- Format: Kindle Edition
- File Size: 792 KB
- Print Length: 324 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1529124662
- Publisher: Cornerstone Digital (11 Jun. 2020)
- Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B084Q32PSM
Synopsis
YOUR CHILD IS MISSING.
She was only six years old when she disappeared. Posters went up, the police investigated.
But no one could find her.
Now, twelve years later, she’s home.
And knocking at your door.
You’re so happy to see her. But soon you start to wonder why she can’t answer your questions.
Where has she been? How did she find her way home?
And who is she?
Review
Safe by S.K. Barnett plays on every parents worst nightmare, a missing child. Twelve years ago six year old Jenny Kristal goes missing whilst going to a friends house, but now she is back. Her parents Laurie and Jack are overwhelmed but less so is her brother Ben. As questions are asked, where has she been, who has she been with and why doesn’t Ben trust her?, Jenny is vague so what is she hiding. You may think you know how this book goes, but believe me you don’t. Safe is a fast paced, twisty rollercoaster of a psychological thriller that will take your breath away.
S.K. Barnett is a pseudonym for a best selling author who has a previous book turned into a film, and it shows in the writing and plotting of this book. The main narrator is Jenny, or Jobeth as she was called by Mother and Father who took her as a child. There are also chapters nararated by her parents and brother. The first person narrative makes their story more personal, getting the story first hand and feeling thier emotions. As I was reading this book it felt like the four main characters, Jenny, Laurie, Jake and Ben are all playing apart, trying to be the perfect family, like dolls in a doll house before the cracks begin to appear, and when they do the whole family dismantle.
As a thriller you know this book is not going to be straight forward, that there will twists, turns, shocks and surprises and Safe has this in abundance. The last third of this book hurtles along like a runaway train, gaining speed as it travels towards it’s catastrophic conclusion. The tension and a sense of fear keep building, and my eyes were glued to this book as I just had to find out what was going to happen next . There are difficult issues raised in this book including sexual abuse, physical and mental abuse and rape, and I will be honest that some scenes did horrify me. I would love to know who the author is, whose writing hypnotised me and whose plot had me totally gripped and took me on one breathtaking journey.
Safe has all the components that make up the perfect psychological thriller; an unreliable narrator, it plays on every parents worst nightmare. a plot that grips and won’t let go, and is complex and clever. In the book Ben, the brother and son, has a favourite phrase that completely sums up this book ‘perception is not reality’, nothing is what it seems. Safe is a book you need to read and experience for yourself, and I highly recommend you do so get clicking. Dark and twisted, complex and clever, you will realise that Safe is not something anyone will be.
I would like to thank Century Publications/Penguin Books and Anne Cater for inviting me to be part of the blog tour for this book.
