This book was not what I was expecting. First of all, the main character was stupidly annoying. I just wanted to shake her and transfer some common sense into her. I was not surprised to find out that one of her patients was lying to her, I saw that one coming from miles away. I felt like there were 2 main problems in Naomi's mind: her father/sister and then Jacob/Hanna...and at the end Ms Jones tried to tied everything neatly with a bow but it didn't work out.

Thanks for the ARC, sorry I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

Naomi is a psychologist who specializes in domestic abuse. As a result of her past, she feels compelled to save her clients and becomes overly invested in their lives. Suddenly one of her clients goes missing, along with his file. And to the police and Naomi’s husband, her *helping* looks like so much more.

The reader definitely needs to suspend belief - no therapist would act this way! A great many suspects to ponder and a few twists and turns creates a good popcorn thriller.

Naomi is a psychologist who specializes in domestic abuse. She loves helping her clients in any way she can. Even if it means giving too much of herself, and overstepping a bit much. One of her clients, Jacob, is in an abusive marriage and wants out. Naomi wants nothing more but to help him. Then when he winds up missing, Naomi turns into the number one suspect of his disappearance...and weird things keep happening to her. Can she help Jacob...and how do you know when you've gone too far?

I listened to the book a bit more than I read, I really enjoyed the narrator. I think she did a fabulous job.

Overall, I thought the book was good. I wasn't as invested as I thought I would be. There wasn't any reasoning behind it. It just didn't hook me. I thought Naomi was a bit dumb. She put herself in some of the weirdest situations. As a psychologist I feel like she overstepped a lot. I get why, with her past, but still. I'm not going to go into too much detail and spoil anything, but I shook my head at her a lot.

The twists I didn't 100% see coming. I called part of it, but in the end I was wrong with the majority of it. I love books where you think you know what is happening then bam, you were wrong. The end of the book left me with a few questions.

Reading Between the Wines book review #70/135 for 2022:
Rating: 3 ½ 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book 🎧: The Blame Game
Author: Sandie Jones
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Available now!

Sipping thoughts: I was really excited to read this one. It was just okay for me. It was one of those where the characters frustrates you to the point that you are eye-rolling and sucking your teeth after every idiotic move. I think the reveal was decent but not mind blowing. The last 15% climaxed and really pulled me in and there were other points in the story where I didn’t want to stop reading but overall it was just okay.

Cheers and thank you to @NetGalley and @MacmillanAudio for an advanced copy of @TheBlameGame.

#TheBlameGame #SandieJones #MacmillanAudio #NetGalley #advancedreadercopy #ARC #Kindle #Booksofinstagram #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #nicoles_bookcellar #bookworm #bookdragon #booknerd #booklover #bookstagrammer #bookaholic #bookreview #bookreviewer #IHaveNoShelfControl #ReadingBetweenTheWines #fiction #thriller #suspense #mystery #MysteryAndThrillers

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* This was a good enough read, one that was frustrating at times and overall was nothing too special but not a waste of time.

This was a fast and fun popcorn thriller! I always love a good over invested psychologist and unreliable narrator plot and this one definitely kept me intrigued from start to finish and left me continually guessing who was telling the truth in this game of he said/ she said!

While I was never too incredibly invested (unlike Naomi 😉) I did find it to be entertaining enough to breeze through it! This is the definition of like not love and sometimes I’m ok with that! We all need a good light quick shake up and this one did just that!

That epilogue though?! Loved it! *chef’s kiss*

3.5 stars rounded to 4 for goodreads!

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillion Audio for theARC.
This book was a solid 3/5 stars for me. I love a good thriller, but the main character, Naomi just stressed me out so much. Naomi is a therapist, but has huge issues with boundaries. She rents her flat to a client named Jacob, and then continues to blur lines as you continue in the book. Her father is let out of prison, her sister tries to get in contact with her, and her husband knows she is doing things behind his back. Wonderful narration, but like I said, just too much of an issue for me with the boundaries of her work/personal life- was stressing me out!

