Book Review - Cut To The Bone by Alex Caan - Rachel Reads Randomly Book #34

Amazon UK

Title:  Cut To The Bone

Author: Alex Caan

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: twenty7

Publication Date: 14th July 2016

Rating: 4 Stars

One Missing Girl. Two Million Suspects.

Ruby is a vlogger, a rising star of YouTube and a heroine to millions of teenage girls.

And she's missing . . .

But she's an adult - nothing to worry about, surely?

Until the video's uploaded . . .

Ruby, in the dirt, pleading for her life.

Enter Detective Inspector Kate Riley; the Met's rising star and the head of a new team of investigators with the best resources money can buy. Among them, Detective Sergeant Zain Harris, the poster boy for multiracial policing. But can Kate wholly trust him - and more importantly, can she trust herself around him?

As hysteria builds amongst the press and Ruby's millions of fans, Kate and her team are under pressure to get results, and fast, but as they soon discover, the world of YouTube vloggers and social media is much darker than anyone could have imagined.

And the videos keep coming . . .

Cut to the Bone was a book that had really attracted my interest, as I have recently become hooked on a couple of You Tuber's channels, so very curious to see a bit of the behind the scenes action as such. 

What became very apparent early on in this book, is that it is very hard to trust any of the information that is being revealed, or at least you need to remember it all and try to make sense of it all, but there are so many leads, hooks, red herrings and twists and turns as the story progresses that I was left reeling at the end of it. 

At times the sheer quantity of information and various threads made me have to put the book down for a bit while I processed the new leads, before I was able to continue. The story touches on all manner of issues, some of which were a lot more disturbing than others. 

As is often the case when I review a thriller I am being deliberately vague as to the details, purely for fear of accidentally giving away any of the plot that could be key. I was though fascinated by all the geeky technological details that were used, and all of Detective Sergeant Zain Harris' unorthodox methods of acquiring data from computers. I understood quite a lot of the details and its a stark reminder that you leave a digital footprint with every action you take online, and that even deleted data can be recovered in skilled hands. 

The main detective Kate Riley is hiding something in her personal life, and as her past is slowly revealed, I couldn't help but feel a lot of empathy for her, as she has had to make some quite difficult decisions in the past. 

Cut To The Bone is written in many short chapters, which is great for when you think just one more chapter, and the pacing is very good. At all times I was intrigued by the story, even if I wasn't 100% hooked, I definitely realised early on I had no idea at all who was behind Ruby's disappearance, but that I really wanted to know who it was, and why. 

This is a great debut thriller, and I really hope this isn't the last we will be seeing of Detectives Zain and Kate. 

Thank you to Bonnier Zaffre and Netgalley for this review copy. This was my honest opinion. 

It became apparent to me quite early on Monday that this would be the runaway leader from last weeks vote, and I can certainly see why so many of you are raving about it. It really is a contemporary thriller that keeps you on your toes. Thanks to everyone that voted for it, and please do see this weeks selection and have your say again. 

Guest Post & Giveaway - Ella's Secret York by Sophie Nicholls - Blog Tour

At the time that I wrote my novel, The Dress, I had been living in York for seven years – and it seemed the obvious place to set my story. 

Anyone who has ever visited this ancient walled city in the North East of England will know that it’s difficult not to be inspired just by walking around. As well as the soaring thirteenth century Gothic edifice that is York Minster, there are cobbled streets, stone gargoyles, lopsided beams and a network of ‘snickleways’ – narrow passageways that wend their way between the main streets –
 everywhere you look. 

But it was one particular courtyard, tucked away off Grape Lane – and one particular shop with beautiful curved windows – that fuelled my fantasies when I was writing the story of Fabia and Ella Moreno, the mother and daughter who arrive in York to set up their vintage dress shop. 

Priestley’s Vintage is an enticing place, full of beautifully curated high-end and designer vintage. You stumble across it, like a delicious secret, as you duck under the low beams into Norman Court. It’s easy to imagine a story unfolding in such a place. 

And, in fact, York is a city of secrets. When Ella, one of my characters, arrives in the city, she’s intrigued by what she can see from her bedroom window – the jumble of higgledy-piggledy rooftops, the glimpses of the Minster in the moonlight. 

But away from the main tourist attractions – the Minster, the Treasurer’s House, the Walls – are other layers of history, as Ella discovers as she begins to explore. Katrina Cushworth, Ella’s school friend (if that is the right word), lives in one of the graceful Georgian townhouses that line The Mount. Billy and his family live in the rows of terraces that lead down to the river, originally built for workers in the Terry’s and Rowntree’s chocolate factories. 

York is also a city of bridges and one of the scenes from the book takes place on the new Millennium Bridge. Unlike the older stone bridges, this one is an ambitious curve of steel and wood. 

When I was working on The Dress, I imagined the map that Ella might sketch in her journal of some of these ‘secret’ landmarks. 

If you walk away from the city centre along the riverbank – or even take a boat trip along the River Ouse (and has there ever been a better name for a river?),  you’ll quickly find yourself in a different York altogether. If you look hard enough, down in the long grass by the boat moorings, you might even find a rickety swimming platform or a rope swing. 

Or you may prefer to while away your time rummaging through the second hand book shops, vintage clothing shops and antique emporiums that you’ll find throughout the city. I’m sure there are many more stories there just waiting to happen. 

Thank you Sophie for that interesting look at York.

Giveaway - Win 3 x paperbacks of The Dress (Open to Europe only)

Amazon UK

Carmen Jimenez at Bonnier Zaffre has kindly donated 3 copies of the The Dress to be given away to lucky winners. 

Giveaway open to Europe Only, all options are voluntary, but please do what they ask, as I will be verifying the winner. Giveaway closes 23:59 5/8/2016. Winner will be announced on twitter and emailed, and they will need to reply within 7 days, or forfeit the prize, and I will re-draw for a new winner.  Good luck everyone.


Win 3 x paperbacks of The Dress (Open to Europe only)



About Sophie Nicholls

Sophie Nicholls is an Amazon bestselling author. The Dress is her first novel – which hit the Kindle Top 5 in 2012, and is followed by two further books in the well-loved ‘The Dress Trilogy”.

She is an award-winning poet and leads the MA Creative Writing Distance Learning at Teesside University. She lives in North Yorkshire, in the North of England with her partner and young daughter. She likes swimming outdoors and eating large quantities of very dark chocolate.


www.sophienicholls.com // @wordsauce


Don't forget to check out what Sophie Nicholls had to say at the other stops on this blog tour.