I Know You is a gripping read that ends up being less about the mystery and more about the strong female lead. McGowan manages to make her main gal endearing to the reader, even though we aren’t completely certain if she is the protagonist she claims to be (who doesn’t love a slightly unreliable narrator?)

While the mystery aspect wasn’t all that mysterious for me, I still found myself drawn in and unable to put this book down. I read it in less than 24 hours.

At the start of the novel we are introduced Rachel, a quiet middle-aged woman who has just started to find happiness with her new love interest, Alex. One morning, while walking her dog, Rachel comes across a dead body and everything changes. Being tangled up in a homicide investigation means some very dark secrets from Rachel’s past have come back to haunt her and the small town she now calls home. McGowan masterfully bounce back and forth between the present day murder and a mystery that has been unsolved for over 20 years and manages to keep the reader rooting for the most obvious suspect to be deemed innocent.

As I said before, the outcome of both conflicts in the story do not provide any jaw-dropping twists, but McGowan builds up a solid story with proper foreshadowing and the right amount of suspense to keep a reader enthralled.

I’m looking forward to reading another of her books!

Thanks to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the free digital copy in exchange for an honest & fair review.

This is another great thriller by Claire McGowan. I was super excited to read this new book and wasn’t disappointed.
There were plenty of twists and turns throughout that kept the intrigue level high.
It’s 4 stars overall for me as I felt the pace slowed midway through.
However, overall it’s a great book and one that I’d recommend.

This was such a great read. I read it one session it was so addictive as I wanted to know how it ended - even though I had guessed the ending, there was enough doubt to make it interesting.

I had one unresolved issue though - how she was funding her lifestyle. I must have missed this explanation.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own.

Another great read by Claire McGowan!! This was an intense, terrifying thriller that had me biting my nails!

Meet Rachel Caldwell. While walking her dog one morning, alone in the woods, she stumbles upon a dead body. So, what does she do? Well folks, she runs for her life! Because this isn't her first rodeo. This has happened to her before. And to make matters worse, she soon discovers that the dead body is her boyfriend's soon to be "ex" wife, making Rachel the prime suspect.

Twenty years ago, Casey Adams flies to LA to become a nanny and home helper to the well renowned Safran family: David, Abby and their two children, Madison (5) and Carson (6mos.). Worst mistake of her life! One morning, when Casey returns back to the Safran house after taking Carson for a stroll, she finds herself in the middle of a crime scene. David, Abby and Madison are all dead. Murdered. She calls 911 and hides with the baby in a closet. When the police arrive, Casey is immediately placed under arrest for the murders. She is convicted at trial and sentenced to death row. After spending 4 years in prison, with the help of a friend and volunteers of the Innocence Project, Casey is exonerated at her appeal for lack of sufficient evidence and set free. If only the rest of the world were that forgiving. They all still see her as a murderer. So, to save face and with the hope of becoming invisible, Casey moves back to her homeland in the UK and changes her name to Rachel Caldwell.

Bouncing back and forth between past and present, the reader has two mysteries that need to be solved. Who killed Anna? And what really happened at the Safran home twenty years ago?

While I enjoyed this story a lot, I felt that I had it all figured out too soon. I was hoping for just a little more. With that being said, I definitely recommend this book to others. It is a very well worth the read!

Thank you to Amazon Publishing UK / Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for allowing me advanced access to this digital copy!

Rachel finds a body in the woods while walking her dog. She runs away and doesn't call the police. The victim is found to be her boyfriend Alex's estranged wife, Anna. She is now the prime suspect. Twenty years earlier Rachel had a different life, she was named Casey and working as a nanny for a family in Los Angeles. The entire family was murdered except for the young son Carson. All the evidence was against her and she went to prison. She was able to get out on an appeal but now it seems her past is back to haunt her. After changing her identity someone knows who she is. Are they framing her for the murder of Alex's wife or did she really commit both of these crimes?

This was my favorite novel from Claire McGowan to date. I loved the alternating time lines and characters. The story about Casey being a nanny for a wealthy family in L.A. was very intriguing. I thought I had all of the answers figured out in this mystery but I was clearly wrong. I highly recommend this fantastic novel!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This review will be posted to my Instagram Blog (@coffee.break.book.reviews) in the near future.

This thriller let me spellbound. It’s an intricately weaved story full of twists and turns. I didn’t see the ending coming but I loved it. I highly recommend this for all thriller lovers.

