I absolutely loved this book! Dark, twisted, creepy, keeps you in suspense and guessing...it has it all and I had many late nights reading this book as I couldn't put it down!

I was given a copy of Strangers by CL Taylor in exchange for an honest review. I have read other books by CL Taylor so was excited to read this latest book, it didn't disappoint. It is told from 3 different characters, whose lives are all very different. Gareth is a security guard and looks after his mother, Ursula works as a delivery driver and is made homeless and Alice is in a new relationship when she begins to receive strange messages. It's unclear until near the very end of the book how the 3 characters are linked. This was another well written book by Taylor, a great psychological thriller.

Strangers is the story of three people. Alice who is convinced she is being stalked, Ursula who has a penchant for stealing and Gareth a security guard at a shopping centre who is looking after his mother who has dementia. The only link between the three seems to be the shopping centre where both Alice and Gareth work and where Ursula does her shoplifting. How they all come together is only revealed at the end of the book. An enjoyable read.

Another dark and excellent book by C L Taylor. A page turner that keeps you in suspense with twists and turns. Thoroughly enjoyed this and its highly recommended.

Thank you Avon Books and Net|galley

I have no idea how C. L. Taylor keeps coming up with these amazing storylines and books, but I really hope she never stops. This is completely gripping and I read it in one sitting on a hot afternoon in lock-down, and was absorbed between the pages.

I have absolutely no idea how three different people would remotely interlink, as we learn their stories in the the weeks leading up to a big occurrence.

I didn't have the foggiest who on earth may be stalking Alice. Ursula comes across as a bit of mixed bag of a character, at times she is clearly a thief, shoplifting and pocketing anything that takes her fancy, but in her role as a courier, there is one house that shows just what a caring person she really is.

And then there is Gareth, he is the security guard in the shopping centre that Alice works in, he has an ageing mother at home, postcards appearing from a most likely impossible source, and I really was engaged with his story.

All three of them so different, all with heart racing moments in their chapters and a growing sense throughout the book that things may not be as they seem.

It is cleverly crafted, keeps the tension up, and also makes you case about the characters, and as the pace picks up, it became actually unputdownable, and I was hooked anyway!

I have a very weird feeling this book may disturb my sleep for a few nights, as its rather unsettling which is exactly why I loved it so much.

I already can't wait to see what this incredibly talented author will come up with next.

Thank you to Avon and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

Wow what a gripping read. I love C L Taylor's books and this one did not disappoint. I loved the way each Chapter went from one character to the next and kept leaving you at the end of each chapter wanting more. I devoured this book and could not read this quick enough. I would definitely recommend this book and have already bought a copy for my Mum.

C.L Taylor is a name I’ve seen come up a lot but I’d never read her books myself. When I saw her latest, Strangers, turn up on Netgalley, it seemed a good place to start.

Strangers is a thriller, drawing together three independent characters in ways you can’t predict. Each have their own story to tell and for the majority of the book, each plot-arc is an isolated event. You get the sense the entire way through that the characters are going to collide, but there are no clear connections helping you guess how.

Alice has never been lucky in love. When she meets a new man and clicks with him, she thinks she stands a chance. But there’s a stalker thrown into the mix, although it’s uncertain who the target is and what this person wants. Alice must learn whether she can let go of a budding romance when there is no trust or whether her need to get to the bottom of it will place her in more jeopardy.

Ursula hasn’t had an easy time since her fiancée was murdered. Stealing is the only thing that eases the pain but fractures her remaining relationships, forcing her to take a room with a stranger to have somewhere to live. Her good heart encourages her to help those in need, but at the risk of making everything far worse.

Gareth is struggling: his mother has advancing Alzheimer’s and his missing father keeps appearing, despite everyone believing he is dead. Gareth is struggling to hold it together and keep his job and when his mother disappears, it pushes him over the edge. Helped by his neighbour, Gareth races against time to find his mother.

Three independent story-arcs. Three very different types of characters. All are likeable; all have their flaws. Alice struggles with being independent, needing someone to rely on rather than making her own decisions. Ursula has a more obvious issue of being unable to stop herself from stealing. Gareth is floundering, not knowing the best thing to do.

