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Blog Tours book reviews Monthly Wrap Up

Monthly Wrap Up – January 2020

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I can’t believe we’re into 2020 and the first month is already over. I’ve seen a lot of people post saying they feel like it’s gone on forever, but for me it’s gone pretty quick. I’ve had a great start to the year in terms of books – I’ve read thirteen books this month that have mostly been 4 stars or more, I’ve discovered some fabulous new authors and some exciting new series.

So here’s what I’ve read this month:

The Other You ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Lady of the Ravens ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Unforgetting ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Mothers ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
Three Hours⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Firewatching ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pine ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
The Foundling
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Wreckage
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Leaving Party 
⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Forgotten Wife ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Nowhere Girl ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Little White Lies ⭐⭐⭐⭐

You can find the synopsis and my reviews by clicking on the links in the titles. My reviews for The Leaving Party, Little White Lies, The Wreckage and The Foundling will all be posted in the coming weeks. 

So with so many great books that I loved it was hard to choose a favourite. Three Hours, Firewatching, The Wreckage and The Forgotten Wife were all ones that could have taken the top spot, but ultimately it was The Foundling that stole my heart more than any other book I read this month. My review will be posted on February 13th as part of the blog tour. 

What did you read this month? Did it include any of these books or are they on your tbr? Let me know in the comments below. 

*Thank you to Bookouture, Orion, HQ, Bonnier Zaffre, Head of Zeus, Harper Collins UK, Simon and Schuster UK and Doubleday for the gifted copies of these books.

Categories
Blog Tours book reviews

The Other You by J. S. Monroe ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: January 9th, 2020
Format: Hardcover, Kindle.
Genre: Psychological thriller, suspense, medical fiction.

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this fantastic thriller. Thank you to Amber at Midas PR for the invitation to take part and to Head of Zeus my gifted copy of the book.

SYNOPSIS:

The Other You follows Kate, a former Super Recogniser for the police, who suffers a brain injury from a devastating car crash and loses her memory. 

Kate meets Rob just after her accident, and he nurses her back to health, in his high-tech, modernist house on the Cornish coast. When she’s with him, the nightmares of the accident fade. 

Until, one day, Kate looks at Rob anew. And knows, with absolute certainty, that the man before her has been replaced by an impostor.  A doppelgänger. Is she right? Have her old recognition skills returned? Or is it all in her damaged mind?

MY REVIEW: 

“We’ve all got a double out there somewhere, watching, waiting. Shadowless.”

Would you know if the person closest to you was replaced by a doppelgänger? That’s the question posed by this clever, original, sinister and twisty psychological thriller. It had me on the edge of your seat, my heart pounding so hard I felt like your chest was going burst from the excitement. 

Kate is still recovering after a car accident that left her with severe brain injuries. She is no longer able to do her job as a super recogniser for the police and wonders if she’ll ever be her full self again. The only good thing to come out of it is her relationship with Rob, who she met while in hospital. But then one day he seems different, and Kate is struck by the feeling that she’s never seen this man before; that an imposter has taken over her boyfriend and stolen his life, just as he always feared. But she doesn’t know if she can trust her damaged brain and must figure out a way to discover the truth. 

This complex thriller was a  mind-boggling read. I was quickly addicted and fully immersed in the story, disappointed that at the half-way point I had to put it down to go out for date night as all I wanted to do was keep reading (sorry Chris). I was desperate to find out where this was going and if the theories swimming in my head were right. But I couldn’t have foreseen how twisted, intense and jaw-dropping things were about to get. 

The author has created wonderfully unreliable characters which means the reader never knows what to believe and is kept guessing throughout. I liked Kate and felt for her as she struggled to feel like herself again after the accident. She was a likeable character and I liked how she grew in strength over the course of the book, becoming more like who she was before the accident. I went back and forth with my thoughts on her sanity and if something so far fetched could be really happening. The author magnificently portrayed Kate’s own anguish over the whole dilemma and it jumped from the pages making me feel it along with her. Rob is a mysterious character from the very start and I liked the decision to not make him one of the narrators as it added to that air about him and made the reader consider the possibility he had been taken over by an imposter. I thought he was well written and I would vacillate between seeing him as a loving, protective boyfriend and a malevolent villain she should be running from.

The Other You is a phenomenal psychological thriller that will leave you breathless. Well plotted, pacy and crackling with a tense, ominous atmosphere, you don’t know who to trust or what will happen next as you’re hit with twist after twist. I was left with a huge book hangover after reading and would recommend this as a must-read for any thriller lover. 

JSMonroe

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

J. S. Monroe read English at Cambridge, worked as a foreign correspondent in Delhi, and was weekend editor of the Daily Telegraph in London before becoming a full-time writer. Monroe is the author of six novels, including international bestseller Find Me.

BUY LINKS:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2B5lxA9
iBooks: https://apple.co/3286CkM
Kobo: https://bit.ly/35nDd8h
GooglePlay: https://bit.ly/35nDd8h

FOLLOW J. S. MONROE:
Twitter: @JSThrillers
Facebook: @JSMonroeFindMe

FOLLOW HEAD OF ZEUS:
Twitter: @HoZ_Books
Facebook: @headofzeus
Instagram: @headofzeus
Website: http://www.headofzeus.com