Elizabeth Haynes - The Murder of Harriet Monckton

The Murder of Harriet Monckton is based on a true story that shocked and fascinated the nation.
On 7th November 1843, Harriet Monckton, 23 years old and a woman of respectable parentage and religious habits, was found murdered in the privy behind the dissenting chapel she had regularly attended in Bromley, Kent. The community was appalled by her death, apparently as a result of swallowing a fatal dose of prussic acid, and even more so when the autopsy revealed that Harriet was six months pregnant.
Drawing on the coroner's reports and witness testimonies, the novel unfolds from the viewpoints of each of the main characters, each of whom have a reason to want her dead. Harriet Monckton had at least three lovers and several people were suspected of her murder, including her close companion and fellow teacher, Miss Frances Williams. The scandal ripped through the community, the murderer was never found and for years the inhabitants of Bromley slept less soundly.
This rich, robust novel is full of suggestion and suspicion, with the innocent looking guilty and the guilty hiding behind their piety. It is also a novel that exposes the perilous position of unmarried women, the scandal of sex out of wedlock and the hypocrisy of upstanding, church-going folk.

Comment: I got this book because I have enjoyed the previous titles I've read by this author.

I knew this one would be a little different because it would be based in true case, Harriet Monckton did live in Bromley in the 19th century and she was indeed murdered. I was simply confident the author would do a good job fictionalizing the main ideas into her trademark thriller style but I must say I was amazed by how much I liked reading this one and how much better than a simple thriller it ended up being for me.

Based on notes she found at a library's archive while searching for something else, the author picked some letters showing details regarding the murder of a young woman in Bromley in 1843. It seems the woman had been killed by prussic acid and the killer had never been discovered, although the police inspectors and the inquest revealed there were some suspects but without enough evidence to condemn them.

While using as much real facts as possible, Elizabeth Haynes created a story which would explain several of the suggestions made during the inquest and what could have possibly happened to Harriet on the fatal day...

It was really easy to read this 500 something pages book. The story flows easily, I was constantly interested in knowing what would be revealed later, on how each character would behave and even knowing some elements had to be invented for plot purposes, I was engrossed and focused on the story. It was also very rewarding how the author included a map of Bromley someone did for her, for it helped to place the characters' movements and where they were going in key scenes.

I also appreciated immensely the afterword in the end of the book, where the author explains her work method, how she got the idea, how she tried to suit the character's style to what was known of them in the real documents and how she felt like developing them the way she did throughout the story. I think she did a good job in allowing me to see and understand the events and the why of many things, even if, we have to accept, it was just a possible idea, just fiction.

The story is divided into different sections, so that we can follow the events according to the factual documents she found at the library but with addition so the mystery could be kept while she developed the characters and their reasoning. The division into sections felt very clever to maintain this a murder investigation where the killer wasn't too obvious.

However, I must confess, because of two or three sentences in different moments of the book, for me the identity of the killer became rather glaring. Did this ruined the experience? For me it didn't because the fascination of a thriller is often how things happen not as much who did them.

I was still devoted to read and see why some characters did the things they did.

Harriet is described differently by the different characters. This had to happen so that the mystery could continue and we wouldn't be easily set on having an opinion on her and on her personality. I think it becomes rather obvious though, as soon as we read the dedication the author used in the first pages and in the end, after knowing all about Harriet's possible path into death, I have to say it is tremendously unfair how some people just aren't allowed (by so many things - conventions, rules, society) to be able to control their own lives and not be judged by hypocrites.

I had a great experience reading this novel. I think it ticked all the necessary boxes for this to work out for me. Of course to each one, their own opinions.

This is an historical novel due to the year in which the events occurred but the story does feel timeless because it's still easier to ignore we, as a group, keep being judgmental towards those we deem unfit. 

All in all, I think the author did an excellent job going towards an historical route and I think this worked out even better than some of her contemporary work.

