The tag line “two strangers meet on a pier and only one walks away” really excited me, after reading ‘The Dinner Guest’ I couldn’t wait to get my hands on an ARC of this book however the title and description didn’t match this book at all…

When I read the prologue I was ready to get stuck into the book, the first couple of chapters were good, however midway through it went off for me… so many terrorist attacks, Caroline (mother) was crazy, Alec (father) was self absorbed, no idea why Caroline’s mother was thrown into the mix and then there’s the ending.. what was that?? So many unanswered questions!

The only characters I felt any emotion for were the teenage boys in Southend.

Just a footnote - I really think this should have a warning that child abuse is covered within the story.

Thank you to the publisher & netgalley for the opportunity to read this prior to publication, although it wasn’t for me I’m sure there might be others who will like it,

Caroline and Alec lost their daughter when she was the victim of a terrorist attack. Never a particularly happy marriage, they deal with their grief by tearing each other apart. When Caroline discovers that her daughter was only at the scene of the attack because she was waiting for a boy who never turned up, her grief turns to an all-consuming rage and she sets out to find hm, blaming him for her daughter's death.
Powerful stuff and the writing is excellent. The main characters are exceedingly unlikeable – a trend becoming ever more prevalent in modern literature. When treated sensitively, this doesn't detract from enjoyment of a good story and this was the case for quite a bit of this book.
When Caroline begins to make ever more erratic decisions and becomes gratuitously nasty to nearly everyone she meets, it becomes hard to maintain empathy with her. At the midpoint of the book, she began to lose me completely, or rather, Ms. Walter did, as a series of ever-more incredulous events occur, Disaster piles on top of drama until I could no longer allocate credibility to the plot. A pity, because there is a very good story in there if it hadn't been swamped by extraneous threads, some of which had very little to do with the main story. I never found out what happened on the pier because, eventually, it became a DNF.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It’s a big no for me. The beginning was interesting, but it was all downhill from there.

Caroline is grieving the death of her sixteen-year-old daughter, Jessica. Jessica was among many who died during a terrorist attack in London. Several months later, Caroline decides to look through Jessica’s phone, and against all logic, blames a boy for the death of her daughter. It turns out that Jessica had planned to meet this boy in secrecy instead of going to Somerset with her friend. With this discovery, Caroline goes on a mission to find answers and exact revenge.

Before starting this I saw many less than favourable reviews, so I was surprised that the book instantly captured my attention. I liked the references to popular books, mainly YA. I even liked Caroline and sympathized that she had such a terrible marriage. But then I slowly learned that both Caroline and Alec were cruel and sick individuals. Nearly all the characters except for one or two were detestable. I felt gross reading a large majority of this book.

I prefer books that deal with such dark subject matter to have at least a shred of hope, but this one was just bleak. And I don’t know why a terrorist attack was used as a plot device, it was very unnecessary. And the title has very little to do with what happens in the book. AND I’m tired of male authors turning their otherwise smart female characters into deranged women.

Trigger warning for everything: child abuse, paedophilia, self-harm, drug abuse.

Thank you to One More Chapter for inviting me to review this arc in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. Sorry I couldn’t give it a more favourable review.

I want to thank NetGalley and HarperCollins, One More Chapter, for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review. I read author B.P. Walter's previous book, The Dinner Guest, and found it an admirable, compelling, excellent domestic thriller. I regret that I failed to connect with this dark, gripping, heart-wrenching, unbearably sad, overblown drama.

The story was well-written and constructed, but I found the characters flawed and unlikeable. I believe this was the author's intent. Disturbing themes were in abundance. These include acts of terrorism, child abuse and neglect, pedophilia, bad parenting, drug addiction, adultery, and personal demons from the past. There were secrets, lies, and violence with some clever twists, turns, and revelations. Each time, I hoped the situation could not become worse but it often did. There is a lot of mention of characters repeatedly crying and vomiting and lots of yelling and screeching.

