Member Reviews

A great cover and an interesting title made this book stand out for me,the writing is good,the story told well and the ending for me was very good, altogether a different interesting read

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In the 80's Sophie and her mother Amelia Rose move to London from America.Sophie finds it hard to settle down until her mother meets Matty and things change.
Sophie adores him and always takes his side against her mother who can be highly strung.
There is a serial killer killing women who bear a striking resemblance to Amelia Rose.
Sophie is fasinated by the Serial killer,who is he?and could he be nearer than she thinks.
Told in past and present chapters.
I enjoyed the style of writing and found the ending brilliant.
A must for readers who li,e their books dark and chilling.
Thanks to Netgalley and Quercus Books for the ARC.

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There are some novels you wish would never end and there are some which you wish you'd never started. Sadly, Truly, Darkly, Deeply, for me, falls in the latter category. It was so boring but I've read novels before which redeem themselves at the end, so I plodded on. I should not have bothered, even the concluding twist was lacklustre. On a technical point, when the detectives showed up at the flat, I think they were in plain clothes so would not sport a shoulder number as intimated in the dialogue.

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I'd like to thank both #NetGalley and #QuercusBooks for this free review.copy of #TrulyDarklyDeeply

This is a thriller set mostly in London, and based around an American Mother, Amelia-Rose & her young daughter, Sophie, They have moved to start a new life after the breakdown of her marriage and having lived with her parents for quite long enough.. Sophie is eight when Amelia-Rose starts dating Irishman, Mattie.

Although together for many years, Mattie doesn't offer Ams marriage. He does treat Sophie like his own child, they had bonded over her mums tendencies to nag at them and be a bit of a spoil sport! They'd often have fun games her mum didn't approve of. After a while Sophie became fearful when murders started occurring in and around their neighbourhood. The victims were all petite with brown curly hair, like her mum, and Sophie feared her mum would get killed after work! Mattie didn't dismiss her fears like Ams did, he encouraged their safety by telling them not to walk alone, gave them rape alarms and promised Sophie her mum would be safe!

As the years pass the couple's relationship goes through ups and downs. He's not the most reliable for keeping dates, and will go to Ireland to visit his parents and won't stay in touch. It puts a strain on Sophie and Ams relationship because she feels her mum is going to push her only father figure away. She tries harder and harder to keep them on an even keel and lighten the atmosphere when he first returns. All the time the murders are still occurring, and the police don't have any leads!

This read is quite fascinating, getting an inside look behind the curtain of the downward spiral of this family unit when accusations are made, and the press try and convict the suspect before a court date is even set! The feelings of what if's, could I have's, should I have's, were painful and sad reading! I thought the final twist and turn, right at the end was a bit unnecessary and almost gross. I understood it as a plot tool.but it cheapened the work for me.

Overall this is a well paced thriller, I really liked that it was written from Sophie's point of view. It swaps timelines from past to present, so you can tell how twisted up she still is by her past. It leaves you feeling pretty melancholy!😔

Debbie, 1970, UK

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Free courtesy of Netgalley

I enjoyed this book as it was intriguing, but I felt it was very choppy, dancing between the past and the present without giving any indications to where in time you were. The story was good though once you got used to the movement back and forth.

The story is about Sophie and her Mother Amelia Rose who emigrated from the USA to live in London after her marriage broke down and she needed to escape her religious parents. Shortly after the arrive in London, Amelia meets Matty, who becomes a father figure to young Sophie. Even though he won't commit to marriage, he treats Sophie as if she is his child, and Sophie loves him and takes his side against her mother, who can be sullen and argumentative.

Around the same time their is a serial killer on the loose, murdering young women who resemble Sophie's mother. Sophie is obsessed with this "Shadow" murderer and worries about her mother all the time, until her world comes crashing down.

I would recommend this book, as the story is very good. This is the first time I have read any of Victoria Selmans books.

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This is a fascinating book written about an accused serial killer, what really grabbed my attention is the fact that it is written from the perspective of his child. This is the first murder mystery I’ve read written from this perspective and I really enjoyed it. The writing is brilliant, as is the entire storyline, I truly couldn’t put it down!

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This is a superb read! The story is original, absorbing and impossible to put down. Sophie moves with her mother Amelia-Rose from Massachusetts to London when she is a young girl. Her mother becomes involved with a man called Matty who acts as the father Sophie never had. He lives in their flat sometimes but also disappears from time to time supposedly on business or visiting his parents whom he says live in Ireland. The background to this period is that there is a serial killer of young women on the loose. Sophie and her mother begin to be suspicious of Matty. The book starts with the reader knowing that Matty is in gaol for these serial murders. The interest is Sophie telling how she and her mother came to terms with it. She is also preparing after more than twent years to visit him in gaol hoping to get his confession and remove the background worry that maybe it wasn’t him. This is an excellent read and I strongly recommend it.

