Tell me A Secret by Samantha Hayes

About the book… 

Tell her all your secrets and she’ll tell you all her lies…

Everything in Lorna’s life runs like clockwork, from her 6 a.m. morning run to the strict 60-minute counselling sessions she gives. It’s the only way she can deal with the terrible secret she carries.

When a new client arrives for his first appointment, Lorna feels her perfect life unravel in a matter of seconds. It’s Andrew, the man she’s spent the last year desperately trying to forget. It seems he can’t forget her either…

Against her better judgement she anonymously contacts him on a dating site. Messaging him could mean the end of her marriage and her career, but she needs to know if his motives are genuine.

When Andrew is found dead in his home, grief quickly turns to fear when messages from him continue to arrive on Lorna’s phone. Somebody knows her secret and wants to use it to destroy everything she has.

Will she risk her family and her sanity to keep her secret? Will she risk her life…?

If you love twisty psychological thrillers that get under your skin, like The Girl on the Train, I Let You Go or anything by Louise Jensen, you’ll be utterly blown away by the jaw-dropping lies in Tell Me a Secret.

Buy Links: 

 mybook.to/TMASSocial

About the author…

Samantha Hayes grew up in Warwickshire, left school at sixteen, avoided university and took jobs ranging from private detective to barmaid to fruit picker and factory worker. She lived on a kibbutz, and spent time living in Australia and the USA, before finally becoming a crime-writer.
Her writing career began when she won a short story competition in 2003 and her ninth novel, THE REUNION, was published in February 2018. Her novels are family-based psychological thrillers, with the emphasis being on 'real life fiction'. She focuses on current issues and sets out to make her readers ask, 'What if this happened to me or my family?'

Contact Links: 

To find out more, visit her website www.samanthahayes.co.uk
Or connect with Samantha on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SamanthaHayesAuthor
And she's on Twitter @samhayes

My thoughts…

I was given an ecopy of this book by Samantha Hayes publishers Bookouture in exchange for an honest review.  This is something I'm more than happy to do.

Tell Me a Secret is a twisty, tense thriller mainly told from the lead characters perspective.  Lorna in theory has the perfect life, is a successful psychotherapist, is married to Mark a successful dentist and has two children a shared daughter Faye and stepson Mark.

As the story begins I got the impression that the perfect lifestyle was held together by a taught, invisible thread.  One slip and it would all unravel. She has a routine to end all routines and when it is thrown off kilter the tension is palpable, I could feel her heart beating.  She has a difficult relationship with her stepson, his natural mother died when he was a toddler and although he can't remember her he keeps Lorna at arms length with his dismissive, insolent stance.  Although to be fair Lorna thinks it's all about him not liking her but I think it's a lot to do with simply being a teenager and knowing what strings to pull.

Lorna breaks protocol and calls back a potential new client after he persistently phoned the practise insisting he has an appointment with her.  There begins the story and the threads holding her life together begin to fall.

OMG, Samantha Hayes has the ability to weave a plot so intricately you have no idea or clue as to what is really going on - the sub-text is always just slightly out of your grasp and just when you think you may have it sussed the story changes direction.

One thing I was sure of was this was a book with a lead character you wanted to shake - she literally has written her own destiny through a web of lies and deceit and has dug herself a hole that is just that little bit too deep to climb out of.  I swayed between not liking her at all and pitying her - the perfect lifestyle with synchronised timings for every aspect of it unnerved more than just a little and then bam, another Samantha Hayes ending to a book that was totally unexpected - HOW DOES SHE DO IT?! I haven't read one of her books yet that hasn't stopped me in my tracks, with mouth hanging open, slowly nodding my head - OMG OMG.

Another thriller that I highly recommend, Samantha Hayes is an author that is always on my wish list when a new book comes out.

The Reunion by Samantha Hayes

About the book… 

They were all there the day your sister went missing.

Who is lying? Who is next?

THEN – In charge of her little sister at the beach, Claire allowed Eleanor to walk to the shop alone to buy an ice cream. Placing a coin into her hand, Claire told her to be quick, knowing how much she wanted the freedom.

Eleanor never came back.

NOW – The time has finally come to sell the family farm and Claire is organising a reunion of her dearest friends, the same friends who were present the day her sister went missing.

When another girl disappears, long-buried secrets begin to surface. One of the group hides the darkest secret of them all…

If you loved Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, this gripping psychological thriller packed full of twists and turns will be impossible to put down.

Buy Links: 

About the author… 

Samantha Hayes grew up in a creative family where her love of writing began as a child. Samantha has written eight thrillers in total, including the bestselling Until You’re Mine. The Independent said “fantastically written and very tense” while Good Housekeeping said “Her believable psychological thrillers are completely gripping.” Samantha’s books are published in 22 languages at the last count.

When not writing, Samantha loves to cook, go to the gym, see friends and drink nice wine. She is also studying for a degree in psychotherapy. She has three grown-up children and lives in Warwickshire.

Contact Links:
www.samanthahayes.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/SamanthaHayesAuthor/
https://twitter.com/samhayes

My thoughts…

I was given an ecopy of this book by Kim Nash at Bookouture in exchange for an honest review.  This is something I'm more than happy to do.

As soon as I heard Samantha Hayes had a new book out I jumped up and down and said 'yes please' to the blog tour. I didn't know the title, nor had I read the blurb - that is how much I love this author.  The first book I read by Samantha Hayes was 'Until You're Mine' and I was absolutely blown away. I have devoured each of her subsequent books and find them totally captivating and engaging.  Each one an intricate tale that has you guessing right until the final pages.

My expectations for The Reunion were high and Samantha Hayes met them and some. The Reunion is centred around a group of friends and family brought together by Claire to try and bring back happy memories for her dad who is now suffering from Alzheimers.  They are friends that spent more of their weekends and holidays at her parents farm than they did at their own homes. With her mum and dad acting as surrogate parents to them all, that was, until the day they were all at the beach and Leni (Eleanor), Claires sister went to the shops for ice-cream and never came back.

This is a thriller that has a devastating, sad story that appears to be mirrored over twenty yers later. Deliberately or a coincidence?  That was one of my first questions as I submerged myself in the plot. The story is told from several perspectives and from both the past and the present.  

The Reunion is woven with several plot twists and sub plots that originally seem separate with no connections, they had me guessing at possible solutions only to find I was wrong each time.  Samantha has intricately stitched up this story like a patchwork quilt - all of the pieces once put together make for a gut wrenching, heart pounding emotional read. There were so many times I thought I had it all wrapped up only to find I was way off the mark. and when the answers come with the end of the book I sat back open mouthed - words failed me.  This is a book that has an unthinkable storyline running through the heart of it.  Yet, I promise you'll be as hooked as I was, it that will make you sit back and be thankful it was just a book, it's not real - yet it so easily could be!

In case you haven't guessed, I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it - it's a psychological thriller with a plot that is so intricacy woven it will leave you guessing right until the end.  I sat open mouthed, just quietly thinking when I finished and i still have questions a week later - WHY?  I so need to re-read this again!!