Lucie WhitehouseCritiques

2.5 stars. The pace of this book was too slow for my taste.

Never got thrilling or gripping, I was totally bored and really should have quit it

I was blown away by this book. GREAT plot twist. Didn't see the end coming and that is saying quite a bit. READ THIS BOOK

I preferred this to the first in the series, although Robin's interactions with her family, especially her appalling brother Luke, were more interesting than the cases she was investigating for most of the book. There was a lot of discussion of and description of CCTV footage, and I'm still not sure

SPOILERS

exactly what happened to Hannah. How did her killer get her into the building without appearing on CCTV? Did her keep her there drugged for days or hours? Why?

The ending made me feel uneasy for Lennie, but let's hope Luke emerges from prison a changed man.

By the time Kate realizes she has to get away from Richard, things have gone too far. Isolated from her friends, scared he'll come after her, she flees to the Isle Wight in the winter, hoping the remoteness will keep him from finding her. But an insular place outside of tourist season isn't the friendliest of places and Kate is both scared and lonely. When she realizes that the woman she spoke with briefly is the same woman who disappeared while sailing, she becomes fascinated with her, to the point of listening in on conversations and watching the husband.

This book has all the elements of a solid thriller, but ends up being, well, not very thrilling. Whitehouse takes so much time setting up the story that it never really takes off, with the evil boyfriend not really posing much of a threat until the final pages. But the descriptions of island life in winter were lovely and and the story of a lonely woman finding a few friends was well-told. If you're looking for something with pacing and excitement, give this one a pass, but if you're open to vivid descriptions of life on an English island as well as an unconvincing love story, you might enjoy this one. I liked it well enough.

There were many excellent things about this novel: the writing; the characters of Maggie the PI, Robin's parents, and Robin herself, who reassesses her past actions and decisions and grow as a result. There was also humour in details like the fact that Robin's parents' house is always kept at a tropical temperature.

On the other hand some of the characters were not so well drawn: Luke was cartoonishly nasty, Adrian saintly, and the reader didn't get to know Corinna and Josh enough to share Robin's feelings about them at the end. There were also big chunks of plot that went nowhere, red herrings I suppose, but red herrings that took up a lot of space. Finally there was that old plot device, 'the big secret' which was constantly referred to and eventually revealed in a big infodump in order to make the ending more believable.

Nevertheless, this was a page turner for me and I will look out for more by this author.½

Received from NetGalley.

It might be time for me to stop picking up "British thrillers." I've read a few now and they all seem to follow the same pattern. Slow slow slow fast fast over.

Hannah finally meets someone she is ready to settle down with after years of casual relationships and being scared of commitment and as far as she knows he's amazing. But when her husband doesn't come back from a business trip as scheduled, she starts to discover some secrets about the man she married and she doesn't want to believe what she finds out. I guessed the "twist" fairly early on and kept reading to see if I was right instead of giving up like I should have. Meh. Just meh. Not for me.

I've enjoyed this author's previous books and recommended her work to others who have unfortunately not shared my my opinion.

This particular story captured my attention early on although this waned from time to time as the timeline flitted back and forth.

Others have summarised the plot so I needn't repeat the full story here but I would love to know other readers' thoughts as to who the initial murderer really was. There were so many red herrings swimming around that I could really not put just one in the frame.

This was one of the best books I've read in ages. The language is beautiful, evoking the locations' views, smells and feels.

I did have a niggle about why the police weren't involved sooner and I'd be interested to know the author's reason for this. But other than that, the story was gripping and the characters appealing.

I am profoundly disappointed with this book. I threw it across the room after I finished and I'm donating it as soon as possible. I adore Lucie Whitehouse and I was looking forward to reading this but it was just rubbish! So many characters to keep track of, three major plot-lines that were all over the place, the protagonist was completely unlikeable and I really should have trusted my intuition and stopped reading it. I thought everything would be tied up nicely in a clever ending (in usual Whitehouse style) and that it was all going to be worth it. It wasn't. Disappointed.

*massive sigh* this book was ridiculous! Sexshy and fun but still absolutely ridiculous. I initially wanted to give the book one star but I honestly couldn't put it down. It was quite silly but I could clearly tell that Lucie Whitehouse learned from her mistakes, as her other two novels (which I adored) were beautifully crafted. I despised pretty much all of the characters, at times it was like a telenovela and the number of times I had to read the word 'primal', my god. It was just a dark, dark book with little payoff. Don't recommend sadly :(

I'm a complete sucker for UK Psychological thrillers and I've been devouring Lucie Whitehouse's novels. Look, they aren't going to win any major literary awards but they're fun to read real page-turners, the prose is beautiful and so easy to get lost in. A perfect weekend read or just something to pick up when you don't want anything that requires too much concentration. I really enjoyed this, even if I did think the protagonist was rather dimwitted and could have made much, much better decisions but where's the fun in that? Also, in almost every sex scene nipples were being twiddled and it made me laugh a lot and I needed some laughter. Despite all the nipple twiddling, I do recommend you pick this one up.

