Sabine DurrantReseñas

Take Me In is a dual narrative alternating between Him and Her which had me wondering right from page one as to why the chapters weren’t titled Tessa and Marcus? Surely that would have made more sense right? And that’s not the only question that this book throws at you.

For me this was quite a slow burner in the beginning, from the books blurb it was fairly obvious that their son almost drowns whilst at the beach and that it is a stranger, Dave Jepsom, that saves the little boy. It was following that incident that the story slowed down. But that’s not to say that it was boring!

Because of how the story is told you almost feel like a fly on the wall watching as the lives of Tessa and Marcus play out. They would both make great guests on the Jeremy Kyle show!!

Full of secrets, lies and deceit both characters are on an emotional rollercoaster that we are all witnesses too and as the story plays out those lies are coming home to roost! And that isn’t including the “hero” that saved their son.

How do you ever thank someone enough when they have saved your son’s life? Does such an act of heroism embed that person into your life? How do you live with the guilt of not watching your son as he entered the water? The guilt of not saving your own son?

So many questions that all build up and as the tension increases you know its all leading to that one final twist. The big confrontation that makes everything add up in a satisfying conclusion, even if it doesn’t come as a massive shock!

For me personally the ending wasn’t great, I don’t know if that’s because I had worked most of it out before the twist so I didn’t get that surprise. I’m not sure, but it was still a great read.

I thought this book had a lot of promise in the beginning. A grifter sting gone wrong. Then the escape. But after that, it was drawn out, adding way too many characters. Additionally, each of these characters had a secret, which allowed the grifter more opportunities.
When Ali and Sean travel, they set their eyes on a mark. In France, they choose Lulu, who seems ripe for the picking. They start to take advantage of Lulu. On a boat trip, things go south, and Ali wonders how to get out of the situation.
I wish this book had been better. As it was, I struggled to get through the entire chef scenario and the family and friends at the villa. Disappointed.

This is an absorbing book that keeps you guessing right to the end, with twists galore that throw you off the scent of the trail to catch the murderer of Ania Dudek. Her body has been found in a local park by Gaby Mortimer, a television morning show presenter, who soon becomes the police’s chief suspect. With Gaby protesting her innocence, she enlists the aid of Jack Hayward, a freelance newspaper reporter to help clear her name. As his investigation progresses, doubts are raised about Gaby’s involvement in Ania’s death. Suspicions are raised about the true killer, leading to a surprise revelation and a shocking ending to an enthralling story.

Yes, shock, the person you love can drive you mad. Howard doesn't die

What a thoroughly tangled story this is, so benign on the surface but with so much bubbling away beneath.

We have a fabulously unreliable narrator in Verity Ann Baxter (as she introduces herself to her new neighbours). Every single thing that happens is seen from her viewpoint and I honestly didn't know whether I could trust her or not. Ailsa and Tom Tilson are the new neighbours, along with their three children. From the off Verity both simmers and simpers under Ailsa's gaze, craving her friendship and yet there's a sense of independence from Verity that doesn't seem to match this desire for approval and appreciation.

I suppose you might call Verity a bit odd. It's hard to say if she's a nuisance or a help. She's gathering knowledge about the family, insinuating her way in, but of course it's her story and she doesn't see it like that. Verity is an amazing creation, the kind of character that stays with the reader, one I wanted to know better whilst all the while metaphorically backing away.

There's a major event around which the story revolves, but the whole thing is really about Verity's life, both past and present, before the Tilsons and with them. It is absolutely compelling reading with a slightly sinister undertone to it.

I've read Sabine Durrant's books before and know she excels at twisty stories and unreliable narrators. Finders, Keepers is a masterclass in clever plotting, keeping the reader on their toes and drip-feeding nuggets of information. I loved how each chapter started with an item (the reason for which becomes clear as the book progresses), and a word and its meaning (Verity works for the Oxford English Dictionary rewriting the existing entries). There is so much that is cunning and inventive about this book and Durrant is a fantastic writer. This book is exactly my idea of psychological fiction, where the mind and all its deepest, darkest corners, is the focus. It's such a great read.

