What would you do if you found a dead body? You'd phone the police! Of course you would - unless you have reason not to, and Rachel has a very good one.

This novel started out really well, grabbing my attention and drawing me immediately into the storyline. Well written with interesting characters this novel has a dual timeline, moving back and forth between present time and the events of twenty years previous.

The pace was good, it had enough twists to keep me on my toes and it kept my attention all the way to the gripping ending. Definitely recommended.

While walking her dog, Rachel comes across a dead body in the woods, and flees without reporting it. The last time she did, she would be accused of murder, and she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. That’s the opening page of I Know You, and if that first chapter doesn’t grab you, nothing will. Simply told in alternating then/now format, the author expertly weaves the two timelines into a suspenseful and twisty thriller that will firmly hold your interest. The book can get a little repetitive at times in the “then” chapters which slows things down a little, but overall it’s definitely worth a read. I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What did I just read? Oh mayn, this book is ridiculous. What a mystery !

A huge thanks fo Amazon Publishing UK for my e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. The book has two timelines and I am utterly shocked that it gripped me so.

The book follows Rachel who one day stumbles on the dead body of her boyfriend's ex wife who has been murdered *gasp* and some people's karma is finding a dead boy twice . Rachel twenty years ago was Casey -an ambitious nanny trying to make it as an actress .

Twenty years ago the entire family she took care of was murdered *gasp*.
we follow her story as we try to piece together who committed both murders and why she is in the centre of it.

I loved the mystery,the plot ,the character development and the title. Highly recommend!

Rachel is accused of a murder she didn’t commit, but does it really matter if the police are convinced she did it anyway? It turns out that Rachel (who once went by the name of Casey) was already charged, found guilty, and five years later released for murdering a family of three and now someone seems to be framing her for the murder of her boyfriend’s (soon-to-be ex) wife. Unfortunately, I kind of guessed what was going on fairly early in the book. Although I tried to give it a fair shot, it only got worse as I finished it. Not one of my favorites.

Special Note: Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

If you’re looking for a fairly quick read and are happy to guess the murderer without too much trouble then this is for you. there’s a lot of unnecessary descriptive passages in which the word “ cinnamon” seems to feature more often than you would expect ( I’m probably the only person this was a problem to it just riled me a bit).
Good use of the two timelines and easy to follow.

This was fantastic! I was gripped from the start and couldn’t put it down! A few twists and turns and an ending I didn’t expect! I’d definitely recommend

Claire McGowan refuses to let us down. This book sucked me in immediately and after reading The Other Wife, I didn't know if there could be a way to top it...but she has done it. Wonderfully done.

Thank you, NetGalley, Amazon Publishing UK, and Claire McGowan for allowing me to read an advanced reader's copy of this book.

Rachel has awful luck. The kind of awful luck that gets you in the middle of two crime scenes: one she was exonerated from (after being convicted and sentenced to the death penalty) and another she may be being framed for. It's safe to say that I don't envy Rachel's life. I Know You is told in dual timelines, alternating between the first incident, when Rachel (originally named Casey) was nannying for a family in LA, and the current, in which Rachel (who has since tried to move on from her past) is found as the chief suspect of another murder. Has someone found out about her past and used it to cover up their own murder? Has someone from the past decided Rachel needs to pay for her crimes, even though found innocent? Is she actually innocent?

I enjoyed reading this book but was mostly invested in the "Casey" timeline or the "Mary Poppin's Murders" as they're later known. I loved the tension between all of the family members and Casey's struggle to acclimate to a new culture/setting. McGowan shaped LA- with its bright sun and swaying palm trees- to an isolating, claustrophobic setting, which I thought was really well done. Unfortunately, I was not as interested in the current timeline. Who Casey became near the end and who Rachel was shown to be felt incongruent.

This book also touches on the corrupt criminal justice system in the US a lot. And don't get me wrong, it is. It really, really, really is. And I was excited it was going to be showcased here. Yet, in the end, McGowan's depiction of the US felt like a caricature. The number of times Casey mentioned she couldn't have done it because she was a "naive British girl" or simply stating how corrupt the US system is vs. the UK didn't really sell the point.

So, in the end, while I liked Casey's story, Rachel's was a bit of a drag, making this a 3.5 for me.

