Friday 4 December 2015

The Girl With No Past - Kathryn Croft


Twenty years running from your past. Today it catches up.
A gripping psychological thriller for fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train.
Leah Mills lives a life of a fugitive – kept on the run by one terrible day from her past. It is a lonely life, without a social life or friends until – longing for a connection – she meets Julian. For the first time she dares to believe she can live a normal life.
Then, on the twentieth anniversary of that day, she receives a card. Someone knows the truth about what happened. Someone who won’t stop until they’ve destroyed the life Leah has created.
But is Leah all she seems? Or does she deserve everything she gets?
Everyone has secrets. But some are deadly.

What did I think?

It took me a few chapters to really get into this book but once I did, I couldn’t rest until I found out what had happened in Leah’s past. It’s a really good psychological thriller as it has the reader keen to uncover the past but at the same time on the edge of your seat trying to find out who is stalking Leah in the present day.

I do love a good flashback so I really enjoyed these parts of the book as I scoured the pages for clues as to what Leah is hiding from her past. The young Leah has few friends at school and is part of a small group of four – 2 boys and 2 girls. They quickly pair up and become couples but Leah’s relationship is far from perfect as her boyfriend, Adam, sets up a hate campaign against one of the teachers.  He is so obsessed with this teacher that I wondered if something untoward had happened and it was really creepy when he used to sit outside her house. The others are drawn into Adam’s campaign and my mind was racing as I wondered what had happened. I’m not going reveal any spoilers but I will say that I was grimacing as some events were described.

Leah is paying for her sins by living sparingly, having little contact with family and not attempting to make friends. She works in a library and meets Ben who is donating books one day. I think Leah sees Ben as safe as he has a girlfriend and only wants to be a friend. It seemed completely out of character that she trusted him so quickly as she had kept everybody at arms-length until then. Leah becomes even more unrecognisable by joining a dating site and meeting a guy called Julian. He seems perfect and even accepts her soulless living arrangements. So I thought that she is finally getting her life back together…but I was so WRONG! As the stalker’s campaign against Leah intensified I started to wonder who she could trust and I actually ended up mistrusting everybody. Sometimes you are just better off on your own, I say!

As the past is revealed I thought of how cruel fate can be – how one action or inaction can cause a chain reaction of events that will affect you for the rest of your life. I did really enjoy this book but I did feel a bit exasperated at times with Leah’s conflicting ability to trust no-one/trust a complete stranger, so for that reason it’s a solid 4 stars from me.

I received this e-book from the publisher, Bookouture, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

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