The story is told from two perspectives, The Mother and The Boy. The mother is Caroline Byrne, snobbish, self-absorbed, entitled, and proud of her success as a screenwriter. Her marriage is toxic. She is no longer attracted to her unfaithful husband, whom she considers weak. They say hurtful things to one another and are rivals in dealing with their 16-year-old daughter, Jessica. Their marriage has become one of hostility, betrayal, and manipulation. Caroline enjoys making acquaintances feel uncomfortable.

When Jessica is killed in a shocking terrorist attack, Caroline goes mentally and emotionally into a downward spiral. Her actions become increasingly erratic and irrational. She blames her unhappy, distraught husband for not displaying sufficient grief. The main character, Caroline, was someone I considered so deranged, despicable, demented, and detestable that I was unable to sympathize with her feelings of bereavement.

Caroline's grief was overshadowed by extreme anger. She cannot understand why her daughter was killed at the scene of the terrorist attack when she had permission to stay overnight with a girlfriend from school at a distant location. While going through Jessica's phone, she is shocked to see messages between her daughter and a young man named Michael. She was at the location of the terrorist attack to meet up with the boy, but he stood her up. Jessica waited for him in that place until she was killed.

Now Caroline feels a strong urge for revenge. She cannot take her anger out on the terrorists because they all died in their attack, so she blames Michael for her daughter's death. She plans to track him down and make him pay in an act of revenge.

When she finds Michael, she learns that he is living in a dreadful home situation. He and his younger brother are in a filthy house looking after a drug-addicted mother. They have suffered abuse, neglect, and violence. What happens when she finds Michael and when they eventually meet on the pier?

Later, Caroline meets up with her very unpleasant mother at the home she fled while a teenager. After destroying her mother's prized possessions, they talk and learn more secrets about each other.
The outcome is surprising.

This is a gut-wrenching book that is sure to divide the reactions of its readers. I admired the writing and would read another book by the author based on the Dinner Guest, but this one was not for me. I found it powerful and profoundly sad.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and OneMoreChapterUK for the ecopy to review. OneMoreChapter was hosting a readathon for this book and I was all too happy to join in, but now that I have finished, I am very baffled by what I just read.
Caroline is a film writer whose daughter has tragically died during a terrorist attack. Obviously Caroline struggles with the loss of her only child, a loss she just cannot understand, as her daughter should not have been in the area at all. Determined to find answers and find someone truly responsible for the death of her child, Caroline goes on wild hunt, unravelling more and more of the story of her daughters death and the reason for her being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I found the book slow to start, and then things picked up, slowed down again, and picked up, at last heightening and then… the book ended. I was left with questions that will never be answered and wanted to throw my Kindle across the room at the abrupt ending.

From the synopsis of The Woman on the Pier I was eager to read it. Billed as a dark suspense thriller brimming with secrets and lies, it seemed right up my street. The book started strongly and I quickly found myself drawn into the plot line however, about half way through I started to lose interest. The book covers some serious subjects: grief; terrorism; drugs and child abuse but it felt like the pace had slowed too much. Not my favourite book of the year, but I would rate it 3.5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley, One More Chapter and the author for the chance to review.

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare come true when Caroline’s daughter is tragically killed.

Caroline is a grieving mother who has not come to terms with her daughter’s untimely death and with her marriage in tatters and her career on hold, her every thought is consumed with knowing the truth.

Her daughter, Jessica, was killed in a shocking terrorist attack in London but why was she there?

Three months on from Jessica’s tragic death Carline still doesn’t understand why Jessica was in London and not staying with friends as she had told her parents.

Caroline can’t let go and eventually decides to go through her daughter’s phone, and finds what she’s been looking for.

You really feel that Caroline is spinning as she goes into the rabbit hole of Jessica’s phone on this quest to find the truth.

We the reader are taken on this quest as Caroline hunts down this boy.

What will she do if she finds him?

And what is she hoping to achieve?

There’s lots going on in The Woman on the Pier.

This is a tale of secrets, betrayal, revenge, mental health, child abuse, murder, grief and much more.