P.S. did anyone else consistently think of an actual vest whenever "vest top" was mentioned?! I think this is just British slang for tank top?

I really enjoyed this one although I already thought I knew who it was before the book was ver. So the ending just confirmed it. An interesting twist was presented with Casey though. I enjoyed the back and forth and usually I don’t like those kinds of books. I liked the Rachel character and a few other characters but you didn’t get to know the others very well.
The suspense was building through the whole story and you will find yourself guessing.
Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy of this book. I will be reading more from this author and recommending to readers!

This is the first book I read by Claire McGowan but it will not be the last.
I Know You is a very good mystery/ thriller with an intriguing story and interesting characters. The plot was very good but I think that the pacing needed some work! Also, the editing at some points could be better!

All in all it was a very good book and I will definitely read more of her books!

There are thrillers and there are thrillers that make your heart pound. A book is good if I carry it around and every spare moment I’m in it and also annoying my family by reading at the dinner table. This book was that good.

Talk about some bad luck! This novel is told by Rachel in two timelines - her present and her past. It was a very effective tool for showing how Rachel’s old life was affecting her present. I thought Rachel made some questionable choices but as the story unfolds you begin to see why. I kept saying “oooh no, girl” to during Rachel’s nannying - McGowen did a wonderful job illustrating the naivety of a 19-year-old alone in a new country. Overall, this was a well written and gripping thriller.

Whilst walking her dog in the park Rachel finds a woman's body. The woman turns out to be her boyfriend's ex wife. Twenty years earlier under the name of Casey, she had been working in Los Angeles as a nanny where 3 members of the family were murdered leaving just the young son alive. Rachel was found guilty of the murder only spending 5 years in prison having successfully appealed the sentence.

Now she is the prime suspect in this new murder. Does somebody know her history and are they framing her for this murder or is she guilty of both murders. This book made me swing backwards and forwards between innocent and guilty and even though I thought I had worked it out I had not. I loved the way the story switches between Casey's and Rachel's story as I like dual storylines?
I have read other books by this author and enjoyed them all and this is no exception I recommend this book and other books by this author.

Thanks to Netgalley UK, The author and the publishers Thomas & Mercer for an advanced Arc copy of the book in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

This is definitely a page turner, but very far fetched. I appreciate that it’s fiction, but I personally like to believe in the story. I didn’t understand many of the character’s motivations, which also distracted me somewhat. Compulsive, but be prepared to suspend belief.

That was actually really, really good. The book grabs you right from the start and doesn’t let you go until the very end. Poor Casey never had a chance with her useless mother, Jenna, filling her head with rubbish. It’s 2000 as she heads off to LA at the tender age of 19 to be a nanny to a ‘Hollywood couple’ with the hope of breaking into the industry at some point. So she ended up, little more than a child herself, looking after 5 year old Madison and 6 month old Carson.

The story is told on two timelines - 2000 and beyond and then the present day. As Casey starts her nanny job she soon realises this is a family on the brink…. The mother, Abby, is a washed up actress obsessed with getting back into the biz so she was starving herself and ignoring her children. Basically living in la la land. The father, David, is a producer who, despite the stories he peddled to the media and to Casey, was slowly going bankrupt. Casey enters this madhouse and does her best to look after the children until the fateful day where it all turned toxic and she is charged with murdering the family, apart from baby Carson. Casey is found guilty and sentenced the death. Yikes!

Lucky for her, high school crush (him, not her) Jeremy fights tooth and nail to have the conviction overturned and have Casey exonerated. He brings her back to the UK. In the present day Rachel is living a quiet and unassuming existence. She works for no pay at an animal shelter and tries to fly under the radar. She has a passionate relationship with Alex, separated from his wife Anna. When Rachel finds Anna’s body one morning while walking her dog Brandy she panics and runs, scared that the past is coming back to haunt her.

I’ve read a couple of books by this author but this is by far the best. Casey/Rachel comes across as a very real and sympathetic character. Everybody else is shrouded with suspicion. Is someone trying to punish her for what she apparently ‘got away with’ nearly 20 years ago? Or is the link with the past more a convenient excuse? Your thoughts will vacillate from one option to the other as the author dangles suspects in front of you and then throws in a red herring or two. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.

