Oooh I didn't realise Catherine Jinks was an Australia author... I must check out her other books! I enjoyed this story set during covid, it was a great thriller that kept me intrigued throughout!

Jane McDonald is a contact tracer for NSW Health during the pandemic. One day she gets a call from a woman who is afraid to tell her fiancé that she has Covid. Jane realises this fiancé is the same man that she and her daughter Tara have been fleeing from for years. This psychological thriller is told in two timelines and Jinks is expertly keeping the reader on high alert throughout the book. A great read.

Thanks to #netgalley for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. This domestic psychological thriller starts with a domestic violence case that has been going on since 2014. Jane works as a contact trace advisor with Nepean Public Health, she calls a young woman who has been identified as a close contact to someone who has Covid to advise her that she must isolate for 14 days. The woman becomes hysterical, claiming her fiance will be extremely angry and she fears for her safety. Upon hearing the fiance's name, Griffin Clynch, she herself is overwhelmed with dread as this is the same made that she and her daughter have been hiding from for the last 6 years. we get to see how Griffin gradually took over Courtney’s (Jane’s daughter) life. It involves a combination of isolation, gaslighting, guilt-tripping and, eventually, forcing her to succumb to his will. All the while, Jane is being cast as the villain of the piece, a clingy mother who can’t bear to let go of her daughter and showing an unreasonable need to paint her daughter’s boyfriend in a bad light. For the past 6 years Jane who used to be Jeanette) and Tara (used to be Courtney) have been living their new lives, all the while hiding out from the man who terrorised them both.
air. The fear and uneasiness that these ladies are feeling is palpable and definitely kept you hoping that things would turn out well for them all. A very well-paced story alternating between back and two time periods, explaining how Jeanette and Courtney became Jane and Tara, the danger they faced. Though the subject matter is hard to read it was a gripping thriller filled with suspense. #catherinejinks#traced #netgalley #textpublishing #tea_sipping_bookworm #goodreads #getlitsy#thestorygraph#domesticthriller #bookqueen #bookstagram

A terrifyingly compelling psychological thriller that will have you trying to anticipate the villain's very next move.

Told between two timelines, 2014-2015 and 2020, we follow Jane, a contact tracer, who just contacted Nicole, who is terrified of her fiancé, Griffin. The same Griffin that Jane herself is on the run from.

In earlier years, Jane watches her daughter Courtney transform from a vibrant woman into a shell of her former self as she starts a relationship with Griffin. As accidents happen, Jane is convinced Griffin is behind them and tries to make Courtney see that and leave him.

Now in 2020, Jane knows what Nicole is going through, but how can she get her to safety if there's no one to stop Griffin's manipulative ways when everyone's moves are tracked and easily traced.

Fast paced with a contemporary setting. Coercive control is insidious and accurately portrayed in this thoroughly research and entirely believable story. I couldn’t put it down even though the end was a little too overwhelming for me. It did have to happen. Full marks for the COVID contract tracing setting and the plot. Thanks to @netgalley for the opportunity to review this. My review is my own opinion. Catherine Jinks is a great writer and she has picked the mood and momentum well. It is time that more is shared about the dangers of controlling relationships.

This is a story that grabs you and makes you think! This is a story about of Jane and her past, running from it and hiding until you can't hide anymore! And it is intense, exciting and at times terrifying.

A great length for a book and one that is fast paced so you never loose interest. The story is so real and in a way in two parts, past and present but it flows well and you never loose sight of what is happening. It is thrilling from start to finish.

A great read and one I highly recommend.

Thank you NetGalley and Text Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Jane McDonald is working part time at Nepean Public Health in western Sydney’s as a contact tracer during start of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020. When a positive case is detected, her job is trace all the person’s contacts to let them know they are required to quarantine, and then to trace all their recent contacts. She’s used to most people being unhappy about being contacted, but is surprised when one young woman becomes quite hysterical when told her cousin has tested positive for covid. She says if her fiancé finds out she’s been meeting with Paige he will be angry and something bad will happen.

Gradually Jane realises the young woman is being subjected to domestic abuse by a controlling fiancé and contacts a domestic violence support team to organise her somewhere to isolate where he shouldn’t be able to find her. However, when she finds out the name of the woman’s fiancé, Griffin Clynch, Jane is suddenly thrown into a panic. Griffin is the same man whose clutches she helped her daughter Tara escape six years ago, before changing their names and starting new lives.

