Today I am delighted to share my thoughts on Single by KL Slater which was released in paperback last week. My thanks to publisher Sphere for my gifted copy for review. I love the author’s psychological thrillers and so was thrilled to be offered the chance to read this one. Here’s what it’s all about:
About the Book
‘I keep feeling like I’m being watched – dropping the boys off at school, choosing wine at the supermarket – but when I turn around there’s nobody there…’
When single mother Darcy’s son falls from a rope bridge at a local playground, life stands still. She clutches his small, limp body, frozen, until a pair of strong hands push her aside, and she watches as George, a local doctor, saves her son’s life.
George is a single parent too, and with his twinkling hazel eyes, easy charm, and lack of wedding band is almost too good to be true, but coffee becomes lunch, lunch becomes dinner, and soon they can’t go an evening without seeing each other. When he invites her to move into his beautiful home with its sprawling garden for her boys, Darcy doesn’t hesitate.
But as Darcy is settling in, she receives a bunch of flowers with a chilling message. George says they’re from an obsessed ex-girlfriend, Opal, and days later Opal turns up at Darcy’s son’s football match. She claims to have shocking information that could threaten George’s custody of his daughter.
Darcy doesn’t know who to trust, but she’s starting to suspect that, whatever the truth, she might have put her beloved boys into terrible danger …
From the million-copy-bestselling author K.L. Slater this utterly gripping psychological thriller will make you gasp out loud as you race towards the unforgettable twist. If you loved The Girl on the Train and The Wife Between Us this book is for you.
My Thoughts
It’s been a while since I read a book by KL Slater, but, having just finished Single, I bitterly regret that fact. I had forgotten just how great the author is a writing stories and characters that really get under your skin. She has absolutely achieve this and more, gifting readers a story that will have you second guessing all of the characters as well as leaving you in a little bit of shock by what finally comes to pass.
I think that the central themes of this book – family, grief, betrayal and second chances – will resonate with a lot of readers. Central character, Darcy, suffers greatly after the death of her husband, Joel, and when we first meet her she is in the midst of that all consuming grief. it is something that not only opens the novel, but also comes to inform a lot of the action that follows. She becomes heavily dependant on her in-laws for help but when she finally has a chance of a new beginning, it leads to an unexpected element of conflict that really ups the tension within the book. I really love, and loathe, interfering families, and it is safe to say that Darcy has a hell of a lot to contend with. KL Slater has created a cast of characters who, on the surface, seem as though they have Darcy’s best interests at heart, but who I never fully trusted and, on occasion, would gladly have seen the back of.
There is an element of romance in this book as Darcy is swept off her feet by handsome Consultant, George, the man who saves her son’s life when he suffers an asthma attack. It’s the kind of whirlwind romance that dreams are made of and it certainly seems that they are a perfect match, in personality if not quite in status. With a ready made family between them, you want to see it come good, whilst knowing that the extended family aren’t going to make it easy. And then there is the fact that this is a KL Slater novel and she doesn’t write rom-com or chick-lit so if you come to it expecting a lovely romantic happily ever after, you really are in the wrong aisle of the library. Expect shocks, expect twists, expect everyone you meet to be hiding something – Darcy included. With a stalker threatening the happy couple, a former love rival back to make Darcy’s life a living hell, and people set to thwart the fledgling romance at every turn, it’s not the most stable of starts for the new couple.
It was hard knowing who to trust, the author drip feeding small nuggets if information and snippets of half truths as the story progresses. From a relatively sedate start, the prickling tension starts to build, and it becomes clear that nothing is quite as perfect as it first appears. Beware the diamond that shines to brightly – it’s very likely paste. That definitely applies here and there is an undercurrent of menace and threat, which is bolstered by some scenes from the past that come to inform the main story in a very unexpected way.
If you like a novel that really grips you, where you know that there is some unspoken truth that is going to jump up and bite the characters right in the rear, and that will leave you guessing right to the very end, then you definitely want to pick up this book. If you’ve read any of the author’s work before, you know you are in for a bumpy, pulse thumping, but thoroughly enjoyable ride. If this is your first time with a KL Slater book then dive on in. You won’t regret it. Thoroughly recommended.
About the Author
Kim is the bestselling author of psychological crime thrillers ‘Safe With Me,’ ‘Blink,’ ‘Liar,’ ‘The Mistake’ and ‘The Visitor.’ Her latest thriller, ‘The Secret’ will be published by Bookouture on 27th July 2018 and is now available for pre-order. Kim’s titles are soon to be published in paperback by Sphere in the UK and Grand Central in the USA. For many years, Kim sent her work out to literary agents and collected an impressive stack of rejection slips. At the age of 40 she went back to Nottingham Trent University and now has an MA in Creative Writing. Before graduating in 2012, she received five offers of representation from London literary agents and a book deal which was, as Kim says, ‘a fairytale … at the end of a very long road!’ Kim is a full-time writer, has one grown-up daughter, Francesca, and lives in Nottingham with her husband, Mac. She also writes award-winning YA fiction for Macmillan Children’s Books, writing as Kim Slater.
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