Exciting times, folks! I haven’t been part of a blog tour in ages so when AJ Waines got in touch to see if I’d be interesting in reviewing her newest book, Dark Place to Hide, as part of her tour, I of course jumped at the chance!
You’ll probably remember AJ Waines from her guest post a few years back and from my review of her brilliant novel, The Evil Beneath. Well she’s back again with another super suspenseful read for all you thriller junkies out there.
Dark Place to Hide
Publisher: Self-published
Release Date: 30 July 2015 (that’s today, people!!!)
Rating: 4.5/5
Source: Sent over by the author
Synopsis:
She’s trying to tell you – if only you’d listen…
About to break the news to his wife, Diane, that he’s infertile, criminology expert, Harper Penn, gets a call to say she’s been rushed to hospital with a miscarriage. Five days later, when Diane fails to return from the village shop, police think she must have taken off with a secret lover, but Harper is convinced the online messages are not from her.
In the same Hampshire village, plucky seven-year-old Clara has retreated into a make-believe world after an accident. Then she, too, goes missing.
As Harper sets out on a desperate quest to find them both, he has no idea what he’s up against. Could the threat be closer than he thinks? And is there a hidden message in Clara’s fairy tales?
DARK PLACE TO HIDE is a chilling psychological mystery with a cold-blooded deviant lurking at the core.
As I’ve said in the past, Waines is good at what she does. Her characters are well thought out from their virtues to their deepest flaws. In Dark Place to Hide, our hero Harper is a bit of an anti-hero at times. He’s searching for his missing wife and a missing child from the village, and, while it’s obvious that he himself has done nothing nefarious, he’s still got some issues. There’s the borderline alcoholism (very ‘in’ with novels this season!) and his anger issues to contend with and, at times, he made me slightly nervous. Despite that, he’s the closest thing to a hero we get and he does pay off in that department.
I felt like out of all of the characters, Diane could have been a bit more fleshed out. True, she spends much of the book in captivity so the glimpses we do get of her are mostly flashbacks. Sadly to me she came across as slightly ‘baby crazy’ and not much else. I didn’t honestly know if this was a Gone Girl type scenario here and she was the reason seven year old Clara had gone missing as well… I had no idea what to think about Diane as I didn’t have as much to go off of. All I know is that she could do with some nicer colleagues!
Dark Place to Hide was a bit of a doozy with an ending that came straight from left field. There were moments throughout the book where I felt like I had a pretty good handle on what was going on, only to find out pages later that I was totally wrong. That’s what I look for in a good mystery and Waines has certainly aced that!
Dark Place to Hide is available today from Amazon UK.
And make sure you check out some of the other stops on the Dark Place to Hide blog tour!
AJ Waines was a Psychotherapist for fifteen years, during which time she worked with ex-offenders from high-security institutions, giving her a rare insight into abnormal psychology. She is now a full-time novelist with an Agent and has publishing deals in France and Germany (Random House). Both her debut novels, The Evil Beneath and Girl on a Train have been Number One in ‘Murder’ and ‘Psychological Thrillers’ in the UK Kindle Charts. Girl on a Train has also been a Number One Bestseller in the entire Kindle Chart in Australia. In 2015, she was ranked in the Top 100 UK authors on Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).
Her new psychological thriller, Dark Place to Hide, is released on July 30, 2015 – you can pre-order it HERE.
Alison lives in Southampton, UK, with her husband. Visit her website and blog, or follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
