It appears my love of books has found another source of advanced copies, as I was sent a copy of Falling by Emma Kavanagh to review by the team at Mumsnet Bloggers and Arrow Publishing – ready for the release of the paperback on November 6th 2014.

Here is what Amazon has to say about it:

“A brilliant debut psychological thriller by a former police psychologist. Perfect for fans of Nicci French, Tana French and S. J. Watson.

A plane falls out of the sky. A woman is murdered. Four people all have something to hide.

Jim is a retired police officer, and worried father. His beloved daughter has disappeared and he knows something is wrong.

Tom has woken up to discover that his wife was on the plane and must break the news to their only son.

Cecilia had packed up and left her family. Now she has survived a tragedy, and sees no way out.

Freya is struggling to cope with the loss of her father. But as she delves into his past, she may not like what she finds.

‘Before the plane crash, after the plane crash, such a short amount of time for the world to turn on its head… ‘”

 

When it arrived I was already reading another book and so didn’t start it right away – so had a slight panic when I had a chasing email for the review with only 10 days left before the deadline – but the reviews of the book already on Amazon (the hardback and kindle versions) had it down as a real page turner – so I decided I’d just have to lock the children away for the rest of half term and start reading!!!

Initially I found it a bit confusing as there are lots of intertwined plots (although this could have been because I started reading it whilst trying to get small children to bed – so was interrupted for milk / wees etc!).  I kept having to check with the blurb on the back (the same as the Amazon quote above) as to who was who!  Once I got into it, I agree that it was a real page turner, and I did want to read ‘just one more chapter’ before lights out!

It was also a bit weird having a character that shared my name – you don’t get many Libbys about (Libby in Neighbours and Libby Purves being the exceptions!  In fact many moons ago an audit partner signed me into a client as Libby Purves as he couldn’t remember my surname #randomfact)

I liked the factual-ness of the information in the book (being a fan of police dramas / Silent Witness) which I guess comes from the author’s background.  I also like that there isn’t a set pattern to the chapters – they are seemingly random as to who comes next, not on a regular rotation basis – which is another element of keeping you guessing – but each is written from the viewpoint of one of the individuals involved.  I think that because of this you don’t feel like you get to know – or are fighting for – any single individual and at the end I wasn’t desperate to know what the future held for each of the characters as I often have been with other books.

The final few chapters tie all of the strands of the plot lines together – so you feel like the book has concluded properly.

I think I would describe this as ‘psychological thriller – lite’.  It’s fine, it’s an easy read, it keeps you interested – but it’s not way up there in terms of suspense / drama / ‘reading through your fingers’ that I’ve had with recent books in the same genre such as ‘I Am Pilgrim‘ by Terry Hayes and ‘Pop Goes The Weasel‘by M J Arlidge.

Now slightly concerned that my new source of books might not be quite so forthcoming after this review…………