All the stories are interesting, but there’s no spark. When events start to pull them together, however, the entire atmosphere of the book changes. Mysteries are unravelled that I never saw coming and the characters crash into each other in an explosive way.

While the pacing and tension is low-mid level for most of the book, it’s through the roof for the final third. It’s been a while since I’ve literally not been able to put a book down and this one did it: I was gripped, desperate to find out how the situation would be revealed and if all the characters would survive. A thoroughly engaging and intense novel and I loved it.

Just when you think everything has calmed down, there’s one final plot twist at the end that finished the entire thing of in a satisfying and brilliant way.

I may never have read C.L Taylor before, but you can be sure I will now! Definitely a recommendation!

Starting at the end with Alice standing over a dead body with Ursula and Gareth close by then followed up with a really clever use of Twitter we have no idea who the dead body is. It then flips back to a week earlier and we proceed to learn the stories of the three main characters.

All three are suffering from a type of loss and are complete strangers to each other, hence the title. But as with all of Cally’s books you know there is always more than meets the eye and her books are never predictable. Even when the clues are there the twists still hit you like a sucker punch.

I think this is my new favourite of her books, the characters just felt so averagely normal which is hard to pull off. The pacing was pitch perfect and unbelievably tense at times. Alice’s date had me holding my breath and inching towards the edge of the sofa.

I really can’t gush enough over the cleverness of this book and the subtle way it all plays out until the satisfying conclusion. I thoroughly recommend.

Three strangers, each with their own secrets, meet by chance and it will change theirs lives forever..
The characters are believable and each is carrying a burden they can't or don't want to share. The story keeps you turning pages to find out more .
I enjoyed the story it's an interesting one and kept me wanting to read more . I recommend this book because it's an enjoyable read that will keep you guessing until the end.

I’ve read quite a few C.L.Taylor books now and I always thoroughly enjoy them, I think what I love most about this author’s books is her ability to write really good strong characters and it’s always the one’s you’d expect to like the least that you end up loving. For me Ursula was that character she was just such a fantastic well developed strong character that I really wanted to know more about after each chapter, her story is actually pretty heartbreaking and I really felt for her in Strangers.

The main theme of strangers is loneliness and it really comes through so well you can feel the loneliness in each of the characters and their need to connect with someone and feel something is palpable throughout. Each character has there own plotline and you just know that they all connect in some way, it’s such a fantastic well plotted novel i absolutely love watching all the dots connect. I flew through this as I do with all C.L.Taylor books and if you’re a fan of this author you will love strangers and if you’re reading C.L.Taylor for the first time this is a great book to start with!

Thanks to Sanjana at Avon for the invite to join the tour and for my copy via Netgalley.

Strangers tells the story of three people whose lives shockingly collide in a frightening event one evening.

Alice Fletcher is 46 and the manager of a ladies’ fashion boutique called Mirage Fashions, which is in the Meads shopping centre in Bristol. She is divorced and a single mum of a 20-year-old daughter called Emily.

Gareth Filer is 48 and a security officer at the shopping centre. He lives with his mum, Joan, who is 79 and suffers from dementia.

Ursula Andrews is 32 and a courier. She used to be a primary school teacher. After a falling out with her friend, Charlotte and boyfriend, Matt, she moves into a house share with a live-in landlord, Edward. She is a regular visitor to the shopping centre.

The main protagonists aware of each other but don’t know each other personally and they all have their own difficulties and traumas in life including failed relationships, a missing father and bereavement. They were all likeable and relatable but I did wonder if any of them was an unreliable narrator and hiding more than they were letting on.

As the novel progresses, we learn more about the characters and it’s fascinating to build up this picture of their lives. Strange things happen and various events occur that had me frantically trying to put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together to try and work out exactly what was happening! Throughout the book, I had a strong sense of foreboding and was suspecting various people but still wasn’t sure what the climax would be.