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I loved this! It kept me hooked right to the end and wasn't what I expected. I really enjoyed reading it. Just would have liked a few questions answered - why did she do it and what was the real relationship between the children and the serial killer. It was really well written.

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Hi and welcome to my review of Truly, Darkly, Deeply!

When I spotted Truly, Darkly, Deeply on Twitter, I couldn’t resist checking it out, and once I had, I just had to read this book! I love a good serial killer thriller and Truly, Darkly, Deeply turned out to be an excellent one!

After reading a few slower books that took me rather long to finish, I was in the mood for a fast-paced thriller and I had a feeling Truly, Darkly, Deeply would be just that. I could not have been more right! I basically raced through it and I almost literally had to restrain myself to not finish it late at night. An exciting finale does not make for a good night’s sleep and I just knew Truly, Darkly, Deeply still had something thrilling in store for me. (And it did too! As I found out the day after.)

Truly, Darkly, Deeply is told from the perspective of Sophie, the only child of a single mother, born in the US and brought to London at the age of twelve. It’s set in the present day, with flashbacks to Sophie’s childhood and her memories of her mum, her gran, and her mum’s boyfriend Matty, who was arrested for committing multiple murders and has been held at her Majesty’s Pleasure for nigh on twenty years when Sophie is informed he’s dying and wants to see her.

Throughout the story, we watch Sophie struggle with her memories of and her feelings for Matty. After all, he was the only father she ever knew and she loved him to bits for years. Was he truly a monster who pulled the wool over her and her mum’s eyes, or might he have been wrongfully accused as some true crime fans claim, innocent yet incarcerated all this time?

Truly, Darkly, Deeply is a riveting psychological / crime thriller and I had a brilliant time with it. While I do enjoy police procedurals, I really loved that this wasn’t at all about the police investigation into the murders, but a look at the lives of those closely connected to a convicted killer. If he’s innocent, had there been a way to save him? If he’s guilty, had there been a way to save his victims? Thought-provoking and super entertaining, I would happily recommend Truly, Darkly, Deeply to fans of the genre.

Truly, Darkly, Deeply is out on 7 July in digital formats, hardcover and audio.

Massive thanks to Quercus and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

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As a narrative of a girl and woman affected by being unknowingly close to a serial killer this works. The book's most powerful writing is in the thought processes and emotions in feeling let down by a loved one and the residual guilt .

I felt the two main revelations were obvious from early on and a little clunky in the execution of revealing them. Discovering something about another character felt rather rushed, unbelievable, and without enough background.

This all said, it's a well-written novel. The author definitely has great writing skills.

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**Slight spoilers ahead**

This was...not my favorite read. The premise, the synopsis, sounded amazing but the execution was lacking for me. This story is told from the POV of Sophie who is a sort of daughter to Matty who is in jail for murder. Her mom dated Matty for years and the two never suspected a thing. A lot of the story is told from the view of her looking back on the past and what happened pre-arrest, with some in the present time. In the present Matty is dying in jail and requested Sophie to visit him, which she struggles with. Her life was turned upside down when he was arrested and she is not sure she really wants to see him again. But she also needs answers.

Sophie has a lot of guilt for the past, guilt over things she did or didn't do. She goes over the events in her mind again and again and there is still a bit of her that wonders if Matty is innocent. If they did get the wrong man like he keeps claiming. Though when you get to the end and all the evidence is revealed it really feels like Sophie is still sticking her head in the sand and still doesn't want to acknowledge that he could be a killer.

Now I do love the idea of reading about this girl who loved a potential serial killer like a father and everything that would go along with that, but like I said the execution of this story was kind of boring. I kept reading because it keeps alluding to some big horrible thing Sophie did, and that was pretty easy to guess right from the start. There was another big reveal at the end that...made me roll my eyes so hard. Like it didn't work. In another story it would have been great, but the writing of this didn't back it up. Didn't make me care so it didn't work. Overall not a great read.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

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This sounded good, but at 1/3 of the way in I've decided not to finish it. It's perfectly readable, but there's not a lot I like about it and I really don't care what happens. Perhaps if the story had been structured in a different way, or told from a different perspective, it might have been more engaging.

