Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I really enjoyed Clementine JoNes this story was fabulous and really captivating out in Australia! Hopefully another one comes in the future.

Thanks netgalley for the arc in exchange for a review

Great pacing and tension throughout. The main character Clem annoyed me at times but I did enjoy her journey from beginning to end. Thankyou for the free ARC!

In the small town of Katinga Clementine Jones is hiding out from something that happened in her recent past. We are fed little bits about this event through the novel, but it isn't until the end we find out the whole story. But we know that it's something pretty bad and that is why Clementine wants to stay under the radar.

Clem has taken on the job of coaching the local footy team, a team that has lost for years. Everyone has high hopes she can get them to the finals. While Clem is a hard taskmaster, the guys respect her and she seems to be able to get the best out of them, even affecting them in their personal lives. While I enjoyed this part, the decisions that Clem makes throughout while she's hunting for answers to why her lead player, Clancy has quit, seem to me to show that it's all surface-level involvement.

I really did get annoyed with her, many times, for the decisions she makes throughout. Ones that bring danger, not just to herself, but to others around her who haven't asked to be pulled into her one-woman, one mindset hunt for the truth.

Saying that, she was was persistent once she set her mind to things, no matter who she might upset or what danger might follow.

The corruption she uncovers goes deep and the things people will do to get what they want, make the mind boggle.

While Clem spends her time trying to uncover the truth, she tries to hold onto her own secrets.

Racism is rife in the town, I was saddened by this fact, and the way the indigenous people were treated, knowing this happens often in real-life makes it worse, when will it stop.

This was a fast-paced read where I questioned Clem's decisions but respected her tenacity to ultimately try to make things right for Clancy. There are some frantic moments where you will wonder, has she gone too far.

I'm currently reading book #2 White Throat, Clem is on the hunt once again to uncover a crime.

Thanks to NetGalley and Text Publishing for a digital copy of this novel in return for an honest review.

I loved this very much! The characters, the actions and even the plot itself! Very inspiring for my own book too!

i really enjoyed getting to know Clem and going on her journey, she really felt like a real person. I really enjoyed reading this book

I usually love a book that is set in Australia and keen to try new authors. However, this one did not quite do it for me Yes it was an easy read and the main character was engaging but somehow the case in question was just not plausible to me.

This was the opening of a new series, which always excites me. The idea was intriguing. She uprooted her life and is trying to live under the radar. Something here didn't live up to my expectations. I never connected with the main character and I had trouble getting really interested in her life as a coach. This was a quick read with many exciting, fast moving scenes.

A very good read full of tension and suspense. Couldn't stop reading because I had to know what happened and so will you. Check it out. Very engrossing. Happy reading!

Australian author, Sarah Thornton, has written a wonderful debut novel called Lapse. Set in a small country town in northern Victoria Australia we meet Clementine Jones, a former corporate lawyer, who has fled from Sydney to escape her past and has taken up the job as the local Aussie Rules football coach of a team, the Katinga Cats, that hasn’t won a Grand Final for fifty-three years. A daunting task but one which Clem shows she is up to. However as well as coach she turns into an amateur detective - an investigation that has a lot of drama and twists that leave the reader breathless.
Well written with excellent character development. At times, however, I felt that Clem was naive and made a lot of unwise moves! Apparently this is the first in a series so it will be interesting to see how she develops.
While the story was very readable and enjoyable there were some serious issues raised that tend to be more prominent in a small town but certainly exist everywhere; such as racism, secrecy, drug crimes workplace harassment, the importance of community sport and of Australian Rules Football.
Highly recommended read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Text Publishing for an ARC ebook to read and give an honest review.

I do like books set in a small Australian town, I have no idea why, but I do seem to have a liking for them.This perfectly captured the small town feel, with the various characters you would expect to find there and to a certain extent the prejudiced attitudes.I think that could have been explored more and the lifestyles of the indigenous residents.I wasn't sure I really liked the main character, although she was interesting,and complex but a bit hasty sometimes.The football descriptions didn't do it for me,but was very much part of the story.Not a bad book, I can't rave about it, but would like to see what happens in future books so am keeping an open mind.

4.5★s
Lapse is the first book in the Clementine Jones series by Australian author and former lawyer, Sarah Thornton. Why would Sydney corporate lawyer, Clementine Jones be coaching a football team in small town Victoria? Whatever the reason, she’s doing something right because, for the first time in fifty-three years, it looks like the Katinga Cats may just win the premiership. Until, that is, their star player, Clancy Kennedy quits, citing an excuse that just doesn’t ring true.

The whole town is depending on Clem to help the team finally gain that elusive title, so she’s determined to find out why Clancy has really abandoned the team. Even though Clem seriously intends to keep a low profile, she finds herself reverting to lawyer mode to learn the truth, something not everyone appreciates. But are they just warning her to respect privacy, or is it a threat?

