Reading Stuff 'n' Things: #LouiseJensen

Sunday, 30 April 2023

The Fall by Louise Jensen [Audiobook]

🎙🎙🎙 Narrated by Helen Keeley 🎙🎙🎙

Description from Publisher:

"She promised not to tell. They made sure she couldn’t…

At her surprise 40th birthday party, Kate Granger feels like the luckiest woman in the world but just hours later her fifteen-year-old daughter, Caily, is found unconscious underneath a bridge when she should have been at school.

Now, Caily lies comatose in her hospital bed, and the police don’t believe it was an accident. As the investigation progresses, it soon becomes clear that not everyone in the family was where they claimed to be at the time of her fall.

Caily should be safe in hospital but not everyone wants her to wake up. Someone is desperate to protect the truth and it isn’t just Caily’s life that is in danger.

Because some secrets are worth killing for…"

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This was an enjoyable book to listen to partly because of the mystery surrounding who pushed Caily off the bridge but also because of the excellent narration.

There are lots of elements and sub-stories to this book which created additional mystery to an already intriguing story. There are a lot of characters and the book is told from multiple points of view however, whilst you might think this would be confusing, it is anything but ... the narrator does an excellent job of being able to distinguish between each of the characters with subtle changes.

Louise Jenson managed to create a lot of tension and some great plot twists that caught me off guard. The pace worked well for me and I found myself looking for reasons to listen for a bit longer ... even hoping for a traffic jam!!!

Overall, a really good book to read/listen to with loads to hold your interest and my thanks go to HQ an imprint of HarperCollins UK Audio and NetGalley for enabling me to listen to and share my thoughts of The Fall.

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Connect with the author:

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Check out my review of The Stolen Sisters also by Louise Jensen

Saturday, 10 October 2020

The Stolen Sisters by Louise Jensen

Blurb from Goodreads:

"Three little girls missing. One family torn apart…

Leah’s perfect marriage isn’t what it seems but the biggest lie of all is that she’s learned to live with what happened all those years ago. Marie drinks a bit too much to help her forget. And Carly has never forgiven herself for not keeping them safe.

Twenty years ago these three sisters were taken. What came after they disappeared was far worse. It should have brought them together, but how can a family ever recover?

Especially when not everyone is telling the truth . . ."

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This is a thought-provoking and emotional story of 3 sisters who were abducted 20 years ago and how that traumatic event has impacted on them as they have grown into adults.

I haven't read anything by Louise Jensen before and although I am unable to absolutely rave about this book, I will say that it's a well-crafted story that will appeal to many, many readers.

Why am I not raving about this? To be honest, it's hard to explain exactly why and I don't really understand it myself! It started off brilliantly and I was definitely hooked but it just seemed to take too long to get anywhere and although there were surprises, they just didn't hit the spot for me and I didn't get that feeling of excitement and anticipation unfortunately. I don't think this is a fault of the author rather than of me as a reader who is used to reading rollercoaster-of-a-ride books which I don't think this is; I feel it's more of a family drama type story with mystery and tension thrown in.

The story is told in the then and now and from a variety of viewpoints; this isn't as confusing as it sounds and I actually found this worked well for the most part however, I felt that the "then" parts worked better for me and were more engrossing than the "now".

The characters are an interesting bunch, not all of them particularly likeable but all the main ones are well fleshed out.

What I thought shone throughout was the strong relationship between the sisters and the way their horrific experience impacted on their lives and their mental health; this was expertly done with sensitivity and I have no shame in admitting that there were parts that made me a bit emotional - I am the youngest of 3 sisters and I did wonder how we would have turned out if this had happened to us but I quickly stopped that because it is too horrific to contemplate.

Like I said at the beginning, I am unable to say this has been one of my best reads of 2020 but I will certainly read more by this author in the future.