A recent read for me was another one by @carla_kovach, The House Share and again, it was gripping and suspenseful! I will read anything Carla writes! I love her writing style and the fast pace of her books.

This one had my mind going in several directions. It certainly did not give anything away. It was the type of read where I got torn between wanting to get to the end to find out what would happen and not wanting it to finish.

The Houseshare is about Libby who escapes a toxic relationship and finds a new home. Away from her ex, she can start fresh, or so she thinks! Something doesn't seem right at the new apartment. Things start to go missing and what really did happen to the previous tenant? 🤔

I loved the twisty ending! It's always a great read when the author can shock me!

This is a good book. It starts off very creepy. It became very addictive and I couldn’t put it down. The characters were all very interesting. The plot was too predictable.

Libby moves into a new flat, a fresh start away from her toxic relationship with ex Garry. As her landlord shows her around she thinks how lucky she is to get somewhere so lovely at an affordable rent.

As she settles in however there are some worrying red flags and she feels like she is being watched. Is her new home as safe as it seemed!!

A great fast paced thrilling read. I just could not put this down.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

A completely captivating, engaging and dark thriller that had me flying through the pages. I read this in just a few sittings and would recommend to any thriller lover!

Libby moves to a new apartment, after escaping her abusive ex, Gary. Libby cannot believe she landed such a beautiful and affordable apartment. Her landlord, Tim, is super nice, and she also gets to know her friendly neighbours. Things seem to be moving up for Libby. Libby finds out that the previous tenant in her apartment disappeared without a trace. Further, she has yet to meet the weird neighbour below her, but hears him during late hours. Is Libby's new home as safe as she thought it was?

This was a fun and enjoyable read! It started off at a slower pace (but not boring) which really helped to build up to an amazing ending. I did figure out some of the twists, but it was still a great read. The ending tied everything together nicely. I really liked the main character, Libby. The author did a great job with character development. I recommend this one for any thriller fan! This was my first read by Carla Kovach, but definitely not my last!

Thank you Bookouture and NetGalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review. Forgot to review this one when I read it!

This book started strongly and I devoured it very quickly. I was immediately curious to see how things would play out when each character was introduced. I really liked the relationship between Libby and her sister and thought it was used nicely in the book to add drama. I really enjoyed this authors writing style because I was feeling all the emotions of Libby as she was feeling them which made it feel more intense. I found this to be both entertaining and gripping. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. A great read with a good premise and plenty of suspense. It hooked me early and kept me reading!

Carla Kovach is one of my favourite authors and this was one of my favourites.
The story is really believable, and it really kept my interest and I loved the characters.
It was twisty and really kept me guessing.
I highly recommend the book and the author

A great read, full of tension and it kept me gripped throughout. I love the author's detective series but this is a great standalone plot. Can't wait for more!

I would give this zero stars if I could.

Libby was terrible. She was completely one dimensional, and just utterly insufferable. She was winey and flat. There was no feelings for her because she was just terrible.

The book was also so slow and so boring. I was expecting to be a little creeped out and scared reading this alone in my home, as it’s supposed to be scary things happening in a woman’s apartment. However, for over half the book nothing really happens. A hair clip goes missing, but maybe she just lost it, and she thinks someone threw a rock at her window. And her scary phone calls and threatening texts are written off as her terrible ex boyfriend.

It was completely obvious who the bad guy was going to be. But the messy, intertwined connection between so many things, past and present, was done in a way that was just too confusing and not very reader friendly or shocking.

Tense psychological thriller with lots of twists and turns. Was a bit slow and weird at times but a good read.

I Love Carla Kovach!

She will keep you turning page after page. Sometimes you may know “who did it” but it doesn’t take away from the ending.

Keep your stories coming Carla!

Another new author for me and I need to find more by Carla Kovach. My tbr is getting way too big! This was a well written suspenseful read with a creepy atmosphere. It got my attention from the start and even though I did figure out some of the ending I still enjoyed the read

The first half of this book really grabbed my attention., it was hard to put down. The second half became a little bit repetitive for me and I could predict what happened at the end.

OK. This book is not for me. Sorry. But I felt robbed of my time spent in reading. Don’t get me wrong but it didn’t do anything foe me.

Still, thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

A brilliant book
Will keep you hooked
You will not want to put it down
And it will keep you guessing to the end
Thanks NetGalley

"Her perfect new start... or her worst nightmare?"

..

You know when you get that strong feeling of deja vu? Well, that's what happened to me almost as soon as I began reading this story. It definitely wasn't that I had read the previously published version of the book, then titled The Let, so I can only conclude that the premise is very similar to that written by another author and I am still trawling through my review index to root it out, as I am a bit like a dog with a bone about things which niggle away at me!

However, coincidences aside, one of my favourite genres will always be that of heart-pounding, tense psychological thrillers and this one didn't disappoint. Just to bring you up to speed a little, but not in too much detail, as 'spoilers' are never too far away from the surface here...

..

Libby Worthington, together with her cat Einstein, have finally taken the plunge and escaped from a mentally coercive and physically abusive relationship with Gary, although it soon becomes apparent that he isn't going to let her get away from his clutches that easily, or without a fight. Libby's older sister Olly, whom she idolises and looks up to, has managed to find her a small and anonymous house share flat, where she can take time to lick her wounds, before starting to rebuild a new life for herself. The set-up is just what Libby needs right now, four flats, one of which is lived in by the landlord Tim Simmons (who she has to admit is quite cute), making her feel safe and secure.