Sad to say, I didn't like this one almost at all. I think this is a niche in domestic suspense that I'm coming to learn I have no appetite for whatsoever. Rather than rely on believable coincidences and commonsense mistakes to lead its characters to an unimaginable conundrum, we have a central plot and character who at just about every single turn makes irrational decisions that have her, predictably, even more deeply mired in trouble. Characters do irrational things all the time, it's true. But I need them to be relatable in their irrationality, where you read it and think, 'That's dumb. But I totally might have done the same thing.' The death knell came for me when there was an equally irrational series of events that conspired to keep her in peril. And when, eventually, the Big Reveal comes, it's a whopper of an eye-roller.

It took a lot of persistence for me to keep going back to this book and listening further, and at the end I was relieved to be done. A lot of my impatience was the use of the device of painstaking description to elicit suspense, even when describing small tasks. You know what I mean. Sentences like: "I folded the napkin three times, making a small square of it before putting it in the drawer to the left of the dishwasher. Always the one on the left, because my husband cares deeply about where we keep the napkins." (This isn't from the book, it's my silly example, but you get the point.) I think it may be the literary equivalent of watching a horror film where the director zooms in on seemingly innocuous moments and objects, to psyche you into giving them significance, or to heighten a sense of impending doom. Nevertheless, I found it tedious in this instance because at least for me it came across as filler and ultimately didn't create the same emotions as it often does on film.

I believe domestic suspense can be written with eyebrow-raising moments where an antagonist engages in gaslighting (moving objects, sending anonymous letters, assuming other identities, etc.) without it coming across as campy, but IMO that wasn't accomplished here. The most difficult thing about writing this review is that I actually believe this is probably a very fine writer. Just not one who writes the kinds of books that appeal to me.

This one was wild; had me questioning everyone. Who do you believe? Who do you trust? I liked how everyone had suspicious behaviors.

At the same time, I didn't like any of the characters to be honest. This wasn't a character driven plot or not liking them might have ruined it for me. This was about the mystery and figuring out what actually happened versus what we think happened versus what they say happened.

I listened to this one while following my daughter around at the fair and I've got to say, it had me looking at people like, what do you have hidden?

Thank you to @macmillanaudio and @stmartinspress for the gifted review copies.

Review of The Blame Game by Sandie Jones

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really enjoy most books but this author and I definitely enjoyed this one overall as well. It had a few twists I didn’t see coming. My main complaint is that I did not care for the main character and because of that it dragged in bits for me. I’m still a big fan and will absolutely keep reading all of her books in the future.

Quick synopsis: Naomi is a therapist with a big heart and a secret past. She can never turn away someone in need and I’d say gets too directly involved in her clients’ lives. She is trying to help Jacob safety leave his abusive wife when she starts noticing really odd things happening like her notes go missing and doors are unlocked etc. Is this due to Jacob’s wife or to her past life she would rather forget?

A huge thank you to @minotaur_books and @betgalley for my copy of this one which was out last week!

Sandie Jones is a masterful storyteller and she’s done it again in The Blame Game. I really enjoyed this book and the twists and turns of every chapter. Every book I’ve read or listened to by Sandie Jones has always been engaging and this one did not disappoint!

Naomi is a psychologist specializing in domestic abuse, she runs her practice unethically but her reasoning is she’d do anything for her clients.
One of her clients Jacob comes to her as an abused man believing his wife is going to kill him; Naomi goes out of her way to help him find safety by going behind her husbands back and setting Jacob up in a flat she owns that’s not in use.

Within a few days, Jacob goes missing, Naomi was the last person to be with him and as the police start to investigate, Naomi becomes their number one suspect. Naomi adamantly says she’s innocent but the evidence that keeps piling up says otherwise. What happened to Jacob?

Thank you St.Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books and Netgalley for the chance to listen to this audiobook for an honest review, I am giving this book 5 stars.

This was good.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for my advanced copy of The Blame Game.

I'm going to keep this very short. I finished this audiobook almost a week ago and I've already forgotten a lot about it.

The things that do stand out to me when thinking back on The Blame Game are:

The Narrator- Karissa Vacker. She is one of the best. Definitely in my top five. She did an amazing job with this book.