First the positives - this book is extremely well written and the main protagonist Caroline was extremely well portrayed as was her disintegrating marriage to Alec which started well before the death of their daughter Jessica in a terrorist attack. It’s themes of grief and revenge are powerful and well handled. However, I found the references to drug, parental and sexual abuse and murder all a bit overwhelming. Maybe it was a case of right book, wrong time.
If you’re already a fan of B P Walter’s writing I’m sure this novel is already on your radar.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this before publication.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Now this book is a strange one, I did like it, however it did not blow me away. I felt the ending was rushed, I wanted to know more about the Kelley brothers, and what happened to Evan after the story ended.
I also do think this book should come with trigger warnings of self harming and sexual and child abuse.
The story is mostly told from the point of Caroline who is a very unlikeable character. I found her hard to warm to. She was desperate to blame someone for the death of her daughter who was killed in a terror attack in London. The book shows a dysfunctional family who all seem to hate each other and lie, I did like finding out more about the Kelley brothers and felt this bit of the story lacked in ending. Overall I would give 3.5stars rounded to 4.

It’s the cruel hand of fate that’s at work in B P Walter’s latest thriller The Woman on the Pier. Successful TV scriptwriter Caroline Byrne’s only child Jessica has been killed in a terrorist attack at London Stratford station. Three months after the attack this grief stricken mother is still none the wiser as to why Jessica happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time rather than in Somerset visiting her friend Hannah where Caroline and husband Alec presumed her to be. Jessica had clearly been lying but why? Snippets of a conversation between her and a boy at the very beginning of the novel naturally lead you to jump to conclusions but how does their dialogue fit into the bigger picture? For Caroline stuck in a loveless, toxic marriage with little or no purpose to her days life has become a living torturous hell, her behaviour steadfastly becoming more erratic and unhinged. Her mind cannot cope with the knowledge that her daughter had been deliberately withholding secrets so she takes it upon herself to investigate further, desperately seeking answers to the questions that torment her night and day. Told from the perspective of The Mother and later The Boy this is a compulsive, heartbreaking, dark, tragic and harrowing read.

The depiction of a marriage limping along without the glue of Jessica to hold Caroline and Alec together is excellent. Regardless of how quickly you judge this couple and find them wanting ( and you do, especially Alec) the timeline which offers glimpses of the days and weeks leading up to Jessica’s death shows the rot has well and truly set in. From the way in which Jessica plays one parent off against another to Alec’s complete abandonment of his wife, the 16 year old’s death, or murder as Caroline regards it signals the end of a relationship that’s been doomed from the start. Now there’s no need to keep up the pretence Caroline is free to pursue her own hidden agenda. B P Walter’s portrayal of a mother out of control, consumed by grief, married to a selfish unsympathetic self serving husband and a boy for whom life has dealt a cruel hand is (on the whole) totally believable.

I identified with Caroline in the sense that I am a mother to an only child. This storyline forced me to place myself in her shoes and wonder how on earth I would behave in the aftermath of losing the most important person in my life in such tragic pointless circumstances. The truth is I know it would utterly break me. As well as making me feel extremely uncomfortable I felt like a voyeur intruding on someone’s private and personal grief, the feeling that I was powerless to prevent Caroline’s complete unraveling only intensifying as her search for answers opens a can of worms from which evidence of warped behaviour and untold horrors emerge. Her pain is so raw and visceral even though I found Caroline’s own behaviour erratic irrational and deranged my heart went out to her. But in expressing my sorrow for this woman who I must admit tests your capacity for empathy to the limit I asked myself why is the focus always on the mother in these situations? Why are they so often portrayed as hysterical creatures driven mad by their grief? Do fathers not experience this emotion in the same way? I appreciate the way everyone processes grief is unique to them but where is Alec when Caroline needs him most? It’s impossible not to describe the man as anything but a worthless piece of s**t!!!

