I enjoyed this book, although not as much as I thought I would at the beginning. It lost its way a bit with the main secret being revealed fairly early on (by thriller standards). Up until that point, the premise of the book was great but the suspense and pace tapered off after that. There was a bit of a twist after the reveal to keep me reading and intrigued but I wasn't truly riveted. I expected it to be a bit faster paced, especially with the direction the plot went in towards the end. I did like the timeline swinging between the past and the present, with a few different timescales featured. That added some depth to the characters and the plot. It was a good read but just not quite what I was expecting from the early parts and the promise it had didn't quite follow through.

I'm afraid that I found the book contained too many cliches and the characters were very stereotyped. The twist was not believable (although I do not want to give it away) and I was left feeling dissatisfied.

This is your usual thriller/suspense book that has secrets, lies, and betrayals. I found it to be very predictable. I also found the characters to be very frustrating , I still enjoyed it though.

When Helen finds out her mother Barbara has cancer, life takes on an unexpected twist. She realises her mother’s whole life has been a lie and now her whole family has been threatened. Who is sending Barbara threatening notes!!

This book did have me gripped and I loved how the different timelines slowly revealed the truth. If this is Joanne Sefton’s debut novel then I cannot wait for her next book.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy in exchange for a review.

This book barely escaped being a DNF by the skin of its teeth... Whew!! A thriller of secrets which didn't thrill or entice me.

I love a book which has secrets hidden in its pages, but the writing here was so s. l. o. w., that everything in the world including painted my nails distracted me away from it.

The story goes thus, Helen is going through a separation, her mum Barbara is diagnosed with breast cancer. She comes down for surgery, has an overdose of medications, and soon after, Helen's child Barney is kidnapped.

The story was told in many different timelines and with different POVs at a pace slower than a snail. (It had me banging my head on the kindle, gently!!) Not a good sign at all. Barbara's husband Neil was the ostrich, buried his head in the sand, not ever wondering about her past. Aaaghhh!!

My first book by Joanne Sefton, and instead of me feeling all the emotions of the book, the book, for the first time, felt my varied emotions: excited, bewildered, bored, I dozed holding the kindle, perked up for the last 20% then disillusioned and resigned.

The premise was good, but the pace slow, the characters unlikable, the dampened plot reveal, followed by The End. My biggest niggle was not any of the above factors, it was - I was told main character Helen was a good mom. I didn't ever feel that, there were no such scenes show. She was more overwhelmed with everything.

Helen's life is a mess. Going through a divorce and her mum freshly diagnosed with cancer. Can she keep it all together for the sake of her two children and her dad who's whole world revolved around her mum.
Then the unthinkable happens and Helen's young son is kidnapped. Taken off by a stranger in a car.
Are the family secrets going to come crashing down?
Will Helen's life ever be the same?
Full of twists and turns and some heart stopping moments.

I found this book to be very slow and I got confused at how the story kept going back in time. I ended up giving up on it . Sorry it's not for me

Thankyou to NetGalley, Avon Publishing UK and the author, Joanne Sefton, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of If They Knew in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I found the storyline to be well thought out and fast paced. The characters were engaging and intriguing. 3.5 stars.
Well worth a read.

I would like to thank AVON Publishing, a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd and Netgalley for this partnership.

I was immediately tempted by the summary and cover that made me want to read this book.

We find Barbara who knows nothing about her past, much less her daughter Helen. When she is diagnosed with cancer, her hidden secrets are no longer safe. His daughter Helen wants to protect her mother even if it means not backing down from anything, but this can put both of them in danger. What happened a few years ago and who will pay the high price?

A book read in one go, I immediately hooked on the characters and found the story captivating, moving and full of suspense and twists.

Thanks to Netgalley for my copy.3.5*

This is a book told in alternating time-lines. Barbara has been diagnosed with cancer and is receiving threatening notes which she keeps secret from her husband and daughter. Helen the daughter finds one of the cards at her parents home and wonders who and why would someone threaten her mother.

This book showed how the law and it is perceived has changed dramatically over the years.What was overlooked and never spoken about is now thankfully out in the open and is rightfully prosecuted. Without giving too much of the plot away the crime that was committed in the past would be investigated totally differently in present day.

The trouble I had with this book was the characters of Barbara and her husband Neil. Neil had his head completely buried in the sand regarding his wife and knew very little of her past or any of her family. He never questioned her or regarded her indifference as anything but normal. Barbara herself just came across as downright cold and her behaviour towards her daughter, son-in-law and grandchild was just cruel and calculated. I don't know how a mother could act like that.

