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Saturday 17 October 2015

Bite by Nick Louth




Description from Goodreads:

Tomorrow should be the greatest day of Erica Stroud-Jones's life. In just 24 hours this brilliant young scientist will present her secret work to a conference in Amsterdam - research that promises to revolutionise the battle against a deadly tropical disease. Millions of lives could be saved; a Nobel Prize beckons.

Arriving to watch her are sceptics and rivals, admirers and enemies. Erica's own eyes will be on sculptor Max Carver, her American new love to whom she will dedicate her achievement.

Tomorrow never comes.

Erica vanishes during the night. Max, desperate, terrified, sets out to find her, descending into an underworld full of malice and cunning. But even he is shocked by the dark terror he finds in the heart of the woman he loves.

Discover the massive number one bestseller that thousands of readers have said is the most addictive, page-turning novel of the year.


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I really quite enjoyed this book. I have never read anything by this author before so took a punt and requested a copy via the publisher, Sphere an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, and NetGalley. Now it does purport to be “the most addictive, page-turning novel of the year” and "the most gripping thriller you'll ever read" and although I would disagree with this as I have read a few books which are better, I was entertained by this novel and gripped from start to finish. I admit that it is a little OTT at times but books aren’t always supposed to be believable and sometimes it’s nice to just go along with it and enjoy the ride!

The storyline has a few threads to it and once you get your head around them, everything slots into place. The main themes are malaria and the hunt for Erica and in amongst all that is a glimpse into Erica’s past. I did particularly like the entries from Erica’s diary when she was in Africa and feel this could have made a pretty good novel in itself albeit rather disturbing. The pace is pretty relentless from start to finish with some twists, turns and surprises along the way.

The characters are an interesting bunch of people some more likeable than others but all are well described and believable … well mostly … that is where the OTT comes in as Max seems to go from a normal bloke to a superhero and what he does goes slightly beyond the realms of possibility but don’t let that put you off reading this, like I said … just shake your head and go along for the ride.

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Author website - http://www.nicklouth.com/

Twitter - @NickLouthAuthor 

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for your review. The story of Bite being a bestseller is an odd one, because the book was writen in the late 1990s, self-published in 2007 and only became a big hit when I put the e-book out in late 2013. I wouldn't write Max quite the same way if I was writing it now - in fact if you look at my next thriller Heartbreaker, you can see how I've made the protagonist more believable and more subtle without undermining the tension. Take a look, the books on Kindle offer at 99p right now - it has fewer reviews than Bite, but a better score 4.6 stars.

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