As quite a fan of Kiwi crime writer Nikki Crutchley, I was excited to receive her latest offering In Her Blood as an advance review copy. This one is a standalone thriller about two girls who have gone missing from a small town two decades apart. It sees Jac Morgan return to her hometown seven years after the fatal house fire that killed her mother and branded Jac a killer. Her younger sister Charlie is missing and someone in the town must know something. During her search, Jac is drawn to the Gilmore Hotel, home to Iris and her daughter Lisa and a place with as much mystery and as many secrets as Jac’s own family. Soon, she senses that someone at the hotel is willing to kill to keep their secrets. There is a sense of inevitability in terms of the whodunnit and to some extent how-will-it-end throughout this In Her Blood, but it is a compelling read about twisted families, a small town, and deadly secrets.

In Her Blood by Nikki Crutchley is a creepy story that increases in intensity as it progresses. Set in a small town in New Zealand with all the characteristics that ooze out of small towns where everyone knows everyone and while there are secrets, they are often hinted at and distorted.

Two families over two time frames with missing girls. What happened in the past? Is the same thing happening again twenty years later? How badly are all the characters in this story really messed up?

As I said at the start, this is a creepy story with creepy characters that just creeped me out!!! That being said I just couldn’t put it down and had to keep reading to find out what happened and what happens - the past and the present.

Highly recommended read!

This review is based on a complimentary copy from HarperCollins Publishers Australia via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

#InHerBlood #Netgalley

An excellent crime/missing person thriller set in a small town in NZ. Jac returns to her hometown after 7 years after receiving a couple of texts from her alcoholic father saying that her younger sister, Charlie is missing. He told the police but the local cop after a brief investigation assumes Charlie has left town. Needing a place to stay Jac finds her way to the old rundown Gilmore hotel with it’s crazy old lady owner, Iris who asks Jac to stay on as a cleaner. In a second timeline set 21 years earlier, Iris’s daughter Lisa tells the story of the lead up to her sister Paige going missing, Paige was always Iris’s favourite. The mystery set up kept me reading, with enough red herrings to lead me down the wrong path trying to work out what was going on. The hotel adds an almost gothic atmosphere to the story as it has a locked wing, and a creepy history- post world war 2 it had been used as a place for returned soldiers recovering from both physical and mental injuries including one room where a man hanged himself. An entertaining read.

In Her Blood by Nikki Crutchley introduces two families and a missing girl; stories unfolding decades apart. Both families have been torn apart by tragedy and loss, but they're not blameless we learn and Crutchley offers some very flawed and unlikeable characters in this dark and twisty read.

We kinda get to know quite early on 'why' Charlie goes missing. I hate knowing 'whodunnit' or sometimes even the 'why' early in the book as it means there's no opportunity to use my detective skills or little grey cells to demonstrate my crime-solving prowess.

However, Crutchley does offer us several people who had connections to both Paige and (later) to Charlie, so in that respect we've got a few suspects. And - on that note - in reality, the 'who' is the person I probably least expected. 

I appreciated that we were offered closure at the end of this but pondered on how satisfying I found it and it may depend on your take on the whole justice versus retribution thing.

I probably would have liked a little more detail about Iris and Lisa's relationship... or certainly a better understanding of Iris's malevolent behaviour towards her younger daughter and perhaps her own backstory. 

But this is an enjoyable read and I liked the flawed characters Crutchley offers us via Jac and her family... resplendent with dysfunction. And then of course there's Iris, Paige and Lisa... reminding us money and status don't buy happiness or bring out the best in people, but does make it easier to bury their secrets and hide their flaws and behaviour. 

There are of course deeper themes around parenting and families (particularly regarding expectations and rejection) and whether the way we're treated growing up is like a self-fulfilling prophecy and we grow into those expectations others had of us or we had of ourselves. For that reason it would be a great bookclub selection as there's lots to debate and discuss.

This is the first book I've read by Crutchley and I note she's written several others so I look forward to reading more of her work. 

3.5 stars

Two time frames come together in a single story which presents many twists and turns as it unfolds. The author has done a great job of creating a truly abhorrent character or two in this story which is both mystery and family drama entwined. I was very taken by the writing style and feel this author will bring many wonderful works to life over the course of their career.

I think I have encountered the most vile character in literature that I have read in a long time. Iris Gilmore is the matriarch of the Gilmore Hotel, a pretty run down place with a false veneer of opulence that is both tired and worn. She is so the mother from hell, doting on one daughter and treating the other daughter with loathing and contempt.
Jac Morgan had left her home town 7 years earlier with no plans to return. She however receives some worrying texts from her father saying her sister Charlie has disappeared. Reluctantly Jac heads home with the sole purpose of looking for Charlie. However when she arrives in town the first thing to greet her is the discovery of her father, drowned in the river after supposedly hitting his head when he fell in, no doubt drunk.
No one in town wants to help Jac with her search for Charlie and it’s not long before she discovers that another girl went missing some 20 years ago, the daughter of Iris Gilmore.
Told in two time frames this story weaves together tales of two very different lives that have somehow converged in the same place with disastrous results. There are many suspects, and a few red herrings but all in all it’s a twisty, page turning read.

#InHerBlood #NetGalley