I'm adoring British psychological thrillers at the moment and Lucie Whitehouse is one of my favourites. This novel was utterly predictable BUT I couldn't put it down and read it in two sittings, brilliantly written (except when she guessed her husband's laptop password in three guesses! C'mon! He is the Head of a Tech agency!) such a fun and cheesy read ❤️

Actual rating 3.5 starts. It's been a while since a book has kept me up all night reading! Highly recommend this if you're looking for a great psychological thriller and a real page turner

Joanna and her friends spend time together at Stoneborough Manor which has been inherited by Lucas. Friendships are tested one summer when secrets escalate

This book is said to be like Rebecca ( couldn't see it myself ) and The Secret History ( never read so couldn't say ).

I liked the story for most of the book. I really didn't enjoy the ending or what happened. Reading the book for me was like watching a film all the way through just to see what is going to happen then left let down.

The story has a group of so called friends, some of them not really very nice to each other. The characters themselves are not really likeable at all and at times quite irritating. The plot itself was quite engrossing but lost it's way towards the end.

This book didn't turn out to be what I was expecting so a little disappointed with the book overall.

Although I have two of Lucie Whitehouse's three previous novels in my book collection, Keep You Close is the first one I have read. I did find it a little difficult to get into but it was well worth persevering.

Marianne Glass is a famous artist who is just about to exhibit in America when she is found dead in her garden after an apparent jump from the roof of her house. With only Marianne's footprints in the snow, the police believe it is suicide but Marianne's family and her estranged schoolfriend, Rowan, know that Marianne had vertigo and would never have gone near to the edge of the roof. Rowan and Marianne's brother, Adam, try to put the pieces together of Marianne's last movements to prove that she didn't jump. Rowan, however, has a slightly different agenda as she tries to keep the secret buried that drove her and Marianne apart all those years ago.

I love books with a deeply buried secret and Lucie Whitehouse has brilliantly built up the tension as layer after layer is unwrapped of Rowan and Marianne's friendship. Rowan was so close to Marianne's family when they were younger, so we wonder what on earth could have happened to drive them apart. Was it a silly schoolgirl argument or something more sinister? You will just have to read Keep You Close to find out for yourself.

Keep You Close surprised me at every turn as nothing is quite what it seems. It is a goosebumpy examination of a friendship and a scary account of just how far some people will go to protect themselves in the guise of protecting those they claim to love.

I received this book from the publisher, Bloomsbury, in exchange for an honest review.

Richard tiene un aire peligroso... pero tan irresistible que nada más conocerlo en el Soho, Kate lo invita a su casa. El hechizo se rompe cuando descubre que está casado. Dieciocho meses después, Kate decide poner fin a la aventura y se muda a la lúgubre Isla de Wight... sin imaginar que la verdadera relación con Richard acaba de empezar.

I've really enjoyed a few of Lucie Whitehouse's books in the past so I was keen to read Critical Incidents, hopefully the first of a trilogy featuring DCI Robin Lyons. I certainly felt there was a lot more for Robin to give in future stories so I hope to be able to read more about her.

In this book Robin has been dismissed from the Met where she was a DCI in the homicide unit. This forces her to return to her family home in Birmingham with her 13 year old daughter, Lennie. This is exactly what Robin doesn't want as she finds it hard living with her parents again, especially her mother who she clashes with a lot. She takes a job with a family friend, Maggie, who runs a private investigation business which is perfect for Robin in many ways as she can use her investigative skills, but she also runs into trouble as she frequently forgets she's not with the police any more!

Coupled with the investigations that she undertakes is a tragic incident relating to Robin's friend, Corinna, and her family. I thought it was really clever how the author weaved together all the strands in ways that I hadn't really contemplated. I also thought the characterisations were spot on, and although Robin isn't exactly easy to like, I found myself sympathetic to her on many occasions.

Critical Incidents is an excellent story. It needed a bit of concentration at times but I found when I got stuck in and read large chunks at a time I was completely absorbed in Robin's various investigations and the complications of her private life. The writing is sharp and engrossing too. I read it in the space of a couple of days and really enjoyed it. I do hope there will be more outings for Robin. I will certainly read them. Lucie Whitehouse is a fabulous writer.