The Boy’s voice is equally as compelling as The Mother’s but be warned details of his life are distressing to say the least. He’s trapped in a very different version of hell, dealing with some very dark demons from which there appears to be no escape. His only outlet for his suffering causes yet more pain and the storyline just becomes so heartbreakingly depressing.

I preferred the first half of the novel by far. Overall the entire novel is compelling but once the major twist is revealed I felt all the tragedy surrounding these characters overwhelmed everything else and that became the main focus. As you peel back each layer of the storyline you find yet more reason to despair, darkness infiltrating every single corner of these characters lives. There’s a point at which you silently scream at Caroline urging her to rethink her plans but there’s no stopping the wheels that are already in motion as events hurtle towards a tragic end. It’s not until very late in the day that you understand the relevance of the title. The weather at this time adds to the oppressive atmosphere, acting as a metaphor for all the rage and torrent of emotions that have gradually been building in both The Mother and The Boy’s lives, spewing forth like an angry tidal wave until after what should be a dramatic climax an eerie calm descends. However instead of “thrilling” it’s unbearably sad which pretty much sums up the mood of this novel.

I’m really glad I didn’t read the synopsis prior to picking up this book as it is quite revealing! All I saw was the name B P Walter and knew it was a thriller I wanted to read. However, did I enjoy this as much as The Dinner Guest? Enjoyment probably isn’t an appropriate word to use considering the tough subject matter but the answer is no. In fairness to the author it is well written and the plot well executed but because you realise midway through the direction the narrative is taking the impact of what transpires is reduced. I liked how life for one character comes full circle as is so often the case whilst another finds a glimmer of light in the darkness. If I had to sum this novel up in just two words they would be COMPELLING and TRAGIC.

My thanks as always to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read in exchange for an honest review.

I was ambivalent to start with as I really didn’t like the parents of the girl who had been murdered in a terrorist attack but gradually I found that the mother was a bit more complicated than seemed at first and I was gripped by the story. It is very dark and I found some of it quite random but it’s a good thriller with a different story that keeps you turning the page.

The Byrne Household is not a happy one. Teenager Jessica feels trapped between her warring parents as their marriage implodes and that nothing in her life is going right. The only person who seems to understand her is a boy she met online and talks to via social media. After getting her parents to agree to her staying with a female friend in Somerset Jessica has actually agreed to meet with the lad,who lives in Southend. On the way she's caught up in a terrorist incident at Stratford Railway station and is killed. Mystified as to why Jessica would be anywhere near Stratford, Mum Caroline discovers and reads the messages,seemingly from a lad called Michael ,discovers his address and ,blaming him for Jessica's death, goes looking for him.

Sadly,after loving the author's previous book, "The Dinner Guest", I really couldn't get to grips with this one. Most of the main characters characters are deeply unlikable and there's page after page of misery heaped upon misery. They all seem spend half of their time bursting into tears,and in Caroline's case throwing up as well,cheerful it's not One major event added nothing to the story apart from to set Caroline off on yet another physical and mental meltdown and the author appeared to be fixated on how wet she got every time she ventured out into the recurring wet weather,which was an ongoing theme of her time in one location.

There's actually a good story in here but it gets bogged down in domestic drama at the beginning and then the increasingly irritating Caroline's tedious travails right up until nearly the end when there's a neat twist.

Rating: 4.2/5

This is my second experience of B.P. Walter, having previously read the very finely penned domestic noir, "The Dinner Guest". Although "The Woman on the Pier" is a very different story, there are certain qualities that it shares in common with the author's previous novel: The title and the official synopsis will not adequately prepare you for the content of the book that you subsequently read; the themes are dark and potentially disturbing; all of the characters are flawed to some degree; the narrative moves across a variety of time frames; it is well-written and cleverly constructed.

I also have to say that there will be people who will feel very uncomfortable with - and potentially even distressed by - some of the novel's themes. Under normal circumstances I would include an advisory note in my review highlighting those specific themes and warning people who may find them overly upsetting. I am not going to do that in this particular case, because I sense that the author has deliberately structured the novel in such a way as to make for a shocking and uncomfortable reading experience at certain points. Achieving that effect depends, at least to a degree, upon the audience being blindsided. Hence, I believe, the reasoning behind the content of the official synopsis and the choice of book title being somewhat delusive.

