When Andrea Cooper an£ her mother Laura get caught up in a shooting inside a coffee shop, their whole lives begin to unravel and Andrea realises everything she thought she knew about her family was a lie.

With two interlinked stories, this is a typical fast-paced, edge of your seat thriller from Karin Slaughter. Absolutely spellbinding.

Karin Slaughter is one of my go-to authors for smart, emotive and dark thrillers - but this one? Not so much. Something about this whole book just didn't work for me: the writing feels muddied and lacking in clarity; the characters, especially the daughter who is 31-going-on-13, don't really make psychological sense; and the story seems to be driven by in-your-face twists rather than the more carefully planned emotional trajectories of the previous books.

Most of all, previous Slaughter books have made me <i>feel</i>; this one left me distanced and untouched. Where is the wit, humour and laugh-out-funny moments that have always lightened the previous books? The smartness about women in what is still primarily a man's world?

After so many hits, I guess Slaughter is allowed a miss...

I have to say I’m a Karin Slaughter, having read and loved all her previous novels. Pieces of her is excellent. Andy is in a diner with her mother Laura when a shooter comes in. From there Andy’s view of her mother changes and sets out to find the answer of who her mother was. Told from two POV, Andy in the present and someone from the past. Will Andy uncover her mothers past before their future is destroyed.
How good was this? Well I was sat on my lounge floor just past midnight waiting for My Kindle to have enough power to turn back on so I could read the final chapter as I has read for so long the battery had run out.
Karin’s Next novel will be at the top of my to read pile and if you haven’t read any of her books yet this is a brilliant one to start with!

Laura has a past that she has kept hidden for thirty years. One day she is attacked in a diner with her daughter and it is captured on a mobile which is then sold to the media. Her face is all over the news. It won't be long before they come for her. Laura has to protect her daughter at all costs.
Laura is attacked in her own home and her daughter Andrea walks in and saves her mother by killing her attacker. The last words her mother says to her is she has to make her way to a storage unit in Carllington and RUN. Andrea is now on a journey where she finds out that her mother is a liar and a killer. By the end of her journey she will realise what a mother will do to protect her daughter.
This book was rollercoaster of a thriller. I loved it.
I would like to thank the author Karin Slaughter, Harper Collins UK and Net.galley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for giving an honest review.

Great novel. Initially threw me with the trip back in time, but enjoyed watching the story unfold using the mother/daughter viewpoints. Great twists, keeling the reader guessing to the final pages

I have a huge fan of Karin Slaughter, especially her Will Trent series and Pretty Girls. Pieces of Her was good but it wasn't in the same league as those. The characters are unique and well developed but i found the story dragged in many places and found some aspects hard to follow. It didn't really feel like a Karin Slaughter book, a problem i had with her last book The Good Daughter.

The story is told from two very different points of view, Laura’s in 1986 and Andrea’s in the present day bringing together a plot so full of twists and turns that it leaves you checking back through the book to make sure you’ve got the storyline straight!

This isn’t your typical Karin Slaughter book, no gruesome murders and psychotic serial killers on the loose this time. This time the storyline is slightly more sinister in some respects, dealing with a wanna be cult leader and the power of people’s believes, how far human nature can be manipulated and how far we are willing to go to protect our children, family and loved ones.

1986 – Martin Queller, head of the Queller Healthcare and Queller Correction and his 3 children, Jane (Jinx), Andrew, Jasper and Andrew’s best friend, Nick Harp – charming, handsome, charismatic and full of ideals wanting to change the world, and the only way to change it is to destroy it first.

2018 – Laura and her daughter Andrea, a quiet family living by the sea until their world gets spun on its axis by getting caught in the middle of a shooting in a restaurant. As they witness people getting shot Andrea freezes and fear paralyses her, unlike her mum! Laura protects her daughter by putting herself in the line of fire and the situation resolves in a way no-one saw coming!

As Andrea begins to realise there is more to her mother than she knew, the only way to keep both herself and her mother safe is to dig back through a past that she never knew existed.

Switching between past and present the truth slowly starts to unravel and the two timelines start to come together in ways you probably won’t expect!

As I’ve already said, this book is unlike her previous novels, taking a more political, morel path dealing with corruption, terrorism and family bonds which all in all made for some really good reading but for me personally this isn’t her best book! Sorry! My heart is still back in Grant County!!

If you are new to Karin Slaughter’s work then you will want to go back and read the rest of her novels after this one, and trust me, they are definitely worth reading! Or if you are already a fan of hers you will love this book and it goes to show the level of talent she possesses!