Overall, I really enjoyed this cleverly plotted and well put together novel. It was intriguing to see all the threads of the stories come together and to discover how actions can have unexpected consequences. It was very entertaining and tense with several twists and red herrings to keep me on my toes! It’s a gripping and absorbing read and I sailed through it in a couple of days.

Surprisingly enough, despite owning all of Cally Taylor’s back library, this is the first book of hers that I’ve actually read! I’ll have to rectify that and start reading all the rest soon. I’m already looking forward to her next novel, which is due out in 2021.

While writing this review for Strangers I am still reeling from the events I have read and how the story played out. This is so different from Sleep which is the last C. L Taylor book I read.

For starters while there is a feeling of claustrophobia,  and it's not in the locked room sense.  There is a air of being unsettled. We know who the main players of the story are. We know a little bit about them. They are unrelated to each other but there is something tying them together.

And it is this thread, that as you keep reading gets more and more twisted. It is only at the end that the thread unravels and all the secrets, the links,  all those mysterious moments are revealed. And it is at the finale we can finally see what brought these three Strangers together.

There are also lots of false trails to keep your eye one that helps create some of the chaos that ensures. There were so many moments where I was taken by surprise that I made the decision not to second guess the narration pretty early on.

We follow Garth, Alice and Ursula via alternative chapters over the space of a week. From Alice we learn what consent means and how to trust people. From Ursula we learn that we first have to forgive ourselves before we can move on and when her story is revealed my heart broke. Garth, was probably the person I sympathised first with and I was always desperate to get back to his chapters.

Strangers is definitely one of my favourite reads of the years. It is full of suspense, mystery and tension. It is impossible to see how everything will end up. And who the prime suspect is. I love the fact that it is not until the very end that everything is revealed. 

Sharp, addictive and thrilling Strangers is a book that I am not going to forget any time soon.

What happens when strangers suddenly find themselves involved with each other in totally unexpected ways? This is basically the premise of C.L. Taylor’s book, Strangers. The strangers are a diverse lot. Ursula is still suffering from the death of her fiancé. Alice is a single mother who manages a women’s clothing store in a small shopping center. Gareth is a security guard at the same shopping center. The book begins with these three people, strangers to each other, standing over a body. Then, the story back-tracks seven days and leads the reader up to that definitive moment.

The connections between these three strangers isn’t always clear and the twists in the story are sometimes unexpected and even misleading. Interwoven throughout the story are feelings of loneliness, grief, and loss. Each character is dealing with events in their lives they regret and their emotions are often palpable.

What a story! And, C.L. Taylor is quite a storyteller. Her characters are vivid and well-drawn. The plot is clever and has just enough twists and suspense to keep it moving along at a nice pace. And, the final resolution is quite satisfying.

I thoroughly enjoyed Strangers and I highly recommend it!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

Thank you for the arc of this book.
All I can say is WOW, one of my favourite authors has written another 10/10 book in my opinion!
This book had me gripped right from the start and really keeps you guessing right until the end, which you don’t see coming!

The story is told from the viewpoint of three very different characters, each of them with a past and an interesting story to tell. The characters are so well written and thought through, I found myself actually feeling empathy for them. Each character has their faults flawed, are deep down good people, going through a challenging time and trying to make the best of their situation.

What I particularly enjoyed is that these characters don’t know each other but are all linked to a shopping centre, it’s fantastic how they come together in the end in a very challenging and tense scenario.

Genuinely couldn’t put this book down.

This book has had a lot of hype recently. I was allowed to read it as part of the blog tour.

I liked the characters in this book they each had a good story lines, it had a few twists and turns and an unexpected ending. Good read.

Strangers is centred around three characters, three strangers who have never met. It seems rather obvious fate will bring these three characters together at some point but how?

Alice manages a fashion store at the local mall. Encouraged by her daughter, she dips her toes into the murky world of online dating. But her first date doesn’t exactly go well. Bit of an understatement there. Her date sets into motion a whole slew of intriguing events, yet there was something about her that put me off. I just couldn’t warm to her at all.

