Tag: Blog Tour

Hoo boy, is there a lot to unpack in The Daughters, a chilling psych thriller from Julia Crouch.

I’m not even sure where to start.

I guess I should have had an inkling about the mental states of both Sara and Lucy from the very first chapter. But the author does a great job of not giving away too much. Just enough to make the reader question backstory.

And there is a lot of backstory.

As always, you can get the gist of it from the blurb but suffice to say that Sara and Lucy’s mom allegedly committed suicide years prior. And that is questionable for more than a few reasons.

Actually, as I am writing this, I realize that none of the characters are particularly trustworthy in their perspectives. Sara is bitter. Lucy is a broken toy. And Carys is too good to be true.

In fact, Carys got on my nerves from the beginning. I’m not sure if that is the author’s intent, but she truly was too much of a do-gooder to believe that she didn’t have ulterior motives about…well, anything.

I’m not telling you if my instinct was right, but let’s just say that it is a good psych thriller partially because of how her true character is revealed.

Additionally, however, she was difficult to root for because it just felt like she was more caricature than character. Like she was too good for anything. Again, I think that is by design. But I was totally with Sara not liking her.

I really felt for Sara and Lucy, especially the latter. She is obviously so damaged for some reason (that is revealed in the book) that it is easy to see how past traumas can affect present mental health. So, there is another “psych” angle to the psych thriller.

Given recent events in the real world, this is something that truly struck home with me.

But this isn’t about that.

I liked how the author made me question pretty much everyone’s perspectives and I liked being off-balance as to who was trustworthy. The reveals come about at just the right time in the book. The plot progresses at a good pace.

I actually stayed up late reading this one. And that rarely happens.

I enjoyed The New Mother by Julia Crouch, and The Daughters is another good psych thriller that should go on your list.

Author Bio:

Julia started off as a theatre director and playwright. While her children were growing up, she swerved into graphic design. After writing and illustrating two children’s books for an MA, she discovered that her great love was writing prose. The picture books were deemed too dark for publication, so, to save the children, she turned instead to writing for adults. Her first book, Cuckoo, was published in 2011, and she has been writing what she calls her Domestic Noir novels ever since. She also writes for TV and teaches on the Crime Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. She has three grown up children and lives in Brighton with her husband and two cats, Keith and Sandra.

If there is one lesson to learn from The Bridesmaids (a new psych thriller by Victoria Jenkins), it’s that women do not need men to screw up their lives. They are quite capable of being vicious to each other and causing all kinds of devastation.

That may sound a bit dramatic, but then again, so are the plot threads in this book.

What is supposed to be a fun hen weekend away for Holly and her bridesmaids, most of them lifelong friends, turns dark in many ways.

It is apparent almost immediately that everyone at this party has something to hide. Some secrets are ancient history, and some are more recent. But they all affect each of the other women in some way.

I imagine these connections were not easy to establish and keep straight, because it does become quite a web of lies and deceit. But the success of it is also what makes it a psych thriller. So, kudos to the author on that.

I liked how the action is told from alternating points of view. The reader gets a holistic sense of the events because each person has a different perspective and very different motivations for their actions.

While you would think that Holly is the main narrator (as it is her weekend) that isn’t necessarily the case. I would say that she isn’t even the one who is most impacted by it all.

I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say that nobody gets out of the weekend unscathed.

There are a few unfinished threads. For example, Zoe doesn’t seem to have much to do except be there as a catalyst for the others. It would have been nice to have her be a bit more balanced with the others.

But there is so much else going on, it kind of doesn’t matter. I guess that is a bit nitpicky on my part.

There is a point in the book where the secrets start to come to light and once that begins, the actions of the women and the ensuing event come fast and furious. The author holds nothing back – it is punch after punch of “holy crap, no way!” revelations.

I also think the author is bold in the choice of ending. Many books wrap everything up neatly and characters make amends of some kind. But real life isn’t like that. So, allowing everything to be more natural actually reflects the impact the weekend had on the women.

And even then, the author still has one last revelation in the last pages.

As I said at the beginning of this review, women are quite capable of sabotaging and being horrible to each other. Victoria Jenkins does an excellent job of illustrating this in The Bridesmaids.

Want to read another psych thriller? Check out The New Family, also by Victoria Jenkins (review contains links to others as well!)