In Griffin, Catherine Jinks has created a real monster of a man. Charming and thoughtful at first, he gradually undermines and manipulates his partner’s psyche and self-assurance until she is cut off and isolated from her family and friends, a physical and mental wreck, blaming herself for anything that goes wrong. He’s also a dangerous man to cross. Jane and Tara’s nightmare of meeting and escaping this man is told over two time-lines, 2014 and 2020 where once again the fear of him re-enters their lives.

This is a well written, carefully crafted tale of domestic control and coercion at it’s worst. The descriptions of Griffins relationship with Tara and her mother feel very plausible and the fear and danger they face if he finds them totally real. Jane is strong character, prepared to stand up and fight to prevent Griffin hurting her family again. The plot is a slow burn as we learn the events of 2014, with the suspense gradually ramping up to a gripping, nail-biting climax. Recommended to fans of psychological suspense.

In her last few novels, Australian author Catherine Jinks has turned to domestic thrillers – books driven by seemingly ordinary people behaving badly and those who have to stand up to them. In Shelter, a woman who helped abuse survivors fleeing their relationships, finds her refuge under attack. In The Attack, a former school teacher is forced to relive her dealings with badly behaved children and their parents. And now we have Traced, another thriller that centres around a dangerous, gaslighting man and the lengths people have to go to deal with him.
Traced opens in 2020 and the height of the contact tracing phase of the Covid pandemic. At this time, teams were actively calling close contacts of people infected to try and prevent the spread of the disease. Jane works in one of the contact tracing teams and in a regular phonecall comes across a possibly abused woman who she soon finds is living with Griffin, her own daughter’s ex. While the full story of Jane’s interaction with Griffin back in 2014/5 plays out over the rest of the book, Jinks makes clear very early on that he is potentially dangerous and that Jane’s involvement in the case may well have put her and her daughter back into danger.
The tension in Traced is built around a singular, nasty character. Griffin is a type of smiling, confident man who has to be totally controlling in a relationship. It becomes clear through the story of his relationship with Tara that he does this by constantly undermining and gaslighting and even creating “accidents” that make them constantly doubt themselves. As with her previous two books, Jinks is also interested in exploring the long term impacts of these relationships on people who get out of them. But as a result, it does feel a little like Jinks has come to this well before and so does not add a lot that is new to the issue.
Much like Jaws, the monster in Traced is not seen (except in flashback) for the majority of the present day narrative, allowing the tension to slowly rise as he circles closer. And does adds to the tension by placing the action in the context of another aspect of recent history that is likely to make readers uncomfortable – Covid lockdowns and isolation. Taken together, Jinks manages to deliver an effective thriller in Traced.

In this psychological thriller Catherine Jinks uses the Covid pandemic as the stepping off point of a domestic violence case that has been going on since 2014. This is a story that is all too familiar but acts as yet another reminder that abuse doesn’t necessarily have to be physical to be life threatening.

Jane MacDonald works as a contact trace advisor with Nepean Public Health out of the Penrith Hospital in Sydney’s western suburbs. She makes a call to a young woman who has been identified as a close contact to someone who has Covid to advise her that she must isolate for 14 days. The woman becomes hysterical, claiming her fiance will be extremely angry and she fears for her safety.

That’s when Jane hears the name of the fiance, Griffin Clynch, and feels complete dread overwhelm her. It’s the same man she and her daughter have been hiding from for the last 6 years.

The story jumps from the present back to 6 years ago to give us a complete picture of how Griffin gradually took over Courtney’s (Jane’s daughter) life. It involves a combination of isolation, gaslighting, guilt-tripping and, eventually, forcing her to succumb to his will. All the while, Jane is being cast as the villain of the piece, a clingy mother who can’t bear to let go of her daughter and showing an unreasonable need to paint her daughter’s boyfriend in a bad light.

So for six years Jane (who used to be Jeanette) and Tara (used to be Courtney) have been living their new lives, all the while hiding out from the man who terrorised the both of them. The contact trace call ultimately serves to begin the process of potentially putting him back on their trail and the terror of pursuit begins all over again.

Catherine Jinks does an outstanding job of conveying the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness victims of subtle domestic violence experienced through Courtney and Jeanette. It’s a story that evokes a great sense of vulnerability and reminds us how easy it can be to become a victim. The fear that keeps them from going to the police and the growing desperation that comes from an increasingly dangerous relationship all adds to the sense of anguish and despair.