This was a sold 4.5 for me, it it told by two different perspectives, two different timeline, what happens when you find a body. what happens if it isn't the first body you have found? This was an enjoyable quick read, i guessed a lot of the twists but that didn't take away from reading it. There are also some side issues discussed, who is innocent, who gets saved, who is considered important and how that plays into the criminal justice system

For me,there were few surprises in this book,other than how much Casey whinged about ONLY being 19 and having to do SO much.
The story went pretty much where I expected it to.
However,it was an enjoyable read,with a good dual narrative,and just the right amount of information at the right time.
I curled up with it one afternoon and raced through it.

You get two engaging and thoroughly entertaining mysteries in one with this thriller by Claire McGowan! I was immediately interested in the story and characters, and the ending wrapped everything up nicely; I was able to guess one of the big plot twists, but several other twists were fun and surprising; a little slow at the mid-point. I recommend this book, as well as, MGowan’s What You Did. I look forward to more books by this author!

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for the advanced reader’s copy of this book.

Outstanding Suspense…
Outstanding suspense from a talented author which starts with a hook and doesn’t let the grip go until the very last page. Characters are entirely credible and well defined and the plot is brilliantly conceived, becoming tense and almost claustrophobic very quickly as the reader is drawn into the protagonists’ emotional state and predicaments. An edge of seat read.

Good book!! Wow I felt so bad for the main character! Although she wasn't as innocent as I thought lol thus book had suspense, intrigue, and a great who done it! So many twists and turns! I'm usually really good at guessing the bad guy but this book took me a while to figure everything out! I definitely recommend reading this one! Its well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

(Thank you Amazon Publishing UK and NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for my review.)

i say this all the time: i’m not a fan of flashbacks but i really enjoyed them in this one. i think i preferred reading casey’s POV more than rachel, but i was equally interested in both mysteries.

the story was suspenseful enough, though i managed to correctly the guess the killer of both crimes early on, which i think was quite obvious/easy once you’re deep into both narratives, and have picked up on enough hints. i didn’t expect the ending, but kinda knew it was somewhat headed there, so there’s that.

i really liked the writing style and i’m sure i’ll be picking up more of this author. all in all, decent mystery and interesting story! i can’t say it was anything mind blowing, but it was definitely good!

While this was a mystery I read quickly, actually skimmed quickly, I have conflicting thoughts about it. A little too much of the slash genre for me. Perhaps not so much blood and better development of the story line would have helped.

It seems every book or almost every book I read lately has then and now time periods…I prefer remaining in the present time with a general omniscient narrator or told in the first person…the chapters of each person’s viewpoint and the chapters going into the past do not permit a novel to flow…Entertaining…so to speak…this book was sent to me electronically by Netgalley for review…. There is murder and mayhem…intrigue…some romance albeit it not healthy relationships…child abuse…dysfunctional family dynamics…the story is a quick read and guessing early on the murderer is evident…The author is good at her craft when weaving a story together with a plausible ending…

This was a pretty entertaining read! I liked the back and forth between past and present, it gave the storyline some dynamic and kept the reader guessing, although I did figure out the twists and the ending anyway, but I didn't mind that much. Casey was a really fun character and I grew quite attached to her, whereas Rachel was a bit boring. I did like how the storylines came together in the end, I would've liked a bit more from the ending though, just something more shocking and twisted. The plot and pacing itself were good though, although I felt the book was quite long and therefore I sometimes grew a bit bored.

I liked the writing style, especially in Casey's POV chapters, it was really dynamic and easy to read and probably the reason I finished this in one sitting. I might look at other books of this author, I really liked how the story was delivered.

Clearly the author is a master of prose and storytelling! Quite an interesting plot and twists. I can appreciate the discussions demonstrating the differences between the UK and the US throughout.

I was tempted to mark this down a notch (but only to 4.5) because it took me a few chapters to get into it but decided to ignore that because once I was in there, I enjoyed it very much.
There are two stories, Casey's and Rachel's. They are the same person, the former being a younger version of a woman who has a nasty habit of getting accused of murders she didn't commit. I found Casey's story the most compelling of the two but that's not to say that I didn't enjoy what Rachel had to say too. I will look out fro more by this author if this is the standard that I can expect.
Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I KNOW YOU follows an interesting pattern of the main character's life. In her early years, she was known by her legal name Casey Adams; after turmoil which landed her in an American prison on death row, she got back to England and began using her middle name Rachel and married surname Caldwell (haven't we all? :wink:) Since Rachel is her present time period name, I'll use that.

I felt for Rachel like I did with our real world's Amanda Knox. I cannot imagine how terrifying it would be to end up in prison in a foreign country and on death row no less. Even with a common language, British English and American English differences were enough to cause yet more grief and add to the perceived guilt of poor Rachel.

