Silver Tears had big potential to be a phenomenal book, I really believe this, but unfortunately I feel let down.
I did like the premise, the storyline was quite strong, and I found the writing to be well paced throughout and easy to click with. I didn’t, however, love the execution, and I really struggled to like or click with any of the characters. At times I really wanted to sympathise with Faye, I appreciated her backstory and growth that we saw but I think there could’ve been even more depth to her character. I would’ve loved to see more of her connection and relationship to the other characters, but especially her daughter, I found it hard to see her as a good mother. I know she was protecting her daughter but I think we didn’t see enough of what Revenge meant to her, so it just didn’t make sense to me why she couldn’t sell it and live with her daughter far away from the threat. The thrill was also lacking for me, I predicted a lot of what happened so I lost that shock factor.

I look forward to reading some other of Camilla’s books!! Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins Aus for an eARC.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book for an honest review.

Well!!! Not having read the first book, I'm sure there are things I have missed (and I will rectify that at some point!!). What an amazing character Fay is...

3.5 stars.
although silver tears isn’t nearly as action packed as the golden cage, i still enjoyed it more. the book seems shorter (according to goodreads, only marginally so). it was a much faster and easier read than the golden cage, with many twists (although, some of these i saw coming).

what i liked most, is that we got to see more of faye’s backstory, and how she’s become the woman that she is. i felt terribly sad for faye, when we learn about her childhood. no one should have to deal with what she went through.

there was a twist regarding a character: it was easily guessed. idk if you need more explanation than that, but i saw it coming from the moment said character was introduced, and faye couldn’t see it.

from reading the book, i feel like faye is a terrible mother. she says she’s saving her daughter from predators, but she leaves her in a foreign country and doesn’t make any effort to spend time with her? she’d rather fight for her company than spend this time bonding with her daughter, who’s probably scared and lonely. i’m sure after making a good few million, the company won’t matter anymore. you’ve made your money, now go and retire.

i’m still a little confused about faye’s company. it can’t be that easy to create a million dollar company?? wouldn’t everyone do it?

the use of murder felt a little unrealistic, as everyone seemed to get away with everything, and no one questioned it.

overall it was a good book, but i wasn’t overly invested in the characters or the plot. an entertaining and easy read.

EXCERPT: The studio lights were blinding. Faye had lost track of time. She had no idea how long the interview had been going on for, or how long was left. The audience was seated in rows of banked seating - a hungry, amorphous mass, on the alert for every word, every shift in her facial expression.

Usually she thrived in these situations. There was a little diva inside her who liked sitting in front of an audience, feeling the nerves of recording for TV. But today she felt strained and anxious.

Thinking about the shares being bought had kept her awake most of the night, tossing and turning. She had gone over the conversation in advance - conversations with women she would need to persuade to keep their shares without revealing in any way what was happening. No easy task - it would take both tact and finesse.

A slightly too long silence wrenched her away from her thoughts. She had been asked a question and was expected to answer.

'The plan is to expand to the USA,' she heard herself say. 'I 'm here in Stockholm for a month or so to meet potential investors and put together the final details. And I want to personally oversee the issue of new stock.'

It was horribly warm. A trickle of sweat ran down the small of her back.

Fredrik Skavlan, the Norwegian talk show host, sat up straight.

'But this hunger . . . What is it that drives you? You're already a billionaire. A feminist icon.'

Faye strung out the silence. The other guests were an American Hollywood actor, a female professor of linguistics who had just published a non-fiction bestseller, and a woman who had climbed Mount Everest with prosthetic legs. The Hollywood star had been flirting ceaselessly with Faye ever since she arrived at the studio.

'Before my best friend Chris died, I promised her I would live life for both of us. I want to see how far I can get, what I can build. My biggest fear is dying without achieving my full potential.'

'And Julienne, your daughter who was murdered by your ex-husband. What does her memory mean to you?'

Fredrik Skavlan leaned forward and the tension in the studio increased.

She didn't answer right away, letting the temperature rise even further. Reach boiling point. The answer was learned by heart, but it was important it sounded natural.

'She's with me in everything I do. When the longing and pain get too much I bury myself in my work. I'm running Revenge, trying to make it grow, so that I don't lie down and die myself. So that I don't end up as just another woman silenced in the shadows of a man's actions. So that he - the man I once loved, but who killed our daughter - doesn't succeed in killing me too.'

ABOUT 'SILVER TEARS': Faye Adelheim has had to fight hard her whole life. But now, she is rich, her business has become a global brand, and she is hidden safely away in Italy with her daughter, where her violent ex-husband, Jack, can no longer harm them.

