Publication Date: 17th May from Harper Collins
Source: Review Copy
‘Cross my heart and hope to die…’
Promises only last if you trust each other, but what if one of you is hiding something?
A secret no one could ever guess.
Someone is living a lie.
Is it Lisa?
Maybe it’s her daughter, Ava.
Or could it be her best friend, Marilyn?
I thought Cross Her Heart was genuinely brilliant on more levels than I can probably cover but –
Characters. Depth. Relevance. Emotionally stunning. Creatively insightful. Heart stopping at times and beautiful in all the right places – kind of sums it up.
This is one of those novels that pulls you in straight away, introduces you to all the main players, sets up all your assumptions, idea’s and relative truths about what you think of them and what is going to happen, then cleverly and emotionally makes you think again – leaving you rung out and definitely feeling all the feelings. I read this in one sitting, not only because it was intriguing and unpredictable but because the characters all got me – it was impossible to walk away until I found out what happened to them. It is a page turner as they say, also seriously, often VERY TRAUMATIC. There was one moment where I let out a little shout and actually scared myself so deep was my immersion into the story.
I’m not going to talk about the detail – unlike “Behind Her Eyes” this one is not about the twists and turns (in fact lets not use the word twists for once, lets say surprises) – Cross Her Heart is full of surprises, not only in plot but in character, there is a particularly relevant theme running through it which hits you hard on many levels, all of them poignant ones. What Sarah Pinborough does so very very well is not so much the sudden “wow” moments (although she’s pretty good at those too) but more the subtle nuances, the intelligently placed direction, the character traits that make up the vagaries of human nature.
Cross Her Heart, right at the bottom of it, is a very human, extremely thought provoking cautionary tale, set in our modern world, where the outer surface hides inner realities and as such it is a wonderful, often disquieting and utterly riveting reading experience first page to last.
Man, this author is good. I’ve known it for years but now it seems everyone is catching on – read this, read everything else.
Highly Recommended.
Sarah will be appearing at First Monday Crime on the 4th June. Book your free ticket HERE
Happy Reading!