A Life of Their Own by Pauline Tait

Three stars
TW: domestic violence

I wish I could give this book more than three stars but something about it just doesn't work for me. As a long-ago victim of domestic abuse, I get it. I get her fear. I get her inability to tell others while it was happening. I get her wanting to get as far away as she can. And I get her not turning him in. What I don't get is Kate's desperate need to get to Colorado.

The book starts off with a bang. Living in New York City, Kate is married to a monster and has finally wheedled away enough money to get herself and her two young children out of the house and on a train to ... Colorado, where an ex-boyfriend lived. They hop a train, then another, then another and so on until they reach their destination near Colorado Springs.

Kate quickly finds a cute bed and breakfast run by an older couple who take her and her children under their wings. How perfect! And if Kate does some housework her small family can stay there indefinitely. Perfect!

And so it goes that everything lines up perfectly for Kate. And I mean everything. Annoyingly so. Until the climax, which I could see coming from page 1. *sigh*

Here's one of my problems with this read: We know Kate was in an abusive relationship but almost no details were given about his treatment of her. The book would have been much stronger had the author spent more time on the front end of this story.

My second issue was how perfectly everything went for Kate after she left New York City. She needed perfect, but in real life that rarely happens.

And finally, and it's just a small tick, but the author uses English idioms and spellings in a book based in the U.S. I don't think in Colorado kids call their parents "mum," nor do they "tuck in" for supper. I expect and even enjoy that when I'm reading a novel is set in the U.K. I expect local language nuances and I didn't get that with this read.

All of that said, this book will be devoured by certain readers, and I do think it belongs on the shelves of those who enjoy romances because the writing style is quite good. It just wasn't for me so much.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Read this review on Amazon or Goodreads.

What Lies Between Us by John Marrs

Five much-deserved stars.

This might be the most perfect psychological/domestic thriller I've ever read. Let me tell you why.

What Lies Between Us is the story of Maggie and Nina, a mother and daughter whose lives are so intricately intertwined that it's hard to know where one begins and the other one ends. But as cliche as that sounds, this story is nothing of the sort. These two women are so vastly different and yet so similar that from one paragraph to the next you will find yourself rooting for one and then the other. The character development is divine.

Narrated in alternating chapters by Nina and Maggie, we are privy to each woman's life 25 years ago, when Nina was 14, and today when their dysfunctional relationship has reached its apex. Marrs begins the story with Maggie in her room on the top floor of the family home, where she has been chained and unable to escape for two years, ostensibly to punish her for something she did to her daughter many years ago. We aren't told what, exactly, and that's a big part of the allure of this book.

But it's not all. Marrs is striking in his ability to delve deep inside Nina's head, as both a teenager and an adult who comes to believe has had everything she ever wanted taken away from her through no fault of her own. She is passionate, obstinate and willing to do anything it takes to get what she wants and right the wrongs of long ago.

Bit by bit we learn about the mother/daughter relationship and how it became so inflamed. Marrs teases us with little pieces of the story here and there, never giving up too much so as to keep us guessing just a bit before dropping the next bombshell. And there are so many bombshells.

Yes, I had put some of the pieces of the puzzle together long before the truth was revealed, but this was one of the few books where I really didn't mind. I relished not knowing for sure and the way in which Marrs gave hints as to his characters' true intentions.

Everything about this novel is new and refreshing. What Lies Between Us sucks you in on page one and doesn't spit you out until that final scene of utmost perfection. I do feel like I've been through the wringer with this one, but that doesn't mean I won't go back and reread those last couple of chapters to experience again the perfect ending.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. See this review on Goodreads.