Robin Lyons has everything going for her; a job with the Metropolitan Police, a daughter successfully navigating private education, a long term best friend and a partner who thinks she’s wonderful. A disorderly conduct meeting later, she is unemployed, hasn’t bothered paying her parking tickets, and is forced to move from London to Birmingham back into her parent’s house. Her thirteen year old, Lennie, is taken away from her friends and the life she knows and understandably doesn’t react well, making Robin’s guilt over what happened stab deeper. She can’t find the chemistry to love the man who wants to love, provide and care for her, which adds to the guilt as he and her daughter got on so well, yet she chose to leave him. From the bunk beds they have to share in her parent’s spare room the atmosphere sits heavily, made worse by the near constant ability to be irritated with her mother. From her prestigious job, she has to take what she can, which turns out to be working for a friend catching benefit fraudsters in a private investigation agency. Her existence is in the process of change and everything is harder than it used to be. Life is about to get even worse when that fantastic best friend she had appears to have been murdered, her house set ablaze and her husband, the potential suspect, missing.
You can empathise to some extent with the difficulties Robin is facing, although hopefully most of us haven’t had it quite that bad all at once, even if it seems she has made some odd choices along the way, she explains herself well and I think she made them morally rather than emotionally. As a result I really wanted to see if, by the end of the book, her life would turn out for the better and even though I found her a difficult character to like at times, all the way through I was hoping for the best for her, and her teenage daughter who was primarily a victim of her parental choices.
You can’t tell an ex-Homicide detective not to get involved in their missing best friend, despite that no longer being Robin’s job to deal with, as well as emotionally maybe not best placed with the huge responsibility and the need to be unbiased about the evidence. What Robin’s job now is to do with is spending time sitting in her car bored, staking out people working while claiming to be too sick. The second strand of the story is also part of her private detective work, which involves a distressed parent with a missing daughter that they need to try and locate. When all is revealed, will these stories converge?
The book includes a splattering of quite funny humour, particularly in the beginning. I found the story slightly confusing initially, as there is a lot going on and quite a few people to get to know. The book didn’t really take off for me until the last quarter when I became really interested in the story and invested in extra reading to find out what was going to happen. My favourite aspects to the story were the way grief was portrayed and examined while still fitting the storyline all the way through and the personal strength that Robin has to achieve in a typical male dominated industry together with her bravery.

I didn't much like the main character from the first, and I wondered why--thought maybe she wasn't drawn in a complete manner. But I guess I found out later my "instincts" as a reader were right on as far as likability...

This was pretty good for a mystery/thriller type book! I don't read many of them, but was definitely interested the whole time, and it kept me guessing. Some of the writing felt a little lazy, just in terms of word choice.

This book is a roller coaster ride of thinking you know what is happening to being completely thrown off track. I really enjoyed it for what it was a summer thriller.

It's my first real venture into this genre of marriage and mystery. The final twist kinda annoyed me, but by that point I could tell what was happening.

I liked this more in the beginning than I did by the time it ended. I put it down numerous times and wasn't really bothered by anything else that came up that prevented me from getting right back to it. This is a book I would have really loved in my twenties but did not find it a satisfying read now. I found this predictable and cliche and expected something more. There's nothing wrong with the story (like when you turn on Lifetime Movie Network, you know what you're going to get) but I do know that for me, it will be mostly forgettable. On the upside, I did get one more book off my TBR list.

I took forever to feel immersed in this book. Its geographic proximity to where I live (normallty a pull for me!) wasn't enough to draw me in or distract from the book's linear structure. Too much happens at the end (and it's the end you know is coming from right at the beginning) and not enough happens along the way to add depth and texture to the narrative. One or two tiny branches off the main trunk were added - almost haphazardly - towards the end but they led nowhere and were clumsily tied up in the final chapter as if to indicate that they never had meant anything in the first place.½

Emerging artist Marianne Glass dies in what is presumed to be a suicide, jumping from the roof of her house in Oxford. However former best friend Rowan isn't convinced, she knows that Marianne suffered from crippling vertigo. Going back to Oxford, Rowan has to confront the past and all the secrets that holds.

For the first three-quarters of this book I was not particularly engaged. It is a standard suspense book with a complicated family and friendship group and told partly in the present and partly as recollection. Then suddenly the twist kicks in and it elevates this book to another level. Yes, I'd sussed the twist but the manner in which the book pivoted was brilliant. I found myself devouring the last quarter of the book and didn't really care that it didn't always make sense in terms of details. A clever ending and a cleverly plotted book, it just sags a little in the middle