3.5

From the title, it's obviously clear that the reader is about to be plunged into a web of lies but what isn't clear is how intricate this story is. The characters are all introduced and first impressions are made but nothing is quite what it seems. This really is a unique book, I can't believe how much I enjoyed it when I didn't like one single character - that's the whole charm and addictive nature of the book.

Paul Morris is THE most shallow and deceitful man I have come across in a book. He is mean, selfish and lies every time he opens his mouth. He thinks he has landed on his feet when he meets Alice and pretty much invites himself to her friends and family gathering at her villa in Greece. Paul arrives later than the other guests after meeting with his publisher (not) and taking a late BA flight (not) and you really get the impression, even if he doesn't, that he is a bit of an unwanted guest. There just seems to be an air of tension around the place which is exacerbated by the 10 year anniversary of the disappearance of a 13 year old girl, Jasmine.

When another girl on the island gets attacked, I had several suspects in mind. All the time wondering what had happened to Jasmine 10 years ago and whether it was linked to this attack. The common denominator being the same group of guests on the island...yes, Paul was also there 10 years ago. Will we ever be able to separate the truth from the lies?

Sabine Durrant, you got me! I was played like a fiddle and completely sucked in, leaving me wide eyed and open-mouthed at the end. Lie With Me is a very clever book, you don't realise how hooked you are until you try to put it down.

I received this book from the publisher, Mulholland Books, via Bookbridgr in exchange for an honest review.

Remember Me This Way is a spine-tingling, suspense-laden psychological thriller. The novel is full of clever twists and turns and Sabine Durrant makes it virtually impossible to guess the mystery's final outcome right up until the very end.

On the one year anniversary of her husband Zack's death, Lizzie Carter is finally ready to visit the site of his accident and finish settling his estate. She is surprised to see that someone has left a bouquet of memorial flowers at the accident scene, but it is the attached message that rouses a few suspicions. When she reaches his cottage, she is further unsettled by some missing items that lead her to believe that Zack might have faked his own death. After she returns home, Lizzie becomes certain that is Zack alive and he is stalking her. When no one takes her fears seriously, she begins her own investigation and Lizzie quickly discovers that she really did not know Zack at all.

Lizzie is a somewhat unreliable narrator because she is rather fuzzy on the day to day details of her life. She feels guilty for some of the events that occurred in the days leading up Zack's death and her lingering grief further clouds her judgment. There are also some very strange occurrences that bolster her belief that he is still alive but why would Zack fake his death? The answer to that question is revealed bit by bit through the lies that Lizzie uncovers and her memories of her relationship with Zach.

The most chilling revelations are divulged through passages from Zack's point of view. As he reflects on his previous relationships and his marriage, a frightening picture become to emerge. In the days and months leading up to his death, he becomes increasingly controlling of Lizzie and his behavior grows more volatile and erratic. But does this mean that Zach deliberately faked his death only to return to stalk and terrorize Lizzie?

Remember Me This Way is a riveting mystery that is fast paced and quite engrossing. The storyline is well written with numerous plot twists and Sabine Durrant brings the novel to a very unexpected conclusion. A positively brilliant psychological thriller that I highly recommend to fans of the genre.

Run of the mill slightly far fetched psychological thriller

very enjoyable, even though the protagonist is not really likeable

This book begins well, slides down a slippery slide into a murky swamp. Trying to climb again towards the end, but its power was already over and ended only the despair of the reader.


Gabi Mortimer is a morning show host on British television. She is not a BBC political reporter. Mortimer has everything, according to the back cover, and if everything is a barbie doll career with a beautiful smile and housewife's insights, then she has everything.
She has a hostile partner for submitting the program. She also has a competitor - another candidate for the job, who blows on the back of her neck with a younger smile. She also has a beautiful huge house, populated by three people and a husband who is invested in money and pays no attention to her.