Victoria Jenkins lives with her husband and daughters in South Wales, where her bestselling series of crime novels featuring Detectives King and Lane is based. The first in the series, The Girls in the Water is a top 5 US kindle bestseller. She has an MA in Creative and Media Writing from the University of Wales, Swansea.

I have read several books by K.L. Slater, and she can usually be depended on to write a good psych thriller. While Missing is decent, it doesn’t quite meet the standards I have come to expect with her books.

Now, let me qualify this review by saying I thoroughly expect other people will enjoy the book more than I did. My reviews are never to put someone off or change their mind about reading something.

They are solely my opinion and my experience. So, take it with a grain of salt.

I realize that might be confusing, so let me just tell you what worked and didn’t work for me in this psych thriller.

The premise was intriguing. Josie suffered a family tragedy when she was younger. As an adult, she is thrust into another perilous situation and is forced to rely on someone who has proven to be untrustworthy in the past.

That’s enough to give anyone pause about trusting someone. But what is Josie to do when her daughter’s safety is at stake?

I thought that Josie was an interesting character, but she didn’t necessarily grab me and want me to root for her in the present. I think maybe she relied too much on being the victim of the previous event?

Can’t quite put my finger on it, but I didn’t connect with her as I have with past heroines in Slater’s books.

The whole resolution was also a bit more gonzo than her books usually are. I don’t know if she was trying a new approach. Frankly, a lot of it worked for me, because it was not a usual ending.

There are connections and relationships that are only hinted at throughout the rest of the book. So, in that regard, she did get a couple of good twists in. I’ve made no secret about my tendency to try to outguess the author. I didn’t succeed this time.

I would still recommend Missing because it was another good effort from K.L. Slater. But be sure to also check out her other books as well: Single, The Widow, Little Whispers, The Marriage, The Evidence

Author Bio:

For many years, Kim sent her work out to literary agents but never made it off the slush pile. At the age of 40, she went back to Nottingham Trent University and now has an MA in Creative Writing.

Before graduating, she received five offers of representation from London literary agents which was, as Kim says, ‘a fairytale … at the end of a very long road!’

Kim is a full-time writer and lives in Nottingham with her husband, Mac. Her website is

Make Me Disappear by Jessica Payne is a psych thriller that you think will be about one thing but actually goes in a completely different direction.

In other words, it lives up to the promise of the “twist you won’t see coming.” Sometimes those promises are not fulfilled, but in the case of this psych thriller, it meets the standard.

Noelle is in a bad relationship. We know that right from the prologue. Just how bad, however, unfolds over several chapters. It takes a while to realize just how awful the situation is. The author does a great job of keeping the tension building.

Instead of being a damsel in distress, however, Noelle is a thinker, and she makes a plan to escape.

And that’s where everything really lets loose, and the action gets more interesting.

There are revelations that have bearing on the events (or do they) and you think you know who is controlling the entire thing (you won’t).

I thought the entire plot was well-done as it kept me guessing and second-guessing all the way through to the very end.

I especially liked the author’s writing style. The story is largely Noelle’s and chapters alternate between the present and the year or so leading up to the events that make up the main plot of the book. The “past” chapters are clearly marked with timeframes, so pay attention to those.

Every so often, there is a chapter from Daniel’s point of view. Those are deliciously creepy and enforce why Noelle feels the need to escape.

But, if you’re paying attention, you’ll realize there is actually more to Daniel than meets the eye. He’s…complex. That’s all I’m saying on that.

Once Noelle goes on the offensive, there are a few events that push the limit of belief, but I didn’t mind ignoring what would happen in reality. By that point, I was so invested that they could have turned it into a totally different novel, and I would still have finished it.

In other words, I definitely wanted to see the end result no matter what else happened in between.

Make Me Disappear is a debut novel from Jessica Payne. If it is any indication of future stories, I look forward to reading them!

About the Author

Jessica Payne is the author of MAKE ME DISAPPEAR. She grew up in Kansas City, later moving to the Pacific Northwest where the mountains and Puget Sound became home. Beyond writing, she loves to run, rock climb, and explore the great outdoors with her daughter and husband. She is an RN and recently finished her degree as a nurse practitioner. When holding still, which isn’t often, you’ll find a book in her hand and a cat or dog (or both!) in her lap. Jessica writes suspense and thriller and is the host of #MomsWritersClub on Twitter and YouTube. You can find out more about her at her website, jessicapayne.net