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⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Set in London in the 1980’s,
experience the palpable tension as a a serial killer is on the prowl. He targets woman who look just like Sophie’s mother Amelia-Rose, but Matty, Amelia boyfriend, and the closest thing Sophie has ever had to a father figure, assures them that they are in no danger. How does he know this? Could he be the serial killer?
Unfolding in dual timelines, this is a gripping read, delivering just the right amount of tension. I’ll be looking out for this author.

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This mystery follows Sophie who with her mother moved to London when she was young.

Her mother starts seeing a man called (Matty) Matthew Melgren, and he soon becomes an important part of their lives.

Suddenly women start to go missing in the area, and bodies are being discovered; they realise they have a serial killer. After a long killing spree for the serial killer Matty is suspected and is charged and sentenced for these murders.

Twenty years later Sophie receives a letter from the prison asking her to visit Matty. It brings many memories back and she tries to work out what signs she may have missed.

Will she accept the request? Will she receive the answers she has been waiting for?

This book was an interesting read, seeing the lives of the family behind a possible serial killer and if there are clues that may have been missed at the time.

Even after reading I’m still not sure I quite know whether Matthew can be believed. His character is one that although charming, also seems quite arrogant.

I liked that you were taken into the past to go through all the moments that they shared as a family and the possible clues, so you could try and work out yourself what you believed.

Overall, an interesting Crime Mystery sharing the lives of the family behind a serial killer.

I received an E-ARC with a request for my honest review.

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This is a very cleverly written story. It pulled me in and maintained a looming sense of threat without ever feeling exploitative of the experiences of the real family and friends of people who turned out to be killers. Sophie is an easy to empathise with character. From the child who doesn't see that her feelings are being manipulated by her mother's at best controlling boyfriend, to the adult who lives with guilt mixed with confusion borne from the uncertainty about whether Matty, who has always protested his innocence, is guilty or not.

It feels very realistic. Written between memories of childhood and Sophie's reflections as an adult, if this has been a sold as a memoir I would have easily believed it.

If you like good psychological crime fiction and true crime stories you'll love this.

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A deeply disturbing story of a woman looking back on memories of a dark time in her life from childhood until her teenage years. Only by reliving the long unhappy memories of the saga that fatally damaged every part of her life can she begin to see what becomes obvious to us the readers. A journey from America to London to embark on a new life in an alien environment leaves this young child and her mother, a single parent isolated, with no friends, family or safety net. It seems like a gift from the gods when a charismatic, good looking, and charming individual slowly , methodically and manipulatively ingratiates himself into every aspect of their lives. bringing love, laughter and happiness into an empty house. A haunting story of love, loss, fear and tragedy is ruthlessly exposed in relentless horror as the noose tightens on everyone involved in what in hindsight, is methodical grooming by a corrupt individual. A five star read that delivers a clarity and awareness of how true evil operates under the radar of normality for broken families struggling to survive when adversity strikes. Many thanks to author, publisher and NetGalley for this ARC .

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When Sophie is 12 she and her Mother, Amelia-Rose, move to London from Massachusetts. Sophie’s father is no longer in their lives so despite Sophie’s misgivings about leaving America Amelia-Rose convinces Sophie that it’s a great move. Her Mother soon meets Matty who quickly becomes part of their lives. However a serial killer suddenly starts targeting women who look like Sophie’s mother. This scares Sophie but Matty keeps telling her that they are safe and not to worry.

Matty is then convicted for the murders but several people believe he’s actually not guilty and when years later Matty sends Sophie a letter asking her to visit him in prison will she finally get the full truth?

This had me intrigued from the off. One minute I felt that Matty was guilty, the next not so sure. All through the book Sophie hints at something that she has done and is she to blame. This kept me intrigued throughout and I didn’t expect the twist at the end. Brilliant thriller.

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I never repeat the blurb. It took a while to get into this. Frankly it chipped and changed the time of narration that it really needed some temporal signposting. It improved as it went along but the "reveal" was a little too obvious.

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I absolutely loved this book. It kept me intrigued and enthralled all the way through. I completed it in three nights. Every time I thought I should go to sleep I had to just read one more chapter. Written through the eyes of the step daughter of a convicted serial killer it keeps you guessing throughout. Is Matty guilty or not? I loved the Authors style of writing and I just got so engrossed. I particularly loved the twist.
Please give this a read if you like serial killer or crime fiction. Very well done!

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I’m afraid I found this book a bit predictable and not enough suspense. It did the usual back in time then to the present to tell the story and had the typical twist at the end . It wasn’t all bad but I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. Only 3 stars from me

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