One morning, during a run in the park near her home, Gabi discovers the body of a dead woman. And all traces, unfortunately, lead to her. So far the story stretches, well written, poetic descriptions, and it certainly takes off as a thriller and as a novel. The left triangle of the cover classified it as prose. Then, the story begins to paddle. Polish migrant workers mingle with an attractive journalist who tries to help our defeated heroine investigate the murder and remove the police off her back. All the while her husband was indifferent in Japan, in some financial advice across continents.

Finally, comes the discovery of truth. Surprising? Oh well, let's say. Extraordinary? No.

What an absolute triumph of a novel. Character based fiction at its very best, narrated by the sort of unsavoury character you are never sure whether to trust or not. It’s got it all - a taut, incisive writing style, tension, suspense, and a bit of Mediterranean sun to provide some escapism in a murky December. The ending has everything fitting into place beautifully: not a thing was wasted. I had supposed this author was a purveyor of chick-lit, but I was so wrong. Just wow - one of my reads of the year.

A year after her husband Zach’s death in a horrific road crash, Lizzie Carter finally feels able to visit the accident site and leave flowers for him. However when she gets there she sees that someone else has left flowers for him with the name ‘Xenia’ in a note, and she wonders if he had another woman in his life. As Lizzie digs deeper into Zach’s past to try and find out who Xenia is, she discovers all sorts of things which make her question whether she ever really knew him at all.

Interspersed with the chapters narrated by Lizzie in the present day, are chapters from Zach’s diary which start from around the time he and Lizzie met. It is clear from both narratives that Zach has anger issues, and is a sociopath. Lizzie starts to question whether or not he is even dead, or whether he has faked his own death and is now stalking her.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and it was narrated by Penelope Rawlins (Lizzie) and Daniel Weyman (Zach). I thought they both did a good job. Unfortunately however, I did not really enjoy the book. I had previously read Lie With Me by the same author, and enjoyed it, despite it being far-fetched. Based on that, I thought Remember Me This Way would be a good book to pass a few hours while I was out running, but I actually almost gave up on it. The main issue was that there were no redeeming characters at all, except for Lizzie’s dog Howard! I have no issue with unpleasant characters but these were just frustrating. Lizzie herself was a wet blanket who was seemingly incapable of seeing what was staring her in the face and who got walked over not just by her husband, but also by her unbearably selfish sister. The character of Onnie – the teenage daughter of an old friend of Zach – was annoying beyond belief, and I just wanted to shake them all into sense.

I didn’t give up on it and in the end it did keep my fairly occupied, but after it had picked up a bit in the second half, the actual ending turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. I think I am bit fed up of the glut of books about people who turn out not to be who their nearest and dearest thought they were. How many people in recent books have married people with dark secrets in their past? I sometimes feel as though I am reading the same story over and over again, so maybe I need a break from these kinds of stories for a while.

Unfortunately, and based on this book, I would probably not be interested in reading/listening to anything else by this author.½

A well laid out plot that intrigues and delivers.

For a complete review please click on the link below:

http://onerightword.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/lie-with-me-sabrine-durrant.html

Paul Morris is a compulsive liar – he lies about his success as a writer, the flat he lives in, his prowess with women; he lies to the people he meets, he lies to himself; he lies about his past, he lies about his future. And he manages to lie his way into a crowd of friends who he once knew briefly, starts a romance with the enigmatic Alice, and wangles his way into joining them for a holiday in Greece. But there are secrets lingering below the surface with these friends – a decade old mystery about a missing girl, and further events which take place during the holiday, all of which cause more trouble for Paul as his lies entangle him further and further into a web of deceit bigger than his own.

I really enjoyed this book, but unfortunately it’s really hard to review without giving away any spoilers. And I REALLY do not want to give away any spoilers, because this is a story with the power to really shock, if you do not know what’s coming.