The story takes place in two alternating timelines. The plot is intriguing and the characters interesting although the pace is a bit slow for my taste. Still, a perfect weekend read.

While out walking her dog one morning, Rachel finds a dead body but instead of doing the responsible thing and reporting it she runs away. Big mistake. She is soon under suspicion as her scarf is found at the scene and worst of all the body is that of her lover's estranged wife. It couldn't get any worse could it? You'd think. But the police soon discover she is someone (Casey) who was once on death row in the USA, sent there for killing a couple and their daughter. She's been exonerated but hey, mud sticks...

Told over two time frames, the present and twenty years ago we are with Rachel/Casey as she tries to clear her name both times. The scenes in the states are horrifying. Their. justice system does all it can to find her guilty and you really feel for the nineteen year old Casey, tried and convicted in a foreign country.

I raced through this book. It's skilfully written with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

An interesting plot that had lots of surprises! What are the odds of finding a dead body twice in a lifetime? The story unfolded at a good pace. There were a few times it felt redundant, but overall it moved along well. Rachel was believable even when the events in her life were unbelievable. I liked the different times told alternately like they were. They both reached the peak at the same time and it built the suspense in the conclusion of the book. I received an advance copy from NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

What would you do if lightning struck twice? Rachel has once again found herself suspected of murder. How does she get herself out of this pickle? Told in alternating chapters between the present in the midst of the murder investigation of her boyfriend’s wife and a narration of the past leading up to the murder of the family she was nanny to.

As we progress with the story, we are left to determine if Rachel is a reliable narrator or if she is indeed being set up and by whom. I was left guessing right up until the end. This book is ambitious as there is a mystery in the past and a mystery in the present unraveling at the same time and while I suspected many different scenarios and culprits, I was not right on any count.

I like that the two timelines had different tones to reflect the different ages of Casey/Rachel. There was always a little foreshadowing at the end of a chapter and then you had to wait while you read from the other timeline. I would have thought I would be annoyed with that, but instead it kept me very interested.

While I read a lot of thrillers, this one really kept my attention and wanting to know what happened. I’d recommend it to any thriller lover.

Review of eBook
When Rachel Caldwell takes her dog, Brandy, for her usual morning walk in her favorite part of the woods, she comes upon a body lying in the leaves.

Stunned, she runs.

Rachel chooses to do nothing at all . . . no call to the police, no returning to make certain the person in the clearing is dead. Nothing.

She knows what happens when you find a dead body. And she desperately doesn’t want to be that person again.

Things become more complicated when it turns out that she’d had a run-in with the dead woman . . . Alex’s estranged wife. Alex, the first man she’d allowed herself to have feelings for, the first relationship she’d seriously considered in some twenty years. The first time since she’d found the bodies . . . .

She was sixteen; off to America for a position as a nanny for a Hollywood producer and his actress wife. Their daughter, Madison, was five; the baby, Carson, just six months old. She was Casey, then. Casey Adams. A girl with stars in her eyes and a dream of an acting career.

But the evidence in the brutal murders of the Safran family pointed to Casey as the culprit and she landed in prison. Five years later, an appeal ended her imprisonment and she returned to England.

Now Casey goes by her middle name, Rachel, and the surname of her ex-husband, Caldwell. She doesn't want any connection with the past, with the catastrophe that fell upon Casey Adams. But as the detectives investigate Anna’s death, all the evidence points to Rachel as the murderer. All her secrets . . . her lies . . . make her look guilty. But, could it be that someone is framing her for Anna’s murder?

Is Rachel guilty? And what happened in the Safran home twenty years ago?



Well-defined, believable characters populate this tale of family and secrets, of deception and danger. Two murder stories evolve alternately, one in the present, one twenty years in the past. Complex, compelling, and dark, things move quickly in this story that’s sprinkled with newspaper clippings and podcast conversations.

With the suspense constantly building, readers will find themselves guessing while some surprising twists in the plot ramp up the tension and keep the pages turning as the intriguing mysteries unfold. Pulled into the telling of the tale from the outset, readers will find it difficult to set this one aside before turning the final page.

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Thomas and Mercer and NetGalley
#IKnowYou #NetGalley