This is a very well-paced story that flips back and forward between the two time periods, explaining how Jeanette and Courtney became Jane and Tara, the danger they face. It also provides a clear idea of just how dangerous things are about to get. It provides a very effective build up of suspense and terrible anticipation.

Anyone who enjoys an entirely plausible domestic thriller with a relatable main character is going to appreciate Traced.

My thanks to Text Publishing via NetGalley for a digital ARC that allowed me to read, enjoy and review this book.

Traced opens with Jane working in a call centre during COVID lockdowns. She's a 'contact tracer calling a woman to let her know she may have been exposed to COVID and needs to be tested and isolate. To her surprise, the woman freaks out as she'd received a secret visit from her cousin though actually banned from seeing anyone by her controlling boyfriend.

The woman seems open to help so Jane arranges for her to go to a shelter. She's freaked out however because during the conversation the woman dropped the name of her partner and it's one Jane knows from her own past.

We then move back and forward a half a dozen years in time. We learn Jane was once Jeanette, when her daughter Courtney met a charismatic older man... Griffin. Jen quickly realised how controlling he was and he alienated Courtney from her family and friends. She became a shadow of her former self and stopped seeing Jen when she became concerned.

In the present both Jen and Courtney have new lives and new names, so we know they successfully escaped but they're both now in jeopardy as Jane believes Griffin will find them.

Jinks is able to time past revelations with events in the present so this is well paced and readers are offered a sense of edge-of-your-seat urgency.

I liked Jeanette / Jane, though didn't get a clear feel for her daughter and certainly might have expected a little more guilt. Initially I felt as if she was blaming her mother for her job putting them at risk, but worry I'm doing something akin to victim-blaming in saying that.

This is my first book by Jinks and I notice she has quite the backlist across a few genres so I must check them out.

Traced is the first book I’ve read set in Covid times and that ended up being a positive and negative for me

Positive- it made the set of the story seem more realistic.. the conversation around tracing and privacy during covid sets this up perfectly as something that could happen!

Negative- I lived through covid.. reliving it isn’t something I was excited to do so I think I would have preferred to know this was going to play a huge part prior to going into it

The story itself was gripping and had me on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next. A great cat and mouse chase made for an unputdownable thriller.

First book by this author and I am keen to read more of her work in the future.

This is my first time reading a Catherine Jinks book, and I really enjoyed this. Set during the early stages of the Covid pandemic, it follows people who are trying to hide in a world where privacy may not be what it once was. I'm not going to seek out more books from the same author!

Jane works for NSW Health as a Covid tracer, and one call is going to shake her world apart. A woman they're tracing is afraid of her boyfriend, so afraid Jane helps her seek refuge elsewhere. But then she learns the identity of the boyfriend. It's the same guy that her daughter almost married. He's dangerous. He's unpredictable. And he now knows who she is.

But does he know where she is?

This is a psychological roller-coaster ride, as we see Jane try to keep everybody she cares about safe from a danger she can't control. He could be watching her movements at any time.

A tense thriller, this is a slow-burn nail-biter. It reminded me of Sleeping with the Enemy, but felt a little lighter going on the pedal. I think the author could have taken this to another level, to really throw the reader into those emotions. Much of the cat and mouse action feels at a distance, but still feels suspenseful, because you're wondering is this the moment when the monster jumps out of the dark. The book does an amazing job at showing us the dark side of devotion and I know this will appeal to many readers.

Thanks to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for providing a read now copy of this book. All comments are my own.

Traced takes place in a time ALL of us are familiar with - the pandemic era - when of course tracing people’s whereabouts was part of everyday life .

The trouble with that meant it complicated your life if you were trying to keep a low profile. Keeping your whereabouts private was near impossible and that’s exactly what this mother & Daughter discovered.

Traced takes you on a journey of the realisation that the digital age really leaves little place for anyone to hide even when you think you have covered all bases.

I’m always on the lookout for new-to-me Australian authors especially in my favourite genre of mystery/thriller and what a treat that this is Catherine’s first in the genre.

Full disclosure I would not have picked up any of Catherine’s previous books before as they just don’t fall into my reading list but I’m so glad I was given the opportunity to get this as a digital ARC and discover Catherine Jinks.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and hope that Catherine plans to write more in this genre.

As I haven’t had a physical copy of this book in my hands, I’m not sure if it will be included but I feel it may need the addition of trigger warnings although this was not an issue for me.