Everything would be great, if only technology and social media weren't so darned good at keeping tabs on a person. Gary is never silent and on top of that, one of Libby's clients, Trevor, who is on the books of the recruitment company where she works, has begun a personal vendetta against her for a minor error in his payroll, which was corrected almost immediately. The two girls, Kirsty and Michaela, who share one of the downstairs flats, together with Tim, Olly and Chrissie (one of Libby's more mature work colleagues), all offer her their full support in moving forward with her life, so Libby takes the plunge and disconnects her private profile from prying eyes.

Even though the illusive fourth tenant of the house, one Mr Bull, has still never been seen, for a short while life moves on quite smoothly for Libby. Then things begin to go awry, as personal belongings inside her flat are misplaced or lost, Einstein goes missing and she gets the idea into her head that her every move is being watched. Olly and Libby had a very complicated and rather traumatic childhood, with Olly taking on more of the role of surrogate mother, rather than big sister, so she seeks to reassure a very vulnerable Libby that there is really nothing to worry about. However, when Ricardo makes contact with Libby, claiming that his daughter Bettina, the previous tenant in her flat, has gone missing without trace and what little information Ricardo does have to share doesn't tally with Tim's version of events, it is obvious that there is cause for concern, especially when Libby's unwanted voyeur ups the ante, Ricardo himself goes missing and Olly is left for dead by an assailant she can identify.

Inexplicably, Libby discovers articles about events which took place during her own and Olly's school days, which points to there being more than meets the eye to her landlord's chequered past and indeed potentially, that of her own sister. A hidden message left by a clearly petrified Bettina, leads Libby to a discovery so terrible, it is clear that she will have to fight with all her strength to escape in one piece, if at all. Meanwhile Kirsty realises that her own judgement about people has been severely challenged and found wanting, when Michaela shows her true colours and her part in the scheme to trap Libby is revealed.

The end for some is dramatic, final and probably what they deserved. For others there are only answers and closure, as nothing can turn back the hands of time and change fate. For a small group there is a renewed strength of the bonds of family and friendship, which will inevitably last far beyond the trauma of the last few weeks.

..

I realise that doesn’t give you much to go on, however there are so many twists in this gripping, disturbing, swiftly evolving and multi-layered storyline, that to write anything else would be sure to give the game away to some degree.

I did get fooled by a craftily clever and deliberately vague prologue, which set me off on completely the wrong track for a while, although it made for an excellent opening sequence, as it tracked back twenty years to the beginning, with events which were never going to be forgotten by some or allowed to remain unavenged. The opening chapters were spent carefully setting the scene with more of those sneakily laid red herrings, which did exactly what they were supposed to do, tripping me up and sending my thoughts off at the wrong tangent every time. More creepy twists and turns led to a couple of “Wow! I never saw that coming!” moments right near the end, despite me knowing who the perpetrator was by then.

I did feel that the plot was maybe a little melodramatic in places, however that, together with some fluent and immersive writing, only helped to create a wonderfully oppressive tension and claustrophobic atmosphere, which ran throughout the book. That feeling of not being safe behind closed doors, of being constantly watched and 'played' by an unseen and unknown nemesis. This was a story built on lies, secrets, duplicity, long buried emotions and manipulated versions of the truth. No matter where Libby went, the air seemed thick with tension, as if she somehow managed to suck all the oxygen out of a space, with her permanent aura of impending dread and menace over just about everything, which was emotionally draining for us both, although her extreme angst was fully vindicated with the deeply dark and disturbing way events ultimately played out.

Author Carla Kovach explored many different psychological issues with her characters and illustrated the long-term effects, vulnerabilities and scars some of those events might have left. A fractured and abusive childhood which left both Libby and Olly distant from parents they know full well never wanted them. A perpetrator who had been relentlessly bullied by their fellow pupils and peers during those very formative years, with teachers finding it convenient to turn a blind eye to the truth, and who was still therefore unable to move on from the situation. Libby's fear of being trapped in a toxic and abusive relationship with the manipulative powers of Gary's gaslighting techniques making it almost impossible for her to disengage from the situation. The shame yet physical relief which came with Libby's self-harming as an escape mechanism for her frustration and fear. The relentless pain which comes from having a child go missing in mysterious, unexplained and unusual circumstances on foreign soil.

For those readers who relish the 'armchair traveller' status which comes along with a good premise and interesting characters, this storyline might not be quite enough to satisfy. However, within the confines of its single location of Birmingham City, Carla made the most of the opportunity to use plenty of descriptive narrative and dialogue, to make me feel as though I was walking the streets alongside the characters, seeing what they were seeing and feeling what was happening to them.

Carla created an excellent cast of characters, who were obviously divided into two distinct halves. There were those who were complex, emotionally starved, vulnerable and even a little naive. Whilst this might have made them a somewhat unreliable, raw and passionate, they were nonetheless genuine or believable.  Then there were those characters who were innately wickedly clever, genuinely twisted, manipulative and duplicitous, with the only certainty in this particular jigsaw of human emotions, being that their own volatility would be their eventual downfall. Whilst all were authentic to the roles they had been assigned and were well-defined and fleshed out, I felt that there was little or no synergy between them, offering me no compelling reason to relate to, invest in, or engage with any of them.

I always enjoy psychological thrillers written by an author who has a wonderfully twisted style of storytelling, making for an unputdownable reading experience, so this definitely won't be my one and only foray into Carla Kovach's book list!

This book is the most amazing physcological thriller I have ever read. It had me turning the pages so fast and kept me engaged all the way through. I highly recommend reading this, I certainly couldn't put it down.

Gripping, intriguing and completely unique. I adore Kovach and this is a truly amazing read. I have loved this book.. And it’s been one that I have been unable and unwilling to put down.

Ahhh - this was such a great thriller. Highly recommend. It hooked from the beginning and had me holding my breathe at the end. I couldn't put it down.