Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough

One thing you can say of Sarah Pinborough, she doesn't make reviewing her books am easy job. 

Last year her 'Behind Her Eyes' came with the accompanying tag #WTFThatEnding, imploring all to not discuss the final twist. It worked! That Ending was kept out of reviews (for the most part) and people who had read it only discussed it with those who had done the same.

So, this year we get 'Cross Her Heart' another multi-lead thriller with another twist (although it comes a bit sooner this time.)  The leads are Lisa, a mother who sometimes seems to be trying a little bit hard to be a part of her daughter's life, Ava, the aforementioned daughter, and Marilyn, Lisa's work colleague.

As the story starts all 3 ladies tell their part of the story, they all have their little secrets and, if I'm being honest, it did tend to just pootle along at first. Things happen and you have an idea of where things are going then...

 BANG!!

Sarah blindsides the reader and the story takes on a whole new dimension, becomes a whole different thing and, to be fair that is all I can tell you without spoiling things (and you know I wouldn't do that to you)

What I will say is that this went from 'a couple of pages before bedtime' to 'it is now the early hours of the morning and I don't care, must read a few more chapters' The twist, when it came, was right out of the blue (for me) and then the 'reveal' at the end did it again... twice.

I really enjoyed Behind Her Eyes and thought Pinborough would struggle to surpass it - I guess I was wrong. I'm going to stick my neck out and say Cross Her Heart is a better book. BHE was a thriller with a supernatural leaning whereas CHH is a straight up thriller.

5/5