Title: Never Let You Go
Author: Chevy Stevens
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Read: December 2016
Expected publication: 14 March 2017
Synopsis (Goodreads):
Eleven years ago, Lindsey Nash escaped into the night with
her young daughter and left an abusive relationship.Her ex-husband was sent to
jail and she started over with a new life. Now, Lindsey is older and wiser,
with a teenage daughter who needs her more than ever. When her ex-husband is
finally released, Lindsey believes she’s cut all ties. But she gets the sense
that someone is watching her. Her new boyfriend is threatened. Her home is
invaded, and her daughter is shadowed. Lindsey is convinced it’s her
ex-husband, even though he claims he’s a different person. But can he really
change? Is the one who wants her dead closer to home than she thought?
My thoughts:
When Lindsey took her small daughter Sophie and ran away
from her abusive husband, she knew that one day he may come looking for them. With
her daughter now a teenager, and Lindsey herself in a relationship with a
stable, supportive man, she is as happy as she has ever been. Until she finds
out that her ex-husband, freshly out of jail after serving a sentence for
dangerous driving causing death, has moved into her neighbourhood. Soon she
feels no longer safe in her own home – have things been moved or touched? Is
she in danger? Worst of all, she finds out that he has tried to make contact
with Sophie. Sophie claims that she has seen her father, and that he is a
changed man. But leopards never really change their spots, do they?
Despite an interesting premise, a constant atmosphere of
tension and a clever twist at the end, Never Let You Go never fully gripped me.
Perhaps it was the voices of the characters, who didn’t quite speak to me, or
the format of various different voices narrating individual chapters set in the
past and present. I felt that I never fully got to see into the hearts and
minds of any of the characters, and just didn’t care enough about them to find
the story compelling. Or perhaps I have just been spoiled by some very
masterfully constructed psychological thrillers recently, and now nothing can
quite live up to them. Whilst Never Let You Go was an ok read, for me it lacked
– something. Depth, perhaps. An emotional connection. Despite musing on it and
trying to give constructive feedback, I
cannot quite put my finger on it. So I will just put it down to being the wrong
book for me at the time. It happens. 2.5 stars from me.
Thank you to
Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of
this novel in exchange for an honest review.
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