different reasons. Thrown in the mix are chapters from the perspective of another anonymous character - an apparent stalker of an unknown victim. Who both turn out to be provides yet another twist to a road already filled with unexpected turns.

In short, outstanding - and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

The Warning by Kathryn Croft (Bookouture, October 2018); 351 pp.

SILENT LIES

4 stars out of 5


If you enjoy reading about female characters who are totally consumed by angst, paranoia and self-doubt, do not - repeat, do not miss this book. Not only is there one such character here, but three - and until the end, it's virtually impossible to tell who's telling the truth. It's a story with a past that began five years prior to the present day, when Mia Hamilton has finally come to grips - almost - with her husband Zach's suicide. He died on the same day that Josie, one of his university students, disappeared (he was a professor); the claim was that he and his student were having an affair that somehow went awry. The unfortunate result, it appears, is that he murdered her and took his own life in remorse.

Despite a few misgivings, Mia never believed Zach was a murderer; and now, she's getting by at their London home with help from their young daughter, Freya, her close personal boyfriend Will and Zach's ever-loving parents, who live nearby. She's undergone training as a personal counselor, seeing clients in her home office, and her life after Zach is back on a track toward normalcy. That changes, though, when a young woman named Alison seeks her out and makes an appointment. Clearly, Alison is seriously disturbed, but she makes a claim that chills Mia to the core: She knew both Josie and Zach, and more to the point, she insists Zach did not kill himself. That said, she abruptly runs off, leaving Mia to deal with the fallout and start questioning Zach's death, and just about everything else she's come to believe in, all over again.

But can what Alison says and does be trusted? Just as Mia begins to think she's the real deal, something happens that make her think she's delusional. As Mia tries to separate fact from fiction, what really happened back then is revealed to readers through flashback chapters narrated by Josie, the student supposedly murdered by Zach (I've grown weary of this technique, in all honestly, but the author does it very well). After a number of twists and turns, everything comes together in a surprising end.

That ending was not, however, all that satisfying. I'm not totally sure why, except perhaps that I never really related to any of the three women (hey, that's just me, but I prefer my female characters to be strong and mentally stable, I guess). Still another reason is that I guessed wrong - make that way wrong - so maybe my let-down is just a touch of sour grapes to compensate for being fooled. The bottom line is that this is a well-written, easy-to-read book that I really didn't want to put down. Many thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read it in exchange for an honest review.

Silent Lies by Kathryn Croft (Bookouture, October 2017); 321 pp.

THE GIRL WITH NO PAST

4 stars out of 5

Leah Mills was involved in something awful 14 years ago when she was a teenager, and it's dogged her mind ever since. Although she fled from the town in which it happened (moving to London, where she works in a library and lives almost as a recluse), the thought that her past will catch up with her is always in her mind. Almost as a lark, she visits an online dating site and has a virtual meet-up with site moderator Julian. Second-guessing herself every step of the way as she apparently has done since early childhood - she could be the poster child for insecurity - she begins to think a real relationship with Julian may be possible.

But then, she gets a nasty surprise: Someone, it seems, has discovered her true identity which, on the anniversary of that horrible event, threatens to disrupt her already miserable life. She tries to ignore the message, but as usual, her self-doubt wins out, prompting her to question even more than usual the words and actions of her co-workers (as for friends, fuhgettaboutit; she has none). As it becomes clear that her tormentor isn't going to leave her alone, her self-esteem nosedives to new lows. Meanwhile, neither her Mum, who still lives in the family home near London, or the psychologist she sees every once in a while, is able to help - mostly because she refuses to open up to either of them - but she manages to find a bit of solace through interaction with Julian and a kindly gentleman who frequents the library but in whom she has no romantic interest. 

Chapters shuffle back and forth from the present to Leah's school years, a technique of which I'm usually not a fan. But the author uses it to good advantage, here, with each switch adding just enough background and clues to make me reluctant to put the book down till the end, when everything comes together and the realities of past and present are revealed. Early on, I reached my own conclusions  - correctly, as it turns out - but it really didn't matter; the devil is in the details, after all. 

One thing I never did figure out, though: How is it possible to cradle a mug of hot tea to keep your hands warm while simultaneously surfing through photos on a laptop? Multi-tasker that I am, that's a secret I'd really love to know!

For the record, I received a copy of this book for review at no cost from the publisher through Netgalley.com.

The Girl With No Past by Kathryn Croft (Bookouture, October 2015); 261 pp.