Tell Me A Secret - Samantha Hayes // Netgalley Review

Tell her all your secrets and she’ll tell you all her lies…

Everything in Lorna’s life runs like clockwork, from her 6 a.m. morning run to the strict 60-minute counselling sessions she gives. It’s the only way she can deal with the terrible secret she carries.

When a new client arrives for his first appointment, Lorna feels her perfect life unravel in a matter of seconds. It’s Andrew, the man she’s spent the last year desperately trying to forget. It seems he can’t forget her either…

Against her better judgement she anonymously contacts him on a dating site. Messaging him could mean the end of her marriage and her career, but she needs to know if his motives are genuine.

When Andrew is found dead in his home, grief quickly turns to fear when messages from him continue to arrive on Lorna’s phone. Somebody knows her secret and wants to use it to destroy everything she has.

Will she risk her family and her sanity to keep her secret? Will she risk her life…?

Review

When i picked out this book to read i literally had no clue what it was about, i couldnt remember the synopsis nor could i recall what drew me to it in the first place but within a few pages non of those things seemed to matter because as a reader i was hooked. 

Lornas life is run to a schedule, her life is hectic and busy but its a combination of family life, work and socialising. Its pretty average, but it wasn't going to stay that way, not with Andrew.  She has spent the last year trying to forgot him, she has moved on - but he hasnt and Lorna hasn't not really, so when she has chance to contact him again, she does. She needs answers. 

However, whilst all this is going on Lornas family life is changing around her, and whilst she needs to focus on that, she can't she is consumed by so much more. Tell Me A Secret is not just a story of an affair, oh boy - its anything but, it all goes so much deeper and darker, there is so many layers to this that i did not see coming from any direction. 

Lorna was in parts likeable but i was also frustrated by her, however i also felt her - she was dealing with bigger things than we was shown as a reader, a love that was all consuming and trying to juggle a job that would effect even the strongest person at times.  

For a book that gripped me so much i am finding this review hard to write, and so short because i don't want to spoil this. I loved the fact went into this blind and i feel that is half of what it made it so good.  Honestly, i have been trying to find the best thriller ever, and this is certainly up there for me. IT WAS FANTASTIC.

Author Info

Samantha Hayes grew up in the West Midlands, left school at sixteen, avoided university and took jobs ranging from being a private detective to barmaid to fruit picker and factory worker. She lived on a kibbutz, and spent time in Australia and the USA, before finally becoming a crime-writer. Her writing career began when she won a short story competition in 2003. Her novels are family-based psychological thrillers, with the emphasis being on 'real life fiction'. She focuses on current issues, and when she writes, she sets out to maker her reader ask, 'What if this happened to me or my family?' With three children of her own, Samantha is well-versed to talk about how the aftershocks of crime impact upon families and communities. To find out more, visit her website www.samhayes.co.uk