Look What You Made Me Do - Nikki Smith

About the book… 

Two people can keep a secret . . . if one of them is dead.

Sisters Jo and Caroline are used to hiding things from each other. They've never been close - taking it in turns to feel on the outside of their family unit, playing an endless game of favourites.

Jo envies Caroline's life - things have always come so easy to her. Then a family inheritance falls entirely to Jo, and suddenly now Caroline wants what Jo has. Needs it, even.

But just how far will she go to get it?

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About the author… 

Nikki Smith studied English Literature at Birmingham University, before pursuing a career in finance. Following a ‘now or never’ moment, she applied for a Curtis Brown Creative course where she started writing this book. She lives near Guildford with her family and a cat who thinks she’s a dog. All In Her Head is her first novel.

Contact Links: 

Website: https://nikkismithauthor.com/

Twitter: mrssmithmunday

My thoughts…

Look What You Made Me Do is Nikki Smith’s second novel, her first All In Her Head, I read as part of an on-line book club back in January and it was in fact my first read of 2021. It was a read that totally floored me and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of her Nikki’s second novel.

This is a book that equally sucked me in and spat me out. The emotions I felt whilst reading were intense and I found myself giving little head shakes and cursing ‘oh no’ on more occasions than I can count. I can only describe the author as pure evil (obviously in a good way, I know she’s not really), the emotions evoked whilst reading Look What You Made Me Do were vast, when I closed my eyes, the images were imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. Time and again I wanted to rip the virtual film out of my minds camera to wipe out the imagery conjured - but of course, I couldn’t!

The narrative centres around two sisters, Jo and Caroline and their respective families, both of which have an outward persona that we find out doesn’t actually resemble reality. There’s more than a bit of sisterly rivalry and jealousy, it’s not helped when Jo is left the larger share of a family inheritance.

I think that Nikki nailed the ‘keeping up appearances’ aspect of this story by a country mile - as the story progresses cracks start to appear within the family dynamics, the sisters talked less and less - not wanting the other to know what was going on in their lives. With the narrative told from both sisters and their husbands perspective, we as a reader are privy to and have a birds eye view of a range of emotions and scenarios - the jealousy, trust, abuse both mental and physical was at times sickening to read. If a book could hear it would be deaf with the shouting of advise I constantly gave.

Nikki Smith dangled clues on threads, just out of reach - keeping me guessing until the last chapters on the full reality of this emotionally charged and at times quite dark read. As when reading All In Her Head I couldn’t shift that sickening feeling of unease and dread as I turned the pages, wanting my imagination to shut up - it didn’t and again when I finished reading I could only mouth wow, that was brilliant - such an incredibly layered tale that was never going to end well for everyone. As with the first novel I’ve been shouting about this one to everyone I know and most members of our book club have downloaded it to read too.

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All in Her Head - Nikki Smith

About the book… 

Alison is more alone than she's ever been. She is convinced that her ex-husband Jack is following her. She is certain she recognizes the strange woman who keeps approaching her in the canteen.

She knows she has a good reason to be afraid. She just can't remember why.

Then the mention of one name turns her life upside down.

Alison feels like she's losing her mind . . . but it could just lead her to the truth.

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About the author… 

Nikki Smith studied English Literature at Birmingham University, before pursuing a career in finance. Following a ‘now or never’ moment, she applied for a Curtis Brown Creative course where she started writing this book. She lives near Guildford with her family and a cat who thinks she’s a dog. All In Her Head is her first novel.

Contact Links: 

Website: https://nikkismithauthor.com/

Twitter: mrssmithmunday

My thoughts....   What a book, Nikki Smith has written in such a way that the agitation and unease lifted itself off the page as I read this amazing book. From the prologue right to the last pages I was gripped. I can’t tell you why but I had a strange feeling of Deja Vue and I was only 5% in! All in Her Head is a story told in three parts, it switches back and forth in time, with chapters ping ponging between Ali and Jack - husband and wife. set in present and the past - estranged but why? I had so many questions as I read - what’s going on, why, where is Ali, why are they apart. Nothing was clear, so many scenarios tumbled round my mind - I couldn’t pin point and focus on anything other than the edgy Sick feeling of unease. The more I read, the stronger the sickening dread of anxiety hung from the pages, drenching my very thoughts!! That feeling of my heart beating in my mouth was so intense I didn’t want to turn the pages but the feeling I had too was stronger. All in Her Head was a book that spoke a dual narrative in my head throughout, at first I couldn’t rationalise my thoughts, couldn’t second guess what was happening and the story was nearing completion before the jigsaw pieces started slotting into place. There were moments I was sat, mouth open, shook to the core astounded at what I’d just read, wanting to close the pages to un-read the words but the need to read on was stronger. I can’t recommend this book enough, it was a compelling, dark, emotional read that gripped from start to finish, I’ve found myself a go to author without a doubt