Clem can’t let it go, and when she learns that Clancy has also been dismissed from the town’s biggest employer, her discrimination radar begins to ping. As Clancy is an indigenous player, is it racism, or is there more going on? And if she digs deeper, will she be exposed too?

While Clem may not be entirely surprised to be coaching football (she has always loved it), by the time the grand final is over, she will have been involved in a number of activities that she could never have imagined, probably the least of which is paying a fortune for a phone, but extending to unlawful entry and theft, covert surveillance, vandalising a car, ringing Crimestoppers with a tip, being kidnapped and holding a loaded gun on someone.

Thornton gives the reader a twisty plot with plenty of action. She easily evokes the Australian small town and its residents, her characters have a familiar feel and their dialogue is credible, although Clem’s tendency to make dubious decisions and act alone does get a little irritating.

It isn’t necessary to be a football fan to enjoy this novel as this is not a story swamped in sport. The issues that feature (racism, unemployment and drugs} are very real ones in those communities. This is an impressive debut, and it will be interesting to see what Clementine Jones gets up to next.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Text Publishing.

From the start, Lapse just didn't work for me. I couldn't waste my time reading this book, as I am obviously not the right person for this book.

Austrailian football coach turned detective just didn't land well with me, I guess. I spent the last few chapters wondering if the title had anything to do with her lapse of judgement for the prior bad deeds, or if something else would slip, and maybe I missed it, but I didn't see that answer.
Will probably read again and give it another try later in the year, but for now, I'm pretty much on the fence. Solid characterisation and perfectly good writing...it just...didn't quite land with me.

As a debut novel this book is so well written and the characters so well defined that Sarah Thornton must have been carrying the story in her mind for a few years! I've been reading Candice Fox books and this book could easily stand up against her novels, all set in Australia.
Hiding from her previous life in a small community, our main character finds herself coaching the football team. As their game improves and progresses, this coach faces a dilemma, keep pushing her team and risk her cover or pull back and disappoint a whole community. Then a young man drops from the team and she has no choice but to find out why and set circumstances in motion that will test everyone.

It’s Friday Night Lights, but set in the hinterlands of Australia where it’s not American Football they are playing. A female coach, Clementine, is leading a team of unknowns to their first championship in forty years and the whole town is rooting for them or so it seems. But, Clementine has a shady past that she hopes was left behind with her legal career in tatters after a drunken night takes a life. And, she becomes a junior Sam Spade through no fault of her own when her star player is forced to quit the team and uncovers a hell of town secrets, dirty coverups, and lingering racism against the indigenous people.

This is a debut novel, but don’t let that throw you. It’s fast paced and absorbing. You may cringe when Clem plays at being a detective, but the writing is so crisp that you feel her emotions and understand her reasoning as she throws caution to the wind and tries to do the right thing.

Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.

Aussie Rules Football coach turns detective. The story is set in rural Australia (Katinga) and tells the story of
Clementine Jones (Clemmie) who is on the run from her past in Sydney.

She's new in town and has to deal with her team being successful and chasing glory , the loss of her (indigenous) star player and small town business people who like to think they can 'help' run the club. On this last point this is rather like some of those involved in our English football clubs!

Setting aside some of the Australian words and phrases, this is a well written book but I had some reservations about Clemmie's rather rash actions in trying to discover why her star player (Clancy) has been badly treated. There are many references to discrimination against the Plains indigenous people but with little information about their way of life etc. Perhaps that is for another book? Also, still not sure about the title of the book. Clemmie has quite a few lapses.

Thanks to Net Galley and Text Publishing Company for the chance to read and review.

This was not the book for me. Yes I knew that the story was about a football coach and he challenges about to happen, but it was too much about the football and from then on I struggled to connect with he book, the town, the characters. I wanted it to get better but it just didn't for me. In the end I only got to about 90% and I just couldn't bring myself to finish. Thanks NetGalley for the ARC though.

Alright so fitst off I was given the opportunity to check this book out before publication date by #netgalley. Now that that is out of the way let's talk a little about this book. Okay so I guess I had this book all wrong. When I seen the title called Lapse I was thinking about this book dealing with drugs and somebody messing up their sobriety. I'm not really sure as to why but I did. However, this book deals more so with racism and shady people in this Ellesville town. It was actually a pretty descent read and very quick too. If you wanna read this book it comes out September 2020.

I was drawn to this book by its cover and blurb, but it didn’t deliver for me.

Clementine is on the run from her past, she got out of jail and headed to a small rural town in Australia. She applied to become the footy coach. She has great succes with the team. In rural Australia where there is still tension between indigenous people and the whites she has a mixed team, but when here best player, Clancy, quits a series of dangerous events take place. Clem is in the middle of all this and tries to figure out why her best player, an indigenous player, suddenly leaves and gets fired. It’s a dangerous undertaking and Clem doesn’t want anyone to find out about her past.

I feel Clem is rash and I don’t really like her character, nor did I find a liking for other characters in this book. I guess that’s why I had a hard time liking it. The story itself is nice, builds up pretty well, but that’s it.