Originally published: 15 October 2020

Author: Carys Jones

Published by: Orion Books

Genre: Thriller

Length: 322 pages

Reading dates: 2-6 October 2020

Beth Belmont runs every day, hard and fast on the trail near home. She knows every turn, every bump in the road. So when she spots something out of place – a slip of white paper at the base of a tree – she’s drawn to it.

On the paper are five names. The third is her own.

Beth can’t shake off the unease the list brings. Why is she on it? And what ties her to the other four strangers?

Curiosity getting the better of her, Beth looks up the first two names, only to find that they’re both dead.

Is she next?

What a great premise! Imagine finding a list with your name on it – it would seriously freak me out.

Beth Belmont lives in a nice house with her loving boyfriend Josh and has a job as a projectionist at a local cinema. She suffers from nightmares about something from her past, but her boyfriend always looks after her. Beth is freaked out when she finds the note on one of her morning runs through the woods close to her house – she doesn’t recognise any of the other names but when she does a bit of investigation, she finds the first two people on the list are dead. She is frightened she will be next. While Josh thinks he it is strange, he isn’t as worried as Beth, who gradually starts to loose her mind.

As well as Beth, we also here from a young teenage girl called Ruby who seems to be in a psychiatric facility of some sort. Desperate to go home and see her family, she is confined to her room until she chooses to talk to to her counsellor about the reason she is there, but she finds it too painful to revisit.

And there is one more voice. Someone who we know very little about but seems to be behind the list!

Such an exciting read. Seeing the unravelling of Beth is hard but I liked how the threads of the story are gradually teased out to until we see the relationship between the three characters. It was not always easy to have sympathy for some of the characters. But this psychological thriller was a gripping read which I really enjoyed. The perfect book to get you out of a reading slump.

Thank you to Alainna at Orion Books for my gifted copy for review as part of the blog tour.  Don’t forget to check out these other awesome bloggers!

About the author:

Carys Jones is a thriller writer based in Shropshire where she lives with her husband, daughter and dog.

When she’s not writing she can often be found indulging two of her greatest passions; either walking round the local woodland or catching up on all things Disney related.

Her favourite authors are Virginia Andrews, Ruth Ware and Jodi Picoult.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CarysJAuthor

Website: https://www.carys-jones.com/