Today it is my stop on the blog tour for Broken by Betsy Reavley. I’ve read a few of Betsy’s books and I was very excited to read another!
My Review:
It isn’t often that a book comes with warnings as strong as the ones that accompany this book. I’m not one to shy away from violence and so I wasn’t bothered by the warning, more intrigued. I do have my limits though and I did check that this book did not involve the abuse of children, which it does not.
I’ve read a few of Betsy Reavley’s books and I have to say that none of them is fluffy reading and all are pretty gruesome, yet none of them came with a warning so just how bad was this going to be?? The publisher, Bloodhound Books, also published The Watcher by Netta Newbound which I think is one of the most gruesome books that I have read, yet that also didn’t come with a warning.
So I went into this book expecting it to be full of gore from start to finish, so I was surprised to find myself reading a totally different book from the one that I had expected.
Annabel is trying to put her life back together, mental health problems have plagued Anna and she desperately wants to move on. Living back home with her mother and brother Annabel feels smothered by her mother who is understandably worried that Annabel will relapse and get unwell again.
She decides to take a trip to the seaside, she lies to her mother and sets off for a weekend away. She hadn’t realised that the small town that she was heading to was not the safe place that she thought that it would be because a serial killer is lurking.
This is where the book takes a strange turn, Annabel meets Jude who lives in a commune that Anna finds herself drawn into and life gets better and better for Anna. Or does it?
Just when the reader has dropped their guard the book suddenly plunges the reader into what can only be described as hell and we discover just how sick the author’s mind is!
I don’t actually think that the book is that bad to warrant all the warnings and I have definitely read worse. But Betsy Reavley does have a way with words and I have no doubt that some people will struggle with it.
But I enjoyed the book, the author does have a unique writing style but I quickly got used to that and found myself absorbed into the story and trying to work out what was going to happen.
I don’t want to give any more away to the reader, but this book has stayed with me after I finished it. Even now writing this review I am finding myself thinking about Annabel and her story which is definitely the sign of a good book.
Thank you to Bloodhound Books for a copy of Broken by Betsy Reavley. I was under no obligation to review the book and all thoughts are my own.
Blurb:
Annabel, a troubled young woman trying to put her life back together, decides to take a trip to the Suffolk coast to clear her head and get away from her mother. But when she arrives in the little seaside town, she discovers a series of grisly murders have taken place and police are searching for a twisted killer.
After a fateful meeting with a mysterious stranger, Jude, the course of her life changes and soon she finds peace in a world away from the misery she has known.
But when Jude comes under suspicion from the police, and her idyllic world is threatened, Annabel’s happy existence starts to become a nightmare.
Can Annabel escape her painful past or is her fate sealed? And why is she haunted by horrific visions when she seems on the verge of finding happiness?
This astonishing novel will take you on a shattering journey through Annabel’s fight for survival and will ask if the greatest threat we pose is to ourselves.
Suitable for over 18’s only. It contains graphic scenes some readers may find disturbing.
(previously published under the title Beneath the Watery Moon)
About The Author:
Author of The Quiet Ones, The Optician’s Wife, Murder at the Book Club, Murder in the Dark, Frailty, Carrion, Broken and the poetry collection The Worm in the Bottle. Betsy was born in Hammersmith, London.
As a child she moved around frequently with her family, spending time in London, Provence, Tuscany, Gloucestershire and Cambridgeshire.
She showed a flair for literature and writing from a young age and had a particular interest in poetry, of which she was a prolific consumer and producer.
In her early twenties she moved to Oxford where she would eventually meet her husband. During her time in Oxford her interests turned from poetry to novels and she began to develop her own unique style of psychological thriller.
Betsy says “I believe people are at their most fascinating when they are faced by the dark side of life. This is what I like to write about.”
Betsy Reavley currently lives in Cambridge with her husband, 2 children, dog and quail.
Betsy’s Social Media Links:
Twitter https://twitter.com/BetsyReavley @BetsyReavley
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BetsyReavleyAuthor/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Betsy-Reavley/e/B00I970NY4/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1544003078&sr=8-1
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7730760.Betsy_Reavley?from_search=true
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Louisa de Lange is a freelance copywriter, mum of a little boy and a keen runner, blogger and photographer. She is currently training to take on her first ever Olympic triathlon. She studied Psychology at university and it turns out the combination of psychology and motherhood is a potent one. You can follow Louisa on Twitter: @paperclipgirl
A policeman on his first murder case
Alison Belsham initially started writing with the ambition of becoming a screenwriter-and in 2000 was commended for her visual storytelling in the Orange Prize for Screenwriting. In 2001 she was shortlisted in a BBC Drama Writer competition. Life and children intervened but, switching to fiction, in 2009 her novel Domino was selected for the prestigious Adventures in Fiction mentoring scheme. In 2016 she pitched her first crime novel, The Tattoo Thief, at the Pitch Perfect event at the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival and was judged the winner. After signing with agent Jenny Brown, The Tattoo Thief was bought by Trapeze books and published in May, 2018.
If only I could read faster 