Book Review - On My Life by Angela Clarke - #HolidayReading Thailand

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Amazon UK

Title: On My Life

Author: Angela Clarke

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Mulholland Books

Publication Date: 11th July 2019

Rating: 5 Stars

Framed. Imprisoned. Pregnant.

Jenna thought she had the perfect life: a loving fiancé, a great job, a beautiful home. Then she finds her stepdaughter murdered; her partner missing.

And the police think she did it...

Locked up to await trial, surrounded by prisoners who'd hurt her if they knew what she's accused of, certain someone close to her has framed her, Jenna knows what she needs to do:

Clear her name
Save her baby
Find the killer

But can she do it in time?

An intensely gripping story, as we discover just why Jenna is in prison, why she is adamant she is innocent, and the events leading up to that fateful night. 

What really struck me about this story was how much research the author must have put in, to make account of what happens in jail so vivid, realistic and claustrophobic. 

You feel as though you are incarcerated alongside Jenna, although the only difference is as the reader you are yet to be wholly convinced who is guilty, whether it is Jenna or as she suspect someone is framing her.  The lack of evidence pointing to anyone other than Jenna is overwhelming. 

I liked the pseudo friendships that were formed in the prison, you are never sure who you can trust, and the book definitely touches on issue that are relevant to real life prisons too. 

I was kept guessing throughout until the reveal as to just what happened the nigh that Jenna's fiance disappears and his daughter was brutally murdered. 

Previously I had enjoyed Angela Clarke's social media murders books, and was excited to see a new release from her, which was even better than her previous great books. 

I was completely hooked on On My Life. 

Thank you to Netgalley and Mulholland Books for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review & Giveaway - Trust Me by Angela Clarke

Amazon UK

Title: Trust Me

Author: Angela Clarke

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Avon

Publication Date: 15th June 2017

Rating: 5 Stars

YOU SAW IT HAPPEN. DIDN’T YOU?

What do you do if you witness a crime…but no-one believes you?

When Kate sees a horrific attack streamed live on her laptop, she calls the police in a state of shock. But when they arrive, the video has disappeared – and she can’t prove anything. Desperate to be believed, Kate tries to find out who the girl in the video could be – and who attacked her.

Freddie and Nas are working on a missing persons case, but the trail has gone cold. When Kate contacts them, they are the only ones to listen and they start to wonder – are the two cases connected?

Dark, gripping, and flawlessly paced, Trust Me is the brilliant third novel in the hugely popular social media murderer series.

What would you do if you were surfing live videos on the internet and saw someone being sexually assaulted? Would you ring the police? Would you convince yourself it must be fake? Would you expect anyone to believe you?

Well Kate witnessed such a thing and she is struggling to get anyone to believe it, especially as there are no other reports, and the live stream and account were disabled very quickly afterwards. However there is just enough in the story for Freddie and Nas to take a look into it. 

What follows is an investigation that becomes more interesting with every page that is turned, culminating with an epic finale.  There was no way that I could have predicted the eventual outcome, although I did have a couple of theories as the book progressed. 

The pacing of Trust Me seemed right, it was fairly quick and Freddie and Nas seemed to have plenty of things to do continually. In addition to chapters from Freddie and Nas, we also get odd looks at people who may be involved in the crimes, and how they are feeling which was really interesting, but still written in a way that didn't give the game away completely to readers. 

Trust Me is the third book of the Social Media Murders series and can easily be read as a standalone novel. Although as a fan of the series, I was glad to see more development especially of Freddie and also it was good to see police officers that featured in both of the previous books. 

After reading Trust Me, and in fact all of the Social Media Murders books so far I have been left looking at social media in a new way, and can see just how fast it can be used for evil as well as good. In some respects I am a bit more wary as a result, especially in Trust Me's case of clicking on live videos. 

Trust Me is yet another fabulous book in this series that kept me gripped really early on, and kept me thinking about it even in between reading stints of it. 

Thank you so much to Avon and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Giveaway to Win a copy of Trust Me (Open to Europe)

Avon sent me a paperback copy of Trust Me which I have decided to give away to one lucky winner, since I read this on my kindle.  

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 23/06/2017. 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 a copy of Trust Me (Open to Europe)

Book Review - Watch Me by Angela Clarke

Amazon UK

Title: Watch Me

Author: Angela Clarke

Format reviewed: Paperback

Source: Publisher supplied review copy

Publisher: Avon

Publication Date: 12th January 2017

Rating: 5 Stars

YOU HAVE SIX SECONDS TO READ THIS MESSAGE…

The body of a 15-year-old is found hours after she sends a desperate message to her friends. It looks like suicide, until a second girl disappears.

This time, the message is sent directly to the Metropolitan Police – and an officer’s younger sister is missing.

DS Nasreen Cudmore and journalist Freddie Venton will stop at nothing to find her. But whoever’s behind the notes is playing a deadly game of hide and seek – and the clock is ticking.

YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO SAVE THE GIRL’S LIFE.
MAKE THEM COUNT.

Speechless and breathless I think best describes how I feel moments after finishing reading Watch Me. Over the past few hours of real life I have been taken on a fast paced race against time that lasts just 24 hours, and it was compelling reading at every single chapter. 