Not everyone will like this book. In fact, I suspect it is capable of dividing opinion quite strongly. However, as Caroline, a screenwriter and lead protagonist of this novel says, "It sounds cruel, but I've always rather liked doing that. Disconcerting people. Challenging their sense of the norm and throwing their presumptions back in their smug faces ... A writer has to be brave enough 'to go there', I've always thought. Tackle the problems you don't want to talk about. Make people feel uncomfortable. Because that's where the find out the most about themselves. And usually - not always, but usually - they don't like what they find out."

For my money, B.P. Walter has produced another intelligently written suspenseful drama that makes for compelling, if at times discomfiting, reading. I will certainly be back for his next offering.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review.

On the face of it Caroline and her husband Alec have it all: good careers, money in the bank, a nice house in Kent and a teenage daughter, Jessica, who is bright and inquisitive. But under the surface things are more complicated, Alec is finding his sexual gratification elsewhere and Caroline is worried about Jessica’s plans to visit a friend in Somerset in the midst of a sustained period of terrorist attacks impacting the South of England. Caroline is unhappy at the prospect of her daughters trip, but her objections are overridden by Alec. And worse is to come - the latest terrorist atrocity is about to impact this family, and with tragic consequences.

Told from a multi-person perspective and with the timeline jumping back and forth, this story unveils its mysteries in a series of face slapping surprises spread throughout its pages. It’s intriguingly plotted, the characterisations are strong and it’s very well-paced – to the extent that whenever I put it down I was desperately planning when I’d next be able to grab it up again. So does this make it the perfect mystery/thriller? Well, not quite. The price paid for the regular injections of ‘wow’ moments is that an equal number of leaps of faith are required in order to accept that yet another layer of strife can be added to this particular scenario.

Caroline’s search for truth – and sometimes, it seems, for her own sanity – takes her on a quest during which she gets nothing but bad luck, where information that’s just a finger swipe away somehow evades her and just about anything else that could go wrong does. So, is this web a litle too tangled, can anyone suffer from this number of misunderstandings and accrue this much bad luck in such a short space of time? For me it does all stray a little too far into the realms of the fantastic, and yet these are the very ingredients that make it all so compulsively readable. Another nail-biting tale from the author of The Dinner Guest.

This is a riveting thriller filled with suspense and if you enjoyed BP Walter‘s first book, The Dinner Guest, you are sure to like this one too.

Synopsis:

Two strangers meet on the pier. Only one walks away…

Screenwriter Caroline Byrne is desperate to know why her daughter Jessica died, murdered in Stratford when she was supposed to be at a friend’s in Somerset.

When Caroline discovers the messages Jessica had been sending a boy named Michael, she realises it’s because of him. Because he failed to meet her that day.

He’s the reason why her daughter is dead.

And so she makes a choice. He’s the one who’s going to pay.

That is her promise. Her price.

Coming out on Nov. 11!

After reading the Dinner Guest by this author I was looking forward to more of the same. Unfortunately for me it did not deliver. I was expecting another thriller but all I got was a story of heartbreak and loss. Misleading and confusing as blurb was definitely not what I was reading. Saying that I am sure other readers will enjoy it more just not for me.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for giving an honest review.

B P Walter, author of The Dinner Guest, is back with a brand new novel, and in my opinion an even better one! I really enjoyed his debut, but I think I definitely enjoyed this a little more! I find his writing very readable and easy to get in to. I wouldn’t necessarily describe this book as a thriller, perhaps domestic fiction? So do bare that in mind if you’re thinking of picking it up. Most of the characters are unlikeable and sensitive themes are covered including terrorism, child abuse, loss and self harm, to name a few. I felt sympathy towards Caroline throughout most of the book, although some of her behaviour was questionable and slightly odd. However, grief has such a different impact on everyone, as a reader I can’t even begin to imagine how she must feel. There were a few twists and surprises throughout, with everything being tied up nicely at the end. Overall, an enjoyable read!