The Entertainment Factor- This book is pretty short. Under 300 pages. Sandie Jones kept me engaged and I enjoyed following this mystery.

The Epilogue- I liked the ending.

All that being said: The Blame Game was very predictable. I guessed the twists.

Overall- Recommend. I will be picking up more by this author.

Right away I liked what I was hearing. The narrator and the story drew me in. The cover is deceiving, this is not a cozy or romance book. Wondering why it was selected is not my only question. The story and I were doing well until around 43-45%. At this point, I still don't like any of the characters and the narration has soured. The male character, Liam, specifically grated on and distracted me. It came across computerized without any emotion.

The back story blew apart around midway. There was nothing realistic to grasp. I cannot put my head around a psychologist practicing and breaking all the laws and rules put in place to protect the patient and therapist that the author threw in. At this point I looked and sadly this is not her debut. The last third of the book is a mess and feels like note cards with thoughts on them written in.

Bottomline: The author wrote an interesting beginning, however, didn't build the characters or lay out the plot for a thrilling end. The mystery is not in the book, it's in all they whys before publishing.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for accepting my request to read and review The Blame Game.

Twisty but short. Where should you draw the line between therapist and client? Being too involved can make for a dangerous relationship.

Thank you to NetGalley for the audio advance reader copy of this book. I enjoyed the premise of the storyline, but too many characters have too many names making it unrealistic. Childhood trauma comes out in adulthood seems to be a popular theme in recent books. Jones does a nice job telling the story and the narrator is good. 3 stars.

What a mess! So, I love a good mystery and a great twist... this book almost has too many twists to be great. I'm listening along and I think I know where this is going. Yes, the author gives enough options where it's not all laid out as an easy guess. Anyway, I did guess some of this but it ended up even more messed up than I thought and left me with a few questions I'll never answer. Overall, this lands somewhere between and 3 and a 4 star for me. Not bad, definitely good enough to keep me listening to the end, but messier than it needed to be.

Thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.

Natalie is a clinical psychologist who focuses on domestic abuse. She knows that she is supposed to have a very clear line drawn and not to get emotionally involved on her end. Well, not only does she cross the line she basically danced right over it knowing all the while she was in the wrong and yet couldn’t help herself. She gives shelter to Jacob to help him and them he disappears. What happened to him is a mystery that seems to point directly at Natalie having done something insidious. Her past is discovered and with mounting evidence the police are focused on her as being the perpetrator. Its a mostly well written, well crafted psychological thriller/mystery. Good narration.
If half stars were available I;d have given 3.5.

This was my first Sandie Jones book. I felt the protagonist was quite naïve and there was an abundance of storylines that didn’t make sense, There were several parts I had to re-read a few times to make sure it wasn't an editorial error.

I really do not care for unorthodox therapists - there’s already enough stigma surrounding mental health…

I have to express that the narration helped me get to the end of the book. A lovely voice and the pacing and inflection were on point. Unfortunately, the story did not hold up as well.

*Thank you NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.*

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this audio book.

This was a quick, easy read with some good twists. A little slow at times and somewhat predictable but overall an interesting read! The narrator was really good.

Are you a fan of unreliable narrators? Main characters making terrible decisions? You'll love the new book from Sandie Jones - The Blame Game.

"Naomi is a psychologist specializing in domestic abuse. Her husband often accuses her of crossing the line between professional and personal with her clients. When one of her clients goes missing it looks like Naomi is responsible. She knows the only way to clear her name is to find him ... while she still can."

Naomi is a character that makes bad decision after bad decision. For someone who makes a living reading people, she is awfully bad at it. I actually yelled at the book a couple of times because of her terrible decision making. The ending was a little abrupt - not much leadup - and you would think the police would have figured that part out. Jones keeps going with the twists to the final page.

Still another great audio performance. Karissa Vacker does an outstanding job with all of the characters especially in that wild scene at the end.

A couple of unresolved issues that would've been nice to see worked out.

Fans of Jones and unreliable narrators should like this one.