Until I read Watch Me, I don't think I had ever fully understood Snap Chat, but now I know the basics, I can see just how great it is to be able to send short video clips that basically self destruct after a set period of time, and are then not recoverable, making it all the harder for anyone to track critical clips such as suicide notes or threats of life. But that is just the way this story starts, and the Metropolitan police have just 24 hours to find Lottie still alive. 

Lottie is an officer's younger sister so there is even more pressure than normal on the team to solve this case as quickly as possible. Watch Me sees the return of DS Nasreen Cudmore who is part of the team, and when she spots a couple of potentially critical clues, she insists on getting her friend Freddie Venton involved too, as she is great at technology. 

If you have read Follow Me, Angela Clarke's first social media murder book, then you will be familiar with Freddie and Nasreen, and it will fill in some background to the pair of them,. If you haven't then Watch Me can still be read as a fabulous standalone novel. 

There is a lot going on in Watch Me, and its a great indicator as to just how hard the Police do work 24/7 to track down the bad guys. In this book, I was amazed to realise that I wasn't trying to get ahead of the detectives in the book and work it out for myself, more was just swept up in the action, and was happy to learn things at their pace. Often I try to guess "who did it" but I didn't have a clue where to start, which thankfully was not the case for the detectives investigating 

I felt as though I was alongside Nasreen at every single turn, every decision or new piece of information. I was enthralled by what I was reading, and couldn't turn the pages fast enough to see just what would happen next. 

Due to the 24 hour countdown, there a real urgency to everything in the story, which comes across very well, and gave Watch Me the sort of pacing I love in a book, where you are thrown into the action quite early on, and then as you get to know more, it becomes a lot more intense. 

Watch Me is definitely one to watch in 2017, and I loved every second of it. 

Thank you so much to Avon for this copy of the book, which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - Follow Me by Angela Clarke - Blog Tour

Amazon UK

Title: Follow Me

Author: Angela Clarke

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Avon

Publication Date: 3rd December 

Rating: 4.5 Stars

LIKE. SHARE. FOLLOW . . . DIE

The ‘Hashtag Murderer’ posts chilling cryptic clues online, pointing to their next target. Taunting the police. Enthralling the press. Capturing the public’s imagination.

But this is no virtual threat.

As the number of his followers rises, so does the body count.

Eight years ago two young girls did something unforgivable. Now ambitious police officer Nasreen and investigative journalist Freddie are thrown together again in a desperate struggle to catch this cunning, fame-crazed killer. But can they stay one step ahead of him? And can they escape their own past?

Time's running out. Everyone is following the #Murderer. But what if he is following you?

ONLINE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM …

Follow Me is a very cleverly crafted, intelligent thriller, that raises very valid contemporary points about social media. Would you follow someone who appears to be the #Murderer just to see what they are up to? Would you ignore them, and what happens if that user follows you?

Freddie is a wannabe journalist desperate for her big break so she can stop working in a coffee shop on the night shift, and to be paid for her writing. When she spots her former good friend in a station, she reacquaints herself with Nasreen. She knows Nasreen is now a police officer, and so she follows, and ends up at a crime scene, and then later attempting to help the police since she understands social media. 

Not only does Freddie understand social media, but seems able to notice and solve the cryptic clues being posted by the twitter account, that she is positive is the murder. But how can she get the police force to start believing her, or taking her seriously. 

Follow Me shows just how powerful twitter can be, and also gives hints at various ways you can make your virtual footprint a bit less traceable. As a bit of a geek I found the technical talk very interesting, and could follow it all, as it made sense. 

It is very believable and scary that a user could be conducting murders and taunting the police on twitter, and the amount of people who initially doesn't take it seriously and thinks its highly amusing, until the death count rises. At which point the expected public outrage may occur. 

With regards the murders themselves, I had no clue who was hiding behind the twitter account, and up until the last second I still didn't have a clue. The final reveal did make sense though, it just wasn't an outcome I had thought of. 

There is quite a bit of police station action in Follow Me, especially as the police are struggling with this case, and I love seeing how police theories pan out.

I found that for the most part this book didn't get under my skin the way I was hoping it would do, I wasn't overly scared and oddly I wasn't put off from using twitter, which I had thought may have been an outcome before reading it. I thought it took a while to get going but all the time it was building suspense, and I was always curious to see what would happen next. By the last quarter I couldn't put it down. 

I believe this is Angela Clarke's debut thriller and its a brilliant story, and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next. Definitely an author with a promising future if Follow Me is anything to go by. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Avon for this review copy. This was my honest opinion. 

Cover Reveal - Follow Me by Angela Clarke

I am absolutely delighted to reveal the cover for Follow Me by Angela Clarke. The book is sounding great, and its one I am eagerly anticipating reading.

LIKE. SHARE. FOLLOW . . . DIE

The ‘Hashtag Murderer’ posts chilling cryptic clues online, pointing to their next target. Taunting the police. Enthralling the press. Capturing the public’s imagination.

But this is no virtual threat.

As the number of his followers rises, so does the body count.

Eight years ago two young girls did something unforgivable. Now ambitious police officer Nasreen and investigative journalist Freddie are thrown together again in a desperate struggle to catch this cunning, fame-crazed killer. But can they stay one step ahead of him? And can they escape their own past?

Time's running out. Everyone is following the #Murderer. But what if he is following you?

ONLINE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM …

Pre-order Follow Me now on Amazon UK

Ebook: 3rd December, Paperback 31st December.