I am delighted to share my review for The Runaway by Linda Huber. This is the first time I have read anything by this author and I am so looking forward to catching up with more of her books.

My thanks to Sarah at Book On The Bright Side Publicity for my spot on the Blog Tour and for arranging my e-copy of the book.

Let me show you what it is all about…

Keep your secrets close to home…

Bad things happen in threes – or so it seems to Nicola. The death of her mother-in-law coincides with husband Ed losing his job and daughter Kelly getting into trouble with the police. Time to abandon their London lifestyle and start again by the sea in far-away Cornwall.

It should be the answer to everything – a new home, a new job for Ed and a smaller, more personal school for fifteen-year-old Kelly. But the teenager hates her new life, and it doesn’t take long before events spiral out of control and the second set of bad things starts for Nicola.

Some secrets can’t be buried.
Or… can they?

This is the first time I have read a book by this author and I have to say I enjoyed The Runaway a huge amount.

This is a book that is told from the perspectives of the three main characters. They are husband and wife, Ed and Nicola and their daughter Kelly. After Ed’s mother dies the family leave London and move into Ed’s old family home in St. Ives, Cornwall.

As the story unfolds it becomes apparent that Ed does not have the happy family memories of home, in fact the memories still haunt him. It is through his recollections and memories that I gradually found out more about him. He is unsettled and distracted and it is noticed by Nicola and Kelly.

The family are in the midst of upheaval of moving to a new house, new school, new jobs and trying to get settled. Kelly isn’t happy about leaving her friends and cracks start to show within the family.

The author has done a great job of gradually upping the tension in this story. When I started the story there were little hints at things not being well with Ed’s Cornwall home, but it is only as the story progresses that /i started to get a better picture. The story line is quite dramatic and as I said the tension is ever present.

The full impact of the story is quite an unsettling one as things take a turn. While I did get the main plot this wasn’t about “working it out” it was very much about each of the characters journeys. I enjoyed the way the story was laid out and the quick changes of perspectives between the characters and it meant that I could really get each ones point of view.

A wonderful and atmospheric character driven read. The pacing was good, not too fast but at a pace that kept my attention completely. The story line is captivating and from the start I felt its grip. Ideal for readers who like a tense, and in someways it is a domestic thriller but it also has a good psychological aspect to it as well as being a family drama. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I am looking forward to checking out and reading some of the other books by this author. I would definitely recommend it.

Linda Huber grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, but went to work in Switzerland for a year aged twenty-two, and has lived there ever since. Her day jobs have included working as a physiotherapist in hospitals and schools for handicapped children, and teaching English in a medieval castle. Currently she teaches one day a week, and writes psychological suspense novels and feel-good novellas with (most of) the rest of her time.

Her writing career began in the nineties, when she had over fifty short stories published in women’s magazines before turning to psychological suspense fiction. The Runaway is her ninth book, and is set mostly in Cornwall, where she spent several happy holidays as a child.

Linda’s other project is a series of feel-good novellas written under the pen name Melinda Huber and set on the banks of Lake Constance, just minutes from her home in north-east Switzerland. She really appreciates having the views enjoyed by her characters right on her own doorstep!

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