Hi everyone! Today, I have a book review for a great read from an author new to me, Sharon Bolton. This is a stunning read, and I’ll be checking out this writer’s other works. I discovered this book via NetGalley. Here’s my review  >>>

About the Book:

ONCE, SHE SAVED HIS LIFE…
NOW, HE’LL TAKE HERS.

When a baby is snatched from its pram and cast into the river Thames, off-duty police officer Lacey Flint is there to prevent disaster. But who would want to hurt a child?

DCI Mark Joesbury has been expecting this. Monitoring a complex network of dark web sites, Joesbury and his team have spotted a new terrorist threat from the extremist, women-hating, group known as ‘incels’ or ‘involuntary celibates.’ Joesbury’s team are trying to infiltrate the ring of power at its core, but the dark web is built for anonymity, and the incel army is vast.

Pressure builds when the team learn the snatched child was just the first in a series of violent attacks designed to terrorise women. Worse, the leaders of the movement seem to have singled out Lacey as the embodiment of everything they hate, placing her in terrible danger…

My Review:

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

A Thrilling Read.

Many thanks to Orion Books and Netgalley for a FREE Advanced Review Copy of this book. 

Although this is book 5 in the Lacey Flint series, this is the first one I’ve read. I don’t believe this detracts from the story at all, and I’m interested enough to go back and check out the previous four books, which I suspect will enlighten me as to how Lacey ended up where she is in this book.

“A few hours after midnight, two young women sat in a car close to the edge of a cliff; one of them was dead, the other merely felt that way.” … This has to be one of the best opening lines I’ve ever read.

From here, we’re thrown into a dire clifftop drama, which almost results in a teen, male stranger going over the edge with the occupants of the car.  The narrative then jumps ahead twelve years, and we meet the main character, Lacey Flint, out on the Thames in a Kayak. Quickly, the action and drama ramp up again, and the reader is taken on a wild ride to discover the multiple who-dunnits and become embroiled in a fight to stop even worse events from unfolding.

The plot, pacing, characterisation, and world building were all excellently done. I found the premise, of men terrifying women back into the not-too-long-ago-dark-ages, wholly believable and pretty scary. All the reasons were both compelling and all too possible.

Here are some lines I loved … “Driving the eighty miles from South London, with nothing but her own thoughts and the recriminations of a corpse beside her, had been harder than she’d expected.” 

And … “Tears were for bearable pain, for lighter sorrows; this pain couldn’t possibly be released by tiny drops of water.” 

And … “The most important journey of Lacey’s life was taken in a heartbeat.”

This book kept me guessing all the way, and the pacing stayed racy, and the suspense up there, right until the end. I enjoyed this read immensely, and The Dark gets a solid five stars from me.

***

NOTE ON RATINGS: I consider a 3-star rating a positive review. Picky about which books I give 5 stars to, I reserve this highest rating for the stories I find stunning and which moved me.

5 STARS: IT WAS AMAZING! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! — Highly Recommended.
4 STARS: I WOULD PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER — Go read this book.
3 STARS: IT WAS GOOD! — An okay read. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it.
2 STARS: I MAY HAVE LIKED A FEW THINGS —Lacking in some areas: writing, characterisation, and/or problematic plot lines.
1 STAR: NOT MY CUP OF TEA —Lots of issues with this book.

I’d love to hear what you think of this review. Thanks for stopping by 🙂

For anyone interested, here are the Amazon links …

UK … https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08R8XRTB2/

US … https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R8XRTB2/