Review: The Fallout by Rebecca Thornton

March 7, 2020

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This book may be unsuitable for people under 17 years of age due to its use of sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and/or violence.

the fallout by rebecca thornton - Review: The Fallout by Rebecca Thornton

The Fallout by Rebecca Thornton
Published by HarperCollins on December 5, 2019
ISBN: 9780008373146
Genres: Fiction, Thrillers, Domestic, Psychological, Family Life, Marriage & Divorce, Women, Friendship, General, Suspense
Pages: 432
Format: ARC, eBook
Source: NetGalley, Publisher
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

two stars - Review: The Fallout by Rebecca Thornton

The accident. The lie. The fallout will be huge . . .
When Liza’s little boy has an accident at the local health club, it’s all anyone can talk about.
Was nobody watching him? Where was his mother? Who’s to blame?
The rumours, the finger-pointing, the whispers – they’re everywhere. And Liza’s best friend, Sarah, desperately needs it to stop.
Because Sarah was there when it happened. It was all her fault. And if she’s caught out on the lie, everything will fall apart . . .
‘A fizzing, unputdownable, gripping read’ Elizabeth Day
‘The perfect page-turner’ Susan Lewis
‘Secrets, lies, suspicion and betrayal: THE FALLOUT has it all – and then some’ T M Logan

What would you do if your five-year-old son fell and got injured on your watch. Your best friend tells you they checked on him before the accident happens. He was safe and happy. You would trust that, wouldn’t you? The Fallout examines the chain of events this accident triggers; they are catastrophic, and no one’s lives will ever be the same again. Friendships should be filled with trust and compassion to what ends will the threads that hold them together snap. The Fallout examines the confines and limits of friendships and the parenting circles of school age children. The two-faced sides of mothers that spend all their time professing kindness but are entirely judgemental at every turn.

I mulled over how to review The Fallout and generally how I felt about it. It was a premise that was topically relevant but in a lot of ways it fell a bit flat. You are fully aware that these things take place. The WhatsApp groups between parents, the snippy behaviour, the envious behaviour of parents that are placed on a pedestal and you can’t help but want their life. These things are going to take place in such a technologically advanced era.

The biggest flaw in The Fallout, for me wasn’t the really the story itself. The characters didn’t connect with me nor were they very nice people. Sarah, although been through an incredibly traumatic event some of her actions were dubious at best and damaging at worst. She seemed to be more concerned about her incredibly dangerous obsession with Ella and her life rather than the safety of a child. Her actions through-out the story just pushed the dominoes over and they kept catapulting to a dangerous climax. She was naive and seemed to be lost within herself.

Liza is a woman that is still in that new-born phase of losing themselves to being a mother to a fully demanding infant. It’s hard to juggle being attentive to the baby’s needs and also being fully present to a five-year-old. It’s a very difficult balance to have successfully. The part of Liza that I just couldn’t cope with was how she let her husband, Gav railroad her into parenting decisions. He has taken the decision to separate from her but refuses to move out of the marital home, WTF is all that about? The way he talks to her is abhorrent, claiming that he needs to keep an eye on her.

Ella is the woman that seems to have it all. She knew Sarah and Liza when they were all expecting their five-year olds at the NCT workshops. She then ghosted them all and has always been the object of Sarah’s obsession. Her money, her house, her beautiful children. What is she hiding and why has she now come into their lives again. Is everything as perfect as it seems?

The Fallout is told in Sarah and Eliza’s perspectives and the viciousness that can be yummy mummies. An accident that leads to Sarah telling a lie that leads to her subsequent guilt. The mummies and their children and their exclusive fitness club was anything but my cup of tea. They all seemed so far removed from the real world. The ending, in my opinion was more of an anti-climax. The story could have been great but the execution of it didn’t work.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rebecca Thornton’s third novel – THE FALLOUT – will be published in April 2020, with a Kindle release on December 5th 2019.
Twitter: @RThorntonwriter
Insta: Rebecca_Thornton_writer

Rebecca Thornton

The Snakes by Sadie Jones

February 23, 2020

The Snakes by Sadie Jones
Published by Penguin on June 25, 2019
ISBN: 9780062897046
Genres: Fiction, Literary, Thrillers, Suspense, Horror
Pages: 448
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
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Goodreads
two stars - The Snakes by Sadie Jones