I read this as part of the #omcreadalong #omcthrillathon over four days. Being completely transparent I did not particularly enjoy the author’s last book The Dinner Guest and found it to be, well a bit snobby if I’m honest and the characters were eurgh and just made me feel a bit icky and not in a good way. Willing to give the author a second chance and thinking the premise sounded good I got stuck in.

Well if I didn’t particularly like the last one it was nothing compared to how I felt with this one. I felt like I had been fraudulently deceived as the majority of the book was about their awful marriage and I think the author had googled trigger topics and then crammed as many in as possible. The characters were awful and I couldn’t even sympathise with Caroline over the loss of her daughter as she had no redeeming or likeable qualities to her.

Then we get on to my issue with snobbery, now I’ve just finished another book where a character was incredibly affluent but it came across in a much better way. Here it just rubbed me up the wrong way. I mean she goes to a hotel and doesn’t like the size of the television so she goes to a store and buys a 55 inch £3,000 Sony OLED and thinks nothing of it. Now Caroline does herself consider that she may be a snob like her mother but the way the author writes the so called poorer characters and the fact this is the second book that made me feel this way, makes me wonder if the author actually thinks that’s how people are.

Then there was the glaring error of deaths, on chapter five the death toll was 37 and by chapter 21 the final death toll had increased to 27. Yeah work that out! If it was down to timeline do not put final in the figures as it is just confusing when no dates are added. Now I know that these are possibly uncorrected copies but they had surely at least seen a proofreader and for something that serious it’s important you get it right.

If this hadn’t been a readalong it would have been a dnf and I am reluctant to recommend it. I won’t be tagging the author in this review as there may be others who will enjoy it. Unfortunately it just wasn’t for me.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4302356066I was very intrigued by the blurb for this book and loved the cover but within a few chapters I have to say I was wondering wether to carry on reading or not.
The writing was engaging but it could not make up for the fact that none of the main characters were at all likeable. Caroline is egoistic and self centred while her husband, Alec is sniping and whinging. Even Michael and Evan lacked guts. I wanted to shout at the whole lot of them 'sort yourselves out!'
In the beginning I felt some sympathy for Caroline but quickly lost interest as she dug herself deeper and deeper hole. The plot too, was clunky, as if the author had said, 'so what am I going to do here,' and makes a sudden turn.
To make matters worse all the characters turn on the waterworks at the slightest harsh word and there are many of these in the book so every chapter seems to have someone in tears and someone else vomiting.
And why the tv? Was it even necessary?
Sadly disappointed, especially since previous books by this author have been good.
Many thanks to Netgalley, HarperCollins UK, and One More Chapter for an early copy of this book. I hope other readers enjoy it more than I did.

This is a multi faceted story covering several protagonists, different areas and country.. Each storyline has an interesting premise, well drawn characters and topical plots. The initial chapters cover a terrorist attack with numerous fatalities and casualties : the problems of survivor guilt and family bereavement after a teenage murder are worthy and largely undeveloped topics in fiction. A further aspect was the mystery related to why and how the young victim was in the vicinity of the attack. Whilst engrossed in these events the reader then moves into the relationship of the protagonist now involved with a second family, two abused boys living with immoral mother addicted to drink and drugs all the subjects of violence. Again a hugely interesting subject matter that to some degree takes over storyline. The conclusion moves to events in the past resulting in family breakdown and unresolved issues affecting and impinging on any chance of a happy life. There was three different storylines, each worthy of a stand alone book that became a frustrating read when tied together as part of one story. Ultimately the reader buys into the characters before moving on to equally interesting storyline and characters but struggling to do so in what seems to be a disjointed fashion in relation to overall story. Equally frustrating and confusing is the speed of the conclusion which raises more questions that answers. An enjoyable read that covered three different subject matters all hugely entertaining and each worthy of a book in its own right. Many thanks to author, publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.