Imagine spotting your own photo in a newspaper advert. Is it really you? It looks like you. How did the your photo end up in the classified section? Is it an error? Or is it something much, much worse? What’s it about? Zoe Walker is deeply unsettled when she spots her photo buried next to escort services in the London Gazette. Her family insist she’s worried over nothing, and soon there’s another woman pictured in that advertising space. Then Zoe discovers that the other woman has been murdered… Meanwhile, Kelly Swift’s police career is stagnating, after a serious error left her languishing in ..read more

After five years in prison, devoted mother Patty Watts is free – and still proclaiming her innocence. Waiting to pick her up is her daughter, Rose Gold – the daughter Patty was arrested for spending 18 years harming. Triumphant, Patty crows: ‘Riddle me this: if I spent almost two decades abusing my daughter, why did she offer to pick me up today?’ This is a fascinating question and forms the crux of a disturbing story of two mistreated women. Could Patty be innocent? Has Rose Gold forgiven her? Can they really reconcile? What’s it about? Rose Gold believed she was sick for eighteen years. Then ..read more

Would you play a game to save your life? I’m a big fan of psychological thrillers and the premise for ‘Play for me’ was definitely intriguing: ‘LJ must give the performance of a lifetime, if she wants to avoid a deadly final curtain call…’ What’s it about? LJ’s life is going downhill – fast. She wants to be a musician but her main income is from working as a waitress, a job she cares so little for that she can’t be bothered to turn up on time. Her boyfriend, Simon, is as disinterested in her as she is in her job and spends most of their time together fiddling with his phone. When she’s offered ..read more

Very hyped books. You know those books. The ones EVERYONE is talking about? The one even your non-book-reading friends have read? Yeah, that one. And you find yourself wondering, how is it possible that I’ve not read this? Why don’t I possess a copy yet? If you’re a book blogger there might even be a tiny hint of shame. (Surely ALL the other book bloggers have read this? What planet have you been on?) ‘The Chalk Man’ was definitely one of Those Books, which is why I was delighted to receive a copy for my recent birthday. Now I know the question you want to ask: was it worth the hype? In a word ..read more

I love unreliable narrators. So when I saw this story in which the main character openly announces, ‘Sometimes I lie’, well, I was hooked even before I read the rest of the blurb. This is journalist Alice Feeney’s debut novel and, yes, for fans of psychological thrillers, it is absolutely as good as it promises. What’s it about? Amber Reynolds is in a coma. As she lies helpless in her hospital bed, she tries to remember the Accident which placed her there, and work out why there is so much tension between her husband, herself and her sister. Just what was happening in her life b ..read more

Today I’m welcoming TM Logan to BuriedUnderBooks as part of the blog tour for his debut novel ‘Lies’. ‘Lies’ is a psychological thriller which explores a life suddenly upturned, a family torn apart by, well, lies and the darker side of social media. Want to know more? Here’s the blurb: ————————————————— When Joe Lynch stumbles across his wife driving into a hotel car park while she’s supposed to be at work, he’s intrigued enough to follow her in. And when he witnesses her in an angry altercation with family friend Ben, he knows he ought to intervene. But just as the confrontation between ..read more

There are some books you know you should own. Jenny Blackhurst’s deeply intriguing debut novel, ‘How I Lost You’, is one of them. I couldn’t fathom how I didn’t possess a copy of this intriguing book and was convinced I must have bought one and mislaid it. I was right*; having searched my study for it on several occasions, utterly convinced that it had slipped into some kind of bookish black hole, I eventually discovered that my thoughtful husband had boxed it up with some other books he hoped I would consider consigning to the loft. (We had words. He is somehow not dead still alive ..read more

‘You must be the only person who hasn’t read this book.’ So commented the bemused bookseller who recently rang up my purchase of ‘The Girl on the Train’, about a year and a half after the entire rest of the world read it. ‘Or maybe you already have…?’ he began, obviously beginning to doubt my credentials as a truly bookish person and keen to give me a get-out-clause. There is none; it simply slipped by me, somehow. Oh don’t get me wrong: I wasn’t oblivious to the book widely heralded as ‘the next ‘Gone Girl”. I even downloaded a sample chapter and read a few pages before getting distracted by ..read more

When is a patient not a patient? When they have no desire to get better, and every intention of causing you harm… Jenny Blackhurst’s debut novel, ‘How I Lost You’, caught my eye a few months ago at Crimefest16. It looked fascinating but somehow slipped out of my immediate TBR pile and disappeared. Having found Blackhurst’s debut so tempting, I was delighted to get my hands on a copy of her second novel, ‘Before I Let You In’. It’s a psychological thriller (although the emphasis on ‘letting in’ in the blurb reminded me of ‘Let the Right One in’ by John Ajvide Lindqvist, which involves vampires ..read more

Twins are fascinating. None more so than identical twins. How they relate to each other, how they relate to other people, even how you can tell them apart: these are all rich sources of material for a writer, but S. K. Tremayne’s gothically charged novel starts from the end in a sense by exploring the tensions inherent in one twin relationship after the loss of a twin. What’s it about? Fourteen months ago, Lydia Moorcroft died in an accident. Now her devastated parents, Sarah and Angus, move with their dog, Beany, and surviving twin, Kirstie, to a remote Scottish Island. (Handily, Angus’ grand ..read more