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In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson
Buy Sandbox at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Thrillers
Reviewer: Zoe Morris
Summary: A well plotted, family-based drama that is both thrilling and relatable, in that rare but perfect combination.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 330	Date: January 2020
Publisher: Mulholland Books
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1473681842
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Ava lives a charmed life, but those things sometimes rub other people up the wrong way. One evening she returns from a night out with a friend, and before she can finish her bedtime routine, her home, and her life, are under attack: masked men have broken in and are demanding money from her husband, while her young daughter cowers beside him. In the scuffle than ensues, Ava is hurt, badly. When she wakes up in hospital she can barely remember what happened, but she knows it was life-changing. With her daughter still fighting for her life in a room down the corridor, Ava has a lot to contend with as she tries to recover, wills her daughter to recover, and attempts to piece together what happened and why.

This is a thriller of the finest order, with lots of clues and confessions dropped in tiny crumbs for the reader to pounce on. Not everything that emerges might be of relevance to solving the case, but for Ava nothing is immaterial as she begins to feel the tug of the wool that has been pulled over her eyes by her nearest and dearest. It is such a twisty story that you know from the start it’s not simply a case of a burglary gone wrong. What is not clear, though, is why Ava and her family were targeted, what motives might exist, and who was behind the attack. The police have some leads, but Ava is horrified when she learns of the avenues they are pursuing. Could she really have missed something so monumental within her own circle? Or is it a set-up, to hide the true perpetrators.

Everyone has secrets, and of course it wouldn’t be fair to assume Ava falls outside this bracket. She may not know who broke into the house or why, but throughout the story she is forced to address some of her own short comings and actions from the past which may, in a very roundabout way, have led her to where she is now. It’s one of those ‘’a butterfly flaps its wings….’’ scenarios, but it takes Ava, and therefore the reader too, a while to piece together her role in the chaos (or chaos theory) that ensues.

This is a fast paced book with intricate story arcs. It’s a delicious read that draws you in with clever descriptions and likeable characters – so likeable, in fact, it gets a bit hard at times when you realise someone must be lying and therefore a ‘friend’ you’ve made in the pages may well be about to let you down.

I’d like to thank the publishers for sending us a copy to review. I thoroughly enjoyed losing myself in these pages. If thrillers (and fibbers) are your thing, you might also enjoy [[Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney], along with an earlier work from the author of this book, Friends Like These by Sarah Alderson.

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