The narrator is Paul himself, who is actually largely honest with the reader; he openly shares the fact that he lies to everyone else. It’s true that he isn’t very likeable, but it’s fair to say that none of the other characters are particularly likeable either. Alice is somewhat distant, and hard to read, and I was never able to warm to her. Paul’s old friend Andrew is frankly unbearable, and Andrew’s wife Tina, while nicer than the others, is basically a side character with very little to say for herself.

The build up to the climax of the story is fairly slow, but this didn’t bother me. It was well written and I wanted to keep reading to see what would happen. Small and seemingly inconsequential parts of the story did turn out to have a greater significance at the end, and I thought the ending itself was very cleverly done.

If you are a fan of psychological thrillers, and don’t mind a protagonist who you probably won’t want to root for, I would highly recommend this book.½

Take Me In is a dual narrative alternating between Him and Her which had me wondering right from page one as to why the chapters weren’t titled Tessa and Marcus? Surely that would have made more sense right? And that’s not the only question that this book throws at you.

For me this was quite a slow burner in the beginning, from the books blurb it was fairly obvious that their son almost drowns whilst at the beach and that it is a stranger, Dave Jepsom, that saves the little boy. It was following that incident that the story slowed down. But that’s not to say that it was boring!

Because of how the story is told you almost feel like a fly on the wall watching as the lives of Tessa and Marcus play out. They would both make great guests on the Jeremy Kyle show!!

Full of secrets, lies and deceit both characters are on an emotional rollercoaster that we are all witnesses too and as the story plays out those lies are coming home to roost! And that isn’t including the “hero” that saved their son.

How do you ever thank someone enough when they have saved your son’s life? Does such an act of heroism embed that person into your life? How do you live with the guilt of not watching your son as he entered the water? The guilt of not saving your own son?

So many questions that all build up and as the tension increases you know its all leading to that one final twist. The big confrontation that makes everything add up in a satisfying conclusion, even if it doesn’t come as a massive shock!

For me personally the ending wasn’t great, I don’t know if that’s because I had worked most of it out before the twist so I didn’t get that surprise. I’m not sure, but it was still a great read.

I looooooved this book. BUT - not at first. It took me a while to get into it. I didn't like that it was a male lead, I went into it thinking the lead was female. So, maybe that's my fault. I couldn't connect with him, and I didn't like him. But maybe that's the point? By about 1/2 way through I was HOOKED. I could not stop reading to find out what the heck was going on! And the ending! WOW! SO not what I expected or what I've ever read before. I coulnd't believe it. So clever, and so unexpected - I wanted to hate the ending but in the end I ended up LOVING it! Nice job!

Narrated in the first person singular this is Paul’s story. A writer who produced one good book then disappeared without a trace. Not because he does not write, only that he has not been able to replicate that previous moment of excellence.

As a successful author Paul clings to the hope that he can still make a living through his work. This not only impoverishes him but everyone around him. He relies on the charity of friends to keep a roof over his head. When he meets Alice, he sees this as a new opportunity for a place to live. Seduce the widow and gain a comfortable place to live and with some more machinations a holiday in Pyros.

The question has been asked if we do not like the main character / narrator does that destroy our enjoyment of the book? I think this depends on if the character is pure evil, or does he have some redeeming features? Personally, I do feel sorry for Paul, not wanting to give up on his dream of a full-time author. His experience of success has now faded and he doesn’t want to give up the dream. Yet Paul needs to be practical, living off other people’s favours is precarious. As he points out, he has nothing compared to Alice. Arguably this is no justification for using her as a meal ticket.

The way he looks at the young girls on the island also suggests a crisis. Loss is not just confined to material possessions but status, attraction and power. This makes him an outsider, a more forlorn figure and creates a little more sympathy for him at the end of the book. Paul is not responsible for the events which happen, but he does have a contributing role.

This is a great book with a good twist at the end. My only concern is the author may feel she has hit on a winning formula that she seeks to replicate through all her books.