Barbara Kipling is a mystery
To her daughter,Helen
To her Husband
To her work colleagues
Who knows the real Barbara?
No one.....
Except Barbara
She knows her past, the lies, the abuse, the crimes, where she went, what she did or didnt do and who with....Barbara has had many years to plot her revenge
Barbara is a woman with a mission and a small matter of a diagnosis of cancer wont stop her, it will make her more determined that people will pay......

An effortless psychological thriller here that went back and forth in Barbaras life and had the unusual ( for me ) effect of feeling sorry for her then loathing her the next minute and this changing regularly
Add into the mix childhood murders, kidnappings, vile teachers, errant husbands and a cast I DID care about and warmed to quickly and you have one good book!
Its tense throughout and it really did keep me guessing but cleverly eased you into the story bit by bit and like the tv programmes where you want the character to find out what the other has been up to and you know they are going to gave great satisfaction when they did!!!
A very dark last few chapters as Barbara really went further than most wronged characters would to appease her wrath at injustice
A really really good story, easily read, great flow and narrative and a very different outcome to many twist and turns thrillers
Loved it 10/10 5 stars!

This is Joanne Sefton’s debut novel and bloody hell what a debut it is. I love discovering new authors and so it was with some excitement that I dived in as soon as I could get hold of a copy. I blinking well loved it but more about that in a bit.
I have to say that I took to Helen’s character from the start and I really felt for her. She is the mother of two children, whose husband has recently walked out on her for a younger model- literally. So the poor woman has this to cope with and then she is dealt a hammer blow with news about her mother’s health that knocks her for six. I began to wonder how much crap could one woman deal with at once? Helen is one tough cookie but then she has had to be. She is determined and feisty. Helen has not had a very close relationship with her mother, Barbara over the years and Helen seems to be much closer to her father, Neil. By the sounds of it, Barbara has maintained an emotional distance from Helen. She isn’t really an emotive parent and she isn’t really somebody who shows their emotions in a physical way – i.e: by giving her daughter a hug. Barbara freely admits that she isn’t a woman, who likes babies and she prefers children when they are a bit older. Unsurprisingly following the news about her mother, Helen darts off up the motorway with her children to provide comfort and support for her mother. It soon emerges that something is amiss. Helen finds a letter on the doormat addressed to Barbara and it isn’t particularly pleasant. Barbara refuses to discuss it at first but Helen is persistent and bit by bit she tries to find out the truth. What does Helen discover? Is Barbara telling Helen everything? What really did happen in the past? Well for the answers to those questions and more you are just going to have to read the book for yourselves to find out as I am not going to tell you.
This book is brilliantly written. Chapters are written detailing events that happened over various points in time. The story does jump from past to present to past and back again. I thought that I might find that a bit confusing but I didn’t. The different chapters from different periods in time interlink really well and the story flows seamlessly as a result. The author’s writing style is such that you can’t fail to be drawn into the story from the first word on the first page and you soon become addicted to reading the book. At least that’s what happened to me. The story starts in such a way that I haven’t come across many times before and for that reason ‘If They Knew’ will stay with me for a long time to come. As soon as I picked the book up I was hooked and I just had to keep reading to see how the past events knitted together and what had really happened all those years ago. I felt as though I was snooping into other people’s lives but then I enjoyed that being as I am a Nebby Nora (nosy parker). The more I got into the story, the more I wanted to read and the quicker the pages turned. I was so wrapped up in the story that I didn’t notice how quickly I was getting through the book. I usually have the attention span of a gnat but not in this case because the storylines intrigued me so much that I was able to focus solely on the book and shut out all other distractions. Reading ‘If They Knew’ is much like being on a scary and sometimes unpredictable rollercoaster ride with lots of twists and turns. At times something would happen in the book that I wasn’t expecting to happen and I was left feeling as though I had been punched in the gut.
In conclusion it’s fair to say that I absolutely, totally and utterly loved reading ‘If They Knew’ and I would definitely recommend it to other readers. This is a brilliant novel and I can’t wait to see what Joanne comes up with next. Here’s hoping that we don’t have too long to wait. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a well deserved 5* out of 5*.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Barbara has a secret that no one in her family knows but someone out there wants everyone to know what she's not telling. Her daughter Helen finds some cryptic notes hidden at her parents house. Her mother glosses over a new one that arrives and Helen has been questioning her about. Helen can't imagine who would want to harm her mother. Barbara has been diagnosed with cancer and Helen has come home with her children to be a help to her parents.