Gareth is a security guard at that same mall. He still lives with his mum, who suffers from dementia. Looking after her and dealing with his job is proving to be a tough balancing act, especially when it looks like someone from their past might be looking for a way back into their lives. Gareth is an easy character to sympathise with. His life didn’t exactly pan out the way he expected it to and he’s desperately lonely.

And then there’s Ursula. She is by far the more interesting of the three. Due to an addiction, she’s forced out of her friend’s home. With little money to her name, beggars can’t be choosers and she ends up in quite a desperate situation. Ursula is a bit of a mystery and the more complex of the three characters. You can’t help but feel there is more to discover about her.

Strangers is very much a character driven psychological suspense story. There is a rather slow build up and with each of these characters getting their own chapters, it allows the reader to get a really good feel for them as they deal with all the dramas life can throw at us. All three are amazingly well fleshed out and realistic, as are the issues they are confronted with. There’s an incredibly wide range of those too: from the impact of social media to mental health issues, to domestic abuse, to grief, guilt and loneliness … to name a few. Some are relatable, most if not all are thought-provoking.

The reader knows from the prologue someone has died. But who, how and why? How are these three strangers connected? Obviously that’s for you to find out but I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out. Strangers is somewhat a story of two halves. It’s a slow burner for sure but at some point, the pace changes and the tension starts to build up. And when things start to fall into place, you realise the author plotted this story quite cleverly. I have no doubt fans of C.L. Taylor will enjoy this suspenseful story.

Readers, you will probably be able to relate to my struggle. There’s an author that keeps popping up on your radar – be it through social media or recommendations. And yet, despite all the rave reviews, you find you actually haven’t got around to reading any of their books. Well, this is definitely my experience of Taylor and so, I was totally excited to have the opportunity to read this book, a brand new release, as my first introduction to this writer. And I certainly was not disappointed.

This is a thrilling read and one that had me trying to figure out how three seemingly different characters would become linked. The novel opens with the three protagonists together; the rest of the story is set the week leading up to the initial chapter. Therefore, readers play detective, establishing at what point the paths of these strangers would cross. For me, I loved the ambiguity of it all and could not have predicted how the characters would come together. This raised my enjoyment of the story and the fact that it was so unpredictable has made me want to get hold of more of Taylor’s books.

All of the three characters are convincing and believable. Alice, divorced, lacking confidence and living with her twenty-something daughter, appears to have lost her path in life. She is determined to get back into the “dating game” and this is how readers are first introduced to her. On the other hand, Ursula is struggling to make ends meet and, after being kicked out of her flat share, things take a turn for the worse.

Finally, Gareth is caring for his ill mother whilst holding down a job as a security officer at the local shopping centre. One rash decision leaves him looking over his shoulder and question his own judgement. Each character faces problems that I am sure many readers can relate to – if not from their own experience, but seeing it in the faces of others. Consequently, I found I had a vested interested in all of these people, seemingly different, because I grew to care about them and wanted them to succeed.

I really enjoyed Taylor’s writing style. Despite the narrative shifting between the three characters, it was not confusing to follow. It’s a long story – around 400 pages – but don’t let that put you off. As soon as I was involved in the plot, I could not help but gobble up the pages. It is as if the story itself carries you through the chapters, building up momentum.

If you have been lucky enough to read other books by Taylor (and I understand that there are quite a few!), then I don’t think you will be disappointed by this new novel. Ok, so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I think this is a fab read and one that was highly enjoyable. Just looking at the number of bloggers on this book tour reflects Taylor’s popularity and, here I am, a new fan of this writer.

With thanks to Avon books and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An absolutely brilliant read. Compelling and quick movingly, I blasted through this in 24 hours including a 2am read. Genuinely unputdownable.

An easy read that kept my interest all the way through - I liked the characters although for quite a while I couldn't really see how they connected to each other. There was some suspense. A good book

Strangers was not the best book by C L Taylor that I have read but because it was by this author I persevered. I’m glad I did as it picked up and I managed to finish it. It was good but had it been by an unknown author to me I would have given up on it.