Blog Tour Review: The Dead Ex by Jane Corry

The Dead Ex by Jane Corry

Published: 28th June 2018

Publisher: Penguin- Viking

Pages: 422

Available in Paperback and on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

Rating: 5/5

Blurb

'I wish he'd just DIE.'
Vicki's husband David once promised to love her in sickness and in health. But after a brutal attack left her suffering with epilepsy, he ran away with his mistress.

So when Vicki gets a call one day to say that he's missing, her first thought is 'good riddance'. But then the police find evidence suggesting that David is dead. And they think Vicki had something to do with it.

What really happened on the night of David's disappearance?
And how can Vicki prove her innocence, when she's not even sure of it herself?

Review

I have loved Jane Corry’s previous two novels and was expecting great things from her third The Dead Ex, I was not disappointed it was another example of gripping twisty story-telling where you never really know what’s going on until the very last page.

Vicki’s ex husband David is missing. After he left her three years ago for his mistress, following a brutal attack leaving her with epilepsy Vicki has had very little to do with David. But the police think David’s dead and they think Vicki knows something about it. Vicki’s almost certain she’s not involved but when the evidence starts to mount up against her Vicki needs to convince the police and herself that she really is innocent.

Scarlet is eight years old and has just watched her mother being arrested by the police and taken away from her. She’s put into foster care where she rejects any form of support from her foster parents preferring instead to still follow suggestions from her mother in prison.

These were two very different narratives and I wasn’t sure how they would merge together to form one story; Vicki’s narrative is also split between the present and the past where we learn about her relationship with David and the lead up to her attack. When they do come together its brilliant and results in a very clever ending.

Vicki’s a character whom you want to believe is innocent and trustworthy but all they way through the book I had that niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right with her. I love Jane Corry’s writing for creating characters which give me this feeling, it’s fantastic to read.

Each chapter in this book has been cleverly crafted to give more insight and more doubt into each of the characters and I loved how each chapter we’re left wondering with a cliff-hanger ending.

This is an utterly gripping novel which I couldn’t put down, I love how all the different strands weave together to form an intense and unexpected story. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves a good thriller, it’s my book of the year so far.

Thank you so much to Penguin for sending me a copy to review and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

Blog Tour Review: Blood Sisters by Jane Corry

Blood Sisters by Jane Corry

Published: 29th June 2017

Publisher: Penguin Viking

Pages: 464

Available on Kindle and in Paperback

Order now from Amazon

Rating: 4/5

Blurb

Two women. Two versions of the truth.
Kitty lives in a care home. She can't speak properly, and she has no memory of the accident that put her here. At least that's the story she's sticking to.
Art teacher Alison looks fine on the surface. But the surface is a lie. When a job in a prison comes up she decides to take it - this is her chance to finally make things right.
But someone is watching Kitty and Alison.
Someone who wants revenge for what happened that sunny morning in May.
And only another life will do...

Review

Jane Corry’s debut thriller My Husband’s Wife was one of my favourite books of last year, it was a book full of twists, turns and intense relationships. I found Blood Sisters a good follow up but I did enjoy My Husband’s Wife more.

Blood Sisters is a book which is sure to catch your attention with the tagline: Three little girls. One good. One bad. One Dead. It is a book which had me curious from the start and as I read it was a book that filled me with a sense of uneasy dread that made it hard to put down.

The story starts with Alison an art teacher working in an adult community college teaching stained glass window making. She lives alone and it’s soon very obvious she’s not a happy individual, mainly because she has been using pieces of broken glass to cut herself. Alison seems to have no close bonds with anyone and appears to be living a life of depravity almost. When she takes the job in the prison it’s almost as if she believes she should be locked up herself. I found her a very hard character to like but was intrigued as to what had happened to her to make her so shut away from life.

We then meet Kitty who is mentally and physically disabled, has suffered memory loss and is living in a care-home, she is unable to talk clearly and all her carers can hear is incoherent babbling. Kitty communicates to her carers with head movements which often get misinterpreted but what I found the most interesting was that Corry has given the readers a chance to hear the voice of Kitty and this is something which works very well. Kitty’s voice comes from her internal thoughts and from these we learn that Kitty is quite a character with a very sarcastic temperament. What Kitty wants to know most of all is how she became like she is and as the story develops it clear that she too is hiding things.

I think Jane Corry has been very clever with the way she has written Kitty’s character, never before have I read a book where a mentally ill person has been given their own voice. I found Kitty a fascinating character and was surprised how much I like her. I do think certain events that happened to her were a little unrealistic though.

Blood Sisters is a book about the relationship between sisters and I think Corry has done a good job of exploring this dynamic and what it really means. It was a novel which I found quite intense at times and had a chilling feeling about the whole book, I wouldn’t recommend reading on your own as certain parts made me jumpy. One thing which lessened the intensity for me was everything seemed a little too coincidental and this took away from the shock factor for me. I also found the very end was a little predictable but was perhaps the best way to end Alison and Kitty’s story.

I enjoyed reading Jane Corry’s second novel, her ability to right about complex relationships comes through in Blood Sisters and she has not lost that ability to feel uneasy while reading something. I’m looking forward to seeing what she writes next.

Thank you to Penguin Viking for sending me a copy to review and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.