This psychological thriller has lots of twists and heart pounding moments. You end up caring for Helen and Darren and you want them to be able to overcome their problems and make their marriage work again. I would highly recommend Ms. Sefton's book to anyone who loves a well-crafted thriller.

This was an ok read for me it didn’t grab me and I felt it was a little slow paced. It had some twists and turns. This book is told from several perspectives. Helen received a phone call from her father informing her that her mother has breast cancer. This adds more stress to Helen she’s going through a divorce so she grabs her two children and head to her childhood home to be there for her mother and father. Helen so discovers some letters threatening her mother. Her mother just passes them off as harmless but Helen is getting the feeling there are more to the letters than what her mother is letting on . Helen so discovers her mother isn’t who she says she is and maybe the past should stay in the past.

This was an okay read. I thought it tended to be a bit slower paced than I prefer, but over all I think it was written well and had good twists and turns. The characters had good develop. I would've rated a lot higher had it been just a bit more fast paced.
Will use in a daily challenge as well as recommended in Chapter Chatter Pub. Thanks for the arc!

I started this book thinking it may not actually be my cup of tea, but I ended up really enjoying it.
Told from several persoectives over several years, there could be the chance for it to become a bit confusing - but it wasn’t at all.
It’s not clear what Barbara has done in the past - although it is clear that it was bad.
Helen, Barbara’s daughter has enough to deal with - 2 young children and a husband that’s left her - but she goes to stay with her parents to help out when Barbara gets sick. She discovers some poison pen letters, which her mum passes off as harmless. The story takes a very sinister turn whilst Barbara is in hospital, and slowly every thing comes out!
It was a bit far fetched at times, and I think the end could have been a bit tidier, but it was a great Sunday afternoon read!

Helen receives a telephone call from her father to inform her that her mother has been diagnosed with cancer. Helen is estranged from her husband so she drops everything and takes her two children to her parents to help out. Early on in the book we find out that Helen’s relationship with her mother is quite strained. Then Helen discovers some poison pen letters that her mother has been receiving. Her mother has always been very secretive about her past and now someone wants the truth to come out and will stop at nothing to achieve this. The story is told in various timelines and from different perspectives. It is a gripping psychological thriller where a person’s horrific past catches up with them causing heart breakand despair putting lives at risk. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

I enjoyed this story and thought that it had a set of well developed characters and I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction that they had, it really helped to strengthen the plotline. I enjoyed the location for the book and the writing style is great, it really brings the story to life.

Sadly for me this isn’t really a unique story and there was nothing in the book that made this one stand out from the others available in the same genre. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good story but I feel that the genre has become a little bit saturated with books having very similar plots and it did make this one a little predictable.

3.5 stars from me for this one rounded up to 4 stars for Amazon and Goodreads!

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. An enjoyable, page-turning read with an unexpected twist. The narrative from multiple viewpoints really worked, and I particularly liked the way Katy’s story is told in reverse

I do love a psychological thriller that is centred around family secrets. Barbara Marsden has a past. She's always been a bit distant with her daughter, Helen, and her husband knows there's something she's keeping from him, but she's built a life for herself and her family and they've always accepted it. Then something happens that means that Barbara's secrets may well come to light and what happens sets off a chain of events that impact heavily on Helen.

The first part of the book is more a family drama as Barbara finds out that she is ill. Helen rallies round whilst also dealing with her own marital issues. I must admit that at this point the story wasn't quite what I was expecting (although not in a bad way). However, the second part is where it steps up a gear and those secrets start to be revealed slowly to me as the reader, if not to Barbara's family.

The story is mainly set in 2017, but there are chapters that go back in time to various different years. The story in the past isn't told linearly so if you struggle to keep up with having a muddled timeline then this book may not be for you. I, on the other hand, absolutely love a book that throws me around and drip-feeds me the story. It's like putting together a jigsaw. I really liked how the story in the past unfolded and the dawning realisation of what had happened was revealed.

The author's bio says she has a slightly bizarre interest in motorway services and indeed, they do appear in this book. Part of the book is set when motorways were starting to be built and it added a really interesting social history element to the story.

I thought If They Knew was an accomplished debut novel, with a complex plot and interesting characters and I enjoyed reading it very much.