But Faye’s world is turned upside down when she discovers Jack is no longer behind bars, and she is forced to return to Sweden.

Just as Faye is in the fight of her life to keep her family safe, the dark truth about her childhood, which she has kept buried for years, is dramatically uncovered. And Faye is about to discover that even the best kept secrets have the power to destroy everything…

MY THOUGHTS: I loved Camilla Läckberg's Patrik Hedström series. This series is completely different.

I should have felt sympathetic towards Faye. I didn't. I found her cold and calculating, yet also strangely vulnerable. But I didn't like her. At times I rooted for her. But I didn't like her.

Another thing I didn't like was the very graphic and superfluous sex scenes that pepper the book. They add little to nothing to the story and I felt that the majority of them were entirely unnecessary.

Was I bored by the story? No, definitely not. But neither did I love it. I didn't skim anything other than some sex scenes, and I never considered not finishing it, but I didn't love it. I liked it, but not a whole lot. It has all the ingredients that should make me love it: secrets, love, betrayal and revenge.

If I had been given this book with no indication of who had written it, I never would have picked Camilla Läckberg. I read the first book in this series after I was declined it on Netgalley, and while I didn't love it either, I liked The Golden Cage more than Silver Tears. The ending of Silver Tears makes it apparent that there is another book to come. It is one that I won't be putting my hand up for.

⭐⭐.6

#SilverTears #NetGalley

I: @lackberg @harpercollinsaustralia

T: @camillalackberg

#contemporaryfiction #crime #thriller

THE AUTHOR: Before she became one of Sweden’s most popular crime writers, Camilla Läckberg (b. 1974) worked as a marketing director and product manager for several years.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Harper Collins Australia for providing a digital ARC of Silver Tears by Camilla Läckberg for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, and my webpage

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in return for an honest review.

Silver Tears by Camilla Lackberg was a thriller about a high flying business woman who is trying to protect her family and her business. It is dark and mysterious and as she finds out more and more about who is after her business she takes exceedingly drastic steps to stop them

I liked this book, but I thought there could have been more to it. I enjoyed the memory lane trips the book took and how that explained the main characters motives.

I have read and enjoyed many books by this author over the years. All from the Patrik Hedstrom series. Her books are usually a mix of cosy family drama & surprisingly shocking dark moments. Sadly I did not get a chance to read and review this title as it was archived from Netgalley the day after I received the approval email.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book. I would hate to have missed the WTFery.

I've loved the Erica and Patrik series for several years, admiring the sense of mood, characterisation and setting. Which is why this book comes as quite a shock. This is the second in a new series following a character, Faye, as she rises beyond her traumatic past, to become a hugely successful business woman, working to move beyond those trying to hold her back. And while this sentence is factually correct, it does not even vaguely encapsulate the true bonkersness of this book

I have some random thoughts about this book

<spoiler>
Are we supposed to like Faye? In the first book, I was largely on board with her until the disclosure that she murdered a perfectly nice former boyfriend. In this book, she really ramps up the killing. It's all told from Faye's POV and the murders are described as ?justified. Faye certainly thinks so.

We are repeatedly told that Faye is a "feminist icon" but she quickly gets enraged when a girlfriend gently suggests that she question how well she knows her new lover, that she's known for a month. Faye basically accuses Ylva of being a jealous whore, pretty much in those words. "Whore" gets thrown around a lot.

Faye gets infuriated when a police officer continues to question Faye's story around the "death" of her daughter. The police officer is completely correct in her suspicious, but Faye says that she's only being questioned because the police officer is old, jealous and haggard. She solves this "crisis" by bribing the police officer with a house in Greece a la Mamma Mia and a major cash infusion. Faye instantly knows that this bribe will work because of how pathetic the investigator is.

After getting into a relationship with David of less than a months duration, she has a threesome with him and a female friend. Because it's an expression of their intense love of each other. Sure.
</spoiler>

So, do I recommend this book? Not really. But I ripped through it in less than two days and will probably read the next because I'm sure that it will be more bonkers. But I'm just not sure if it's meant to be bonkers.

I have loved Lackberg’s books and this book does show that, even on a bad day Lackberg is better than most mystery/thriller authors. But this is not her best. The story is rushed, the protagonist makes decisions and mistakes which are not true to her character. Everything is tied up too neatly. And, for some reason, the author has decided to include plenty of sex without it really adding much. It’s still a good book but not her best.