“The Snakes is many things—a parable and an ancient drama where a father’s greed devours his children, a police procedural, an avid take on tabloid venality, and a bitter comedy, superbly observed, where behind a woman’s eyes she is ‘all movement inside herself, like a wasp in a glass.’ I admit that I’m still shaken by parts of this novel. Sadie Jones writes with pitiless aplomb and corrosive intelligence.”—Louise Erdrich
A chilling page-turner and impossible to put down, THE SNAKES is Sadie Jones at her best: breathtakingly powerful, brilliantly incisive, and utterly devastating.
The new novel by Sadie Jones tells the tense and violent story of the Adamsons, a dysfunctional English family, with exceptional wealth, whose darkest secrets come back to bite them. Set mostly in rural France during contemporary times, THE SNAKES is an all-consuming read and a devastating portrait of how money corrupts, and how chance can deal a deadly hand.
THE SNAKES exposes the damage wreaked by parents on children as observed by a new member of the family, Dan, a mixed-race man from Peckham who marries Bea, the daughter who refuses to take any of her father’s filthy money. But when Bea’s brother Alex (who runs a shabby hotel in Paligny, France) dies suddenly in unexplained circumstances, the confusion and suspicion which arise bring other dark family secrets—and violence—to the surface. And none of the family, even the good members, go untouched.

This book turned into a real disappointment. It wasn’t like I struggled to get through the book. From page one I was loving the journey, loving the complexity of every character. Appreciating their role, their intricacies, their pain and the road that each decided to take. The book for me, was a five-star read right up until the last two chapters. The writing was engaging, and it had my attention so rapturously, I felt like I was contained within a vice. It was intense and emotional, and I craved to know what the ending would deliver. It was flat and completely separate from what was building. I was disappointed.

The majority of the book was exceptional. The Snakes is a story about the complexity of money and the power that corrupts within. Families can either be destroyed by it or brought together. This story is unfortunately the former. We get a glimpse of how money and the type of wealth that is astronomical can borne a childhood of at worst abuse and at best indifference.

The Snakes allows us a fly on the wall view of a personal family tragedy. A death that is not completely unexpected but raw and grievous all the same. The family is dysfunctional. Abuse always creeping at the edges of our vision, shocked by the behaviour and the actions of those that are meant to be there to protect no matter what. The language and the tone in which the father, Griff addresses his children is standoffish and brutal like they are mere business transactions. The death is the catalyst to the band aid being truly ripped off. Secrets will finally come to the fore.

The book has a very depressing and melancholy dissonance resonating throughout its pages. It’s thought provoking and makes you think about the fragility of life and the glue that keeps families together. This story really highlights the old adage that money is the root of all evil. This is where Sadie Jones comes into her own. Her characters are so impeccably constructed from the conflict to the love and security. The atmospheric world building was so bang on the nail for creepy, threatening shadow that threatened to engulf them all. The Snakes in the attic seemed like the perfect symbol for dread that the hotel had opened up. Money and secrets a dreadful cocktail to sip from.

And then the impressive build up seemed to evaporate in front of the readers eyes. It took an unsuspected and strange turn. I don’t mean in the form of a shocking twist. I mean that the ending didn’t make any sense. It felt like the author rushed the ending and didn’t listen to her character’s personalities, their inner voices. It was a mess.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sadie Jones is a novelist and screenwriter. Her first novel, The Outcast (‘Devastatingly good’, Daily Mail) won the Costa First Novel Award in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. It was also a Richard and Judy Summer Reads number one bestseller and adapted for BBC Television. Her second novel, Small Wars (‘Outstanding’, The Times; ‘One of the best books about the English at war ever’, Joel Morris), was published in 2009, and longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her third, in 2012, was The Uninvited Guests (‘A shimmering comedy of manners and disturbing commentary on class… a brilliant novel’, Ann Patchett) followed by Fallout in 2014 (‘Intoxicating and immersive’, The Sunday Times).

Sadie Jones

Book Review: The Good Mother by Cathryn Grant

January 5, 2020

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

49086309 - Book Review: The Good Mother by Cathryn Grant

The Good Mother by Cathryn Grant
Published by Inkubator Books on January 8th 2020
ISBN: 4470993568303
Genres: Domestic Thriller
Pages: 333
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon
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four stars - Book Review: The Good Mother by Cathryn Grant

Amy’s life is picture perfect. Mess with that picture – you’re going to pay.

