What You Left Behind


What You Left Behind is Samantha Hayes' followup book to Until You're Mine. I read and reviewed Until You're Mine last year and absolutely loved it, so I knew I'd want to snatch up any book she put out next. I was pleasantly surprised to see that she was tying her second book into her first by continuing to follow DI Lorraine Fisher. In this installment, Lorraine is vacationing in the countryside at her sister Jo's house with her daughter, Stella. The book description reads:

"A mesmerizing new thriller from the author of Until You’re Mine

Two years after a terrifying spate of teenage suicides, the remote village of Radcote has just begun to heal. Then a young man is killed in a freak motorcycle accident and a suicide note is found among his belongings. When a second boy is found dead shortly thereafter, the nightmare of repeat suicides once again threatens the community.

Desperate for a vacation, Detective Inspector Lorraine Fisher has just come to Radcote for a stay with her sister, Jo, but the atmosphere of the country house is unusually tense. Freddie, Jo's son, seems troubled and uncommunicative, and Jo is struggling to reach out to him. Meanwhile, Lorraine becomes determined to discover the truth behind these deaths. Are they suicides, or is there something more sinister at work? Finding answers might help Freddie, but they'll also lead to a shocking truth: whatever it is--or whoever it is--that's killing these young people is far more disturbing than she ever could have imagined, and unraveling the secret is just as dangerous as the secret itself.

Wicked, intense, and utterly compulsive, What You Left Behind confirms Samantha Hayes as a top thriller writer."

Until You're Mine was a new author breakout hit for me, so I entered What You Left Behind with pretty high expectations. While What You Left Behind was definitely a great book, it didn't quite live up to her first book to me. I'm guessing this book was inspired by the intriguing, mysterious, and sad Bridgend suicides - it really parallels that story almost entirely. This was exciting to me because I'd recently watched the Bridgend documentary, so I felt that that was a really fresh and interesting idea for a story. The book starts off with a bang in the prologue, but then drags a bit at the beginning. Some parts are confusing as we jump around meeting the different characters, but it comes together and the pace picks up a few chapters in. It was definitely suspenseful and kept me turning the pages. I don't want to say too much about the plot, but it was satisfying and ended well. My only complaint about this book is that it didn't have that stay-up-all-night nailbiter feel to it that her first book did. However, I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good psychological thriller - but read Until You're Mine first.

I received a copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

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