Lie With Me is one of those psychological thrillers that people compare to “Gone Girl” and certainly it has a few twists and surprises that make the comparison more apt than usual. It all begins when Paul Morris runs into a college acquaintance named Andrew who invites him to dinner with his wife Tina, and a family friend Alice

Morris is a bit of a celebrity, though definitely D-list, an author with one literary success on which he has been trading for the rest of his decade. He’s a bit of a jerk, louche and leering, living above his means by relying on the generosity of friends. Unwilling to admit his writing career has fizzled, he lies. Unwilling to admit his straitened circumstances, he lies. And all those lies trap him when he wants to tell the truth.

As he comes to care for Alice, perhaps even love her, he regrets his lies, he wants to tell the truth. Boy does he ever want to tell the truth. Andrew and Alice were not important to Paul when he last saw them a decade ago on a Greek vacation and not important when he first knew them in college, but he pushes the acquaintance, hoping to scrounge a bit, hoping to seduce Alice. He’s a chancer, a bit of a grifter. He eventually gets invited to travel with them to Greece where Andrew with his wife and Alice with her kids vacation every year. We know things do not go well because we get an interstitial leap forward to Paul in jail, waiting for his trial. That foreshadowing was the only thing that kept me from quitting a third of the way in. Paul was unappealing, Alice was flat and discordant, inconsistent in mood and purpose. Andrew was a cipher and despised by Paul, mostly out of envy.

There are hints of why he could be in jail. A dog is viciously killed A young woman is raped, a woman Paul saw on the bus when he arrived. There’s also Jasmine who disappeared ten years ago. Is Paul doing this and lying to us? Is it Alice’s son? Perhaps Andrew? Is Paul being framed? Who would do that? Why?

I don’t have to like a character to like a book. I can deal with morally ambiguous characters, themes, and endings. That is the essence of Lie With Me. However, if your chief element of misdirection and tension is the idea of an unreliable narrator, your narrator has to feel unreliable. We all know Paul is a liar, but how do we know that? Because in his narration of this story he is unflinchingly honest about what a liar he is, he is pointing out his base motives, his crude sexual predatory values, his leering at girls much too young for his eyes. He does such a good job of telling us what an awful jerk he is, it is impossible to accept him as unreliable with us. Yes, he’s lying to everyone else, but no one reading this is going to think he is lying to us.

Too much time is spent driving home that Paul is selfish, self-involved, and a liar. There’s so much detail and in the end, that detail matters in constructing the seeds of Paul’s destruction, but the accumulation of those details, is tedious. These details make the story fair, they are the clues that make it clear who was the spider to Paul’s fly, though only in retrospect which means the author succeeded in misdirection, just not in making them suspenseful.

Frankly, I wish I had just given up on this book, but by the time I was ready to quit, I was nearly half through and didn’t want to waste the time I spent on getting that far. I should have. . I expected to read it in a day and it took a week because I kept finding other things I would rather do than read it, like vaccuming.

***************************** SPOILERS BELOW THE LINKS ***********************

I received an e-galley of Lie With Me from the publisher through NetGalley.

Lie With Me at Hachette Books | Mulholland Books | Hodder & Stoughton
Sabine Durrant at GoodReads
***************************** ***SPOILERS BELOW **************************

I hated this book in the end. Here’s the thing. Paul is a jerk, he was reckless with a young woman’s heart back in college. He dumped Andrew’s sister and Alice’s friend heartlessly and broke her heart. When he runs into Andrew and Alice a decade ago, he was an ass, unaware of their grief or the reason for it. He was an ass, a jerk, selfish and dishonest. But, Alice is a sociopath. While I can understand her motives, I cannot look past what she did to Jasmine’s family for ten years, and what she did is not balanced at all by what he did. Andrew and Alice are just evil, and they drew children into their evil. I could still like this book if it weren’t for the expectation that we would think what happens to Paul is justice well served. There is nothing just about this. Being a jerk might deserve a punch in the nose. It does not deserve this and Jasmine’s family does not deserve this. There is just something foul about this ending. Of course, this is something that makes it more like “Gone Girl” than most books, obsessive evil triumphs over merely the merely selfish and self-involved. In “Gone Girl” though, there was this horror at the ending that is lacking here.