Amy’s life is close to perfect – two lovely daughters, a wonderful husband and she’s queen bee in her circle of soccer moms. She feels content, like she’s finally put some distance between herself and the terrible events of long ago.

The only fly in the ointment is Charlotte, a recent arrival to this affluent suburban community. The shameless way she dresses, the way the men look at her… it’s not right, she’s just not the kind of person they want around here.

Amy spearheads a drive to exclude Charlotte, to make it clear to her that she’s not welcome here. Infuriatingly, Charlotte doesn’t seem to care… And when her daughter joins the soccer team there’s just no getting away from her.

But Amy knows from bitter experience the kind of trouble a woman like Charlotte can bring. And there is no way on earth that her girls are ever going to be exposed to anything like that. The solution is clear - Charlotte has to go. No matter what it takes.

The gripping domestic thriller for fans of Liane Moriarty, T. M. Logan, and Sally Hepworth.

Welcome to the blog and I have a real treat for you – It’s my blog tour spot and I’m happy to be bringing my book review of this brilliant domestic thriller, The Good Mother.

The Good Mother is a stark warning that we can all become products of our past. The past can haunt us, and it can keep tiptoeing back into our lives. Is it ever possible to bury the past? This premise is one that sends chills down my spine. Can darkness seep its way into Pleasantville? The characters seem to have the perfect life, the perfect husbands and children but what darkness threatens to tip the scales…is the catalyst a new neighbour? This sets the tone for the entire story. Violence has the capability of ruining the victim, fracturing communities and creating a lifetime of suffering for witnesses- especially child. Mental illness can become an inevitable conclusion.

The opening chapter is a hellish nightmare. No-one wants to live through that experience, especially a child in their informative years…the long-standing effects are cataclysmic. This event was earth-shattering, therefore, this chapter really sets you up for the pace and the concerning tone of the novel.

Fast forward in time. A different location. Worlds away from the past. Amy has forged a completely new existence from the one she had experienced as a child. Therefore, she is determined nothing will be the same. She has the perfect husband, beautiful twin daughters, an immaculate home, affluent neighbourhood and friends that care deeply about her. She has fought from the bottom up, tooth and nail, to create this worlds away from her childhood, life. She has been born again from the ashes. Nothing will stand in her way. Nothing.

Life is sweet, she has absolutely nothing to worry about, that is, until Charlotte moves into her neighbourhood. She somehow transports Amy back to her past…back to darker times. A place that she never wanted to revisit again, as a result the author has captured expertly the fear and the paranoia of past events coming back to haunt her. She begins to feel that scar re-emerge, torn open. It has never fully disappeared. Moving hasn’t altered it, she is living with her very own Pandora’s box.

I don’t particularly think that any of the characters were that likeable. However, Just like in a town you get different spectrums of personalities; this book also examines that. Amy and her friends have moments of kindness, cruelty and deviousness. The author used this to her strength – she developed depth and clarity to the characterisation. Each character pulls a reaction from you, for whatever the situation is. All the topics was handled with respect but brought to life with realism. This was the perfect foundation for this taut domestic thriller.

The Good Mother is smart and ridiculously suspenseful. A story of family, broken pasts with a meticulously laced plot. The perfect thriller. The perfect start to a new year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cathryn Grant - Book Review: The Good Mother by Cathryn Grant

About Cathryn Grant:

Cathryn is the author of the Alexandra Mallory Psychological Suspense series, Psychological Thrillers, Suburban Noir novels, The Haunted Ship Trilogy, and the Madison Keith Ghost Story series. THE GOOD MOTHER will be her second novel published with Inkubator Books.

Cathryn’s fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazines, The Shroud Quarterly Journal, and The Best of Every Day Fiction. When she’s not writing, Cathryn reads fiction, eavesdrops, and tries to play golf without hitting her ball into the sand or the water. She lives on the Central California coast with her husband and two cats.

Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CathrynGrant

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CathrynGrant.Writer/

Website: https://www.cathryngrant.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cathryngrant_fiction/

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cathryn-Grant/e/B004G1I484?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3&qid=1566901527&sr=8-3