McGowan did a perfect job of bouncing through time from the Casey years to the Rachel years. Casey's nineteen-year-old naïve period as an au pair for a pretentious, high-maintenance Los Angeles couple with two children are chapters of pure muscle-tightening tension. Expect to grind your teeth when reading about Casey trying to deal with a spoiled and abused little girl, Madison, and her anorexic, angry mother Abigail. David, the husband/father, seems like Casey only ally and she dreams of being cast in one of his films. David's drinking and mercurial moods give Casey mixed signals. For such a young woman who was still trying to hold onto her dreams, the family drives her to the brink of collapse.

The entire Safran family except for baby Carson is composed of manipulative, self-serving people. When everyone except the baby is murdered, the nanny -- who dared to have social media images of her partying back in England -- was quickly arrested and convicted. The Innocence Project handles her appeal in what the media dubbed The Mary Poppins Murders.

The present/later years when going by Rachel, readers are lulled into a false sense of security, but never truly lets her guard down. She is protective of anyone offering her food or drinks. She changes her hair and dresses frumpy to be sure she's never called promiscuous again. Rachel volunteers at a dog shelter where she is truly happy though never relaxed. She falls in love with the wrong man, Alex, and her life falls apart in the worst ways. What are the odds of Rachel stumbling upon yet another dead body? This time, at least she's in her home country but in a quiet, small town. Of course you know she'll be the prime suspect again.

What McGowan does that keeps the suspense going is methodically dropping in new potential suspects in the murder of Anna Devine. Where does Jeremy, Rachel's ex-husband and only champion, fit into the equation? Did someone follow Rachel from the US to the UK specifically to frame her again for murder?

The ending, not necessarily the reveal of Anna Devine's killer, but the events that unfold are quite surprising. Rachel isn't the only one with a secret identity (to be honest, I figured out this other person easily), but she has to make another decision about whether someone is friend or foe. Then she has to weigh her past, her previous behavior, her experience with the judicial systems (and the public and media) -- and decide what course of action is best. Does Rachel rise to the occasion and face another battle or does she flee? I won't dare spoil that.

Rachel represents the average heterosexual woman who makes terrible mistakes in judgment as most of us do at one time or another, especially when only nineteen. She has one friend and yet she doesn't feel connected to him at all. Even Jeremy wanted something from her -- love. No one ever gives Rachel a helping hand simply to be nice. She is weathered and traumatized. As a grown woman, Rachel's dog is honestly the only unconditional love she has and even that gets taken away from her for a while.

While I Know You may get on lists for "women's fiction" or "women's reading" or "women in crime" -- Rachel is the type of protagonist that men should read to see this side of what some women want. She can be shallow (a defense mechanism). She can be passionate. Ultimately, it's Rachel's street smarts that keep her alive. Male readers are perhaps used to the "unkillable male hero" like John McClane or Harry Bosch. This portrayal of intimate partner/domestic violence shows all the flaws of the female hero that is often lacking in male counterparts.

A cleverly designed and well executed thriller, I Know You will keep you on the edge of your seat until the truth is finally revealed. Claire McGowan delivers a strong and intriguing novel that makes you feel the pain and desperation of being accused of crimes you didn’t commit.

Rachel Caldwell is walking her dog when she stumbles across a dead body in the woods near her home in the British Lake District. While most people would call the police, Rachel’s first instinct is to run away as fast as she can. You see, last time she was found at the scene with dead bodies she was accused and convicted of murdering 3 members of the Safran family for whom she nannied, incarcerated on death row for several years before being exonerated and released. And once the victim is identified, Anna, the estranged wife of her current boyfriend, realizes her instinct was correct since she’s now the prime suspect. Trying to keep her past from coming to light, thinking it’ll make her look even guiltier than the police already believe given the mounting evidence pointing at her, Rachel must figure out on her own what happened to keep herself out of prison once again.

There are two aspects to I Know You that work really well. First, it’s how the story goes back and forth between current day and flashbacks. This approach allows for a slow drip of clarity, doling out puzzle pieces one at a time to build suspense while you build your own hypotheses. Which leads to the second great aspect of keeping you guessing all the way until the end. Even when you think you’ve figured it out, the book offers new information that seeds doubt in your mind, leading you to flip flop on your opinion multiple times for who killed Ana and what happened in the Safran home 20 years ago. So even if you actually do figure it out early on in the book, you won’t be sure until the end. It plays games with your mind and makes you question what’s right in front of you. A great trait of a solid murder mystery.

Thank you Thomas & Mercer,and NetGalley for allowing me to read an arc of this book. This book felt really long. Both POVs were in the first person and there was so much description. The story would have been much tighter if some of it had been edited. But,the story was good, if sometimes a bit muddled. and Casey was a great character. Rachel was ok but annoying. The ending took me by surprise - I had a different idea in mind!