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/03/06/9781473682108/

Boy, can this guy Paul tell a lie. Problem is he tells so many that people are confused. I think he even confuses himself trying to just keep up with all his lies. Oh and shocker!!, he's a real loser. HA!!

He's had one book published and hasn't really done anything since except for keeping up with his lies. He lies to his friends, his mother, and even strangers. Why? Even if it's just a little one.

Anyways, while reading this I totally thought "his friends" who took him to Pyros were just as shady as him. However, in a more deadly way. And when I got to the end . . .

This book was cray, cray!! I could see where it was going, but I didn't care. I was totally in for the ride!!! Ready and willing! And, I'm glad I took this journey. Very well done!!!

Thanks to Hodder and Stoughton, Mulholland Books and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I thoroughly enjoyed the way this book wove its way to the surprising end. There were no "jumping off the page" clues, but there were clues. It was one of those books where I liked the good guys as well as the bad guys (except for one) and sat with my fingers crossed, hoping no one found out what a fraud Paul, the character outwardly playing the most blatant game of deception, was. I wanted him to be the good guy.

In addition, I was always suspect of some of the seemingly untouchable characters. It was an enjoyable read from beginning to end, with no lagging areas. I was connected to the book, and was surprised at the ending. Nothing more I would ask of a book...it was well-written, kept me entertained, and surprised me at the end.

I would recommend it to a friend.

Our narrator, Paul Morris is used to lying, mostly about little things. Mostly about everything. He uses the lies to make himself look more impressive: richer, more loyal, more loving, more successful. But when he starts truly trying to become more authentic, even a bit nicer, then, his lies, no matter how insignificant, come back to haunt him.

This is an amazing psychological thriller. I gave this novel five stars, in spite of the fact that parts of the building up of the plot dragged. However, the rest was impossible to put down. The characters were realistically crafted, and I enjoyed watching the plot unfold through Paul’s deceitful, conceited eyes.

I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

The main character is very unlikeable. I don't think he has a single redeeming quality and when things start going downhill, I don't feel bad for him. None of the side characters are likeable either. I did connect with any of them and thought the storyline was extremely predictable except for the one twist at the end that just felt like a natural twist and not a big shocker. I like the idea of the book and I think it could have been written better so that at least one of the character were likeable or that I could relate to.

Lie With Me
By
Sabine Durant

What it's all about...

This is one of those complex books with seemingly innocent characters who seem to be without motives and then...bang...there are motives everywhere!

Paul reminds me of one of those characters that you know is headed right into some kind of disaster...sooner than later...and yet I felt sorry for him and worried about him throughout this book. I didn’t want anyone to hurt him!

So...this is one of those books where I can’t really tell you anything. You have to want to read it...and you have to let the plot and the characters and their situations carry you along...until the end.

Why I wanted to read it...

I read the hype about this book. I fell for it. The hype was worth it.

What made me truly enjoy this book...

Paul made me enjoy this book...he was just a sad man who didn’t ever live up to his expectations. He lied...he exaggerated...he took little things...he squirmed his way into situations. In the end his lies were what took over his life.

Why you should read it, too...

Readers who love complex books with complex and twisted situations are perfect candidates for this book. It’s twisty, it’s maddening, it’s rather fascinating...but ultimately an excellent book.

I received an advance reader’s copy from the publisher and NetGalley through Amazon. I read this book and gave it an honest review.

For most of this story I was convinced it was only an introspective treatise by an English, millennial, twit interested in portraying his sexual prowess in the most positive light and therefore not at all admirable in my opinion. I was surprised by the ending as it unfolded in the last portion of the story and it made the whole a much more interesting tale. I'll not spoil the plot by giving it away, except to say that you should read it and keep an open mind until the last 100 or so pages, as then it gets really interesting.