Grade: 9/10

Elizabeth Haynes - Never Alone

Sarah Carpenter lives in an isolated farmhouse in North Yorkshire and for the first time, after the death of her husband some years ago and her children, Louis and Kitty, leaving for university, she’s living alone. But she doesn’t consider herself lonely. She has two dogs, a wide network of friends and the support of her best friend, Sophie.
When an old acquaintance, Aiden Beck, needs somewhere to stay for a while, Sarah’s cottage seems ideal; and renewing her relationship with Aiden gives her a reason to smile again. It’s supposed to be temporary, but not everyone is comfortable with the arrangement: her children are wary of his motives, and Will Brewer, an old friend of her son’s, seems to have taken it upon himself to check up on Sarah at every opportunity. Even Sophie has grown remote and distant.
After Sophie disappears, it’s clear she hasn’t been entirely honest with anyone, including Will, who seems more concerned for Sarah’s safety than anyone else. As the weather closes in, events take a dramatic turn and Kitty too goes missing. Suddenly Sarah finds herself in terrible danger, unsure of who she can still trust.
But she isn’t facing this alone; she has Aiden, and Aiden offers the protection that Sarah needs. Doesn’t he?

Comment: This is yet another book by this author I intended to read. Her thrillers are well thought and well structured (most of the time) and they always have characters that are somewhat easy to empathize with so I was looking for to read this story.

In this book we meet Sarah Carpenter, a widow who lives in her rural cottage and spends her days trying to do some work in her children's books while missing her children, one who barely speaks to her after the death of their father and the other who's in college.

A problem Sarah has is money and in order to reduce the debts her husband left, she accepts an old college friend as a rental even though he was actually someone she loved back in the day and doesn't feel how to face nowadays.

Sarah has her friend Sophie but she can't share some things with her regarding her past and after both Aiden, her new rental, and Will, a guy her son's age, return to the village, things start to become weird and both guys, even when it comes to Sophie. The guys also tend to show up unannounced in her cottage and she asks them not to but can Sarah expect things to change when she doesn't do it herself?

I think this book isn't as much a thriller in the sense whatever is going to happen might surprise you because it's unexpected or out of nowhere but mainly due to the character's attitudes and sense of guilt. It's quite something, in fact, to let your imagination and your thoughts get the best of you and even though there is a character in the novel who does act as stalker and is clearly not fully cognizant of their issues, I'd say the biggest enemy in the book is the fact people don't want to act, they don't want to face their problems and we prefer to ignore until it's not possible.

The machinations of the villain, if we can the character so, aren't always dangerous but they are intrusive and disturbing. This could have been easily solved by the main character but it's not because of what she doesn't feel like doing and because of what she keeps thinking she shouldn't have done in her past. Guilt and regret can be quite steady companions in people's lives and what made me think the most about this book is precisely that: how we let ourselves live and re-live some things on and on and that affects our judgment and sometimes out next choices. It's complicated but in this case, Sarah doesn't change her attitude on time because f how she feels.

Like another reader said in a review I checked, Sarah doesn't feel like reacting, she lets things develop as they are instead of solving them immediately and that happens with her relationship with others. But without this, the story wouldn't be as troublesome.

However, there are some things that don't feel very well done because of the way they are presented. It's quite obvious in some situations that some things can only happen with a lot of circumstantial coincidence. The plot really wouldn't last that long if not for a bit of inertia, actually. 

This means the story only goes as it does because we are told about secrets the characters have and why someone else shouldn't know about them and so on. I liked reading the book for this challenge, to understand the motivation the characters had to need to behave a certain way.

When I turned the last page, I thought the villain was not really a villain, just someone misunderstood, who was not taken care of and went a malicious path but his actions were very wrong and I accept how the author "solved" things. As for Sarah, our heroine, I can't tell if her path had a good resolution but at least she had possibilities. 

I wouldn't say this has the best plot ever butt he psychological side of things and the entertaining value made it a good story, in general, to have been read.

Grade: 7/10

Elizabeth Haynes - Dark Tide

Genevieve has finally achieved her dream: to leave the stress of London behind and start a new life aboard a houseboat in Kent. She’s found the perfect vessel: Revenge of the Tide. She already feels less lonely; as if the boat is looking after her.
But the night of her boat-warming party, a body washes up, and to Genevieve’s horror, she recognizes the victim. She isn’t about to tell the police, though; hardly anyone knows about her past as a dancer at a private members’ club, The Barclay. The death can’t have anything to do with her. Or so she thinks...
Soon, the lull of the waves against Revenge feels anything but soothing, as Genevieve begins to receive strange calls and can’t reach the one person who links the present danger with her history at the club. Fearing for her safety, Genevieve recalls the moment when it all started to go wrong: the night she saw her daytime boss in the crowd at The Barclay...
Dark, sexy, and exquisitely chilling, Dark Tide is another superb mystery from acclaimed rising star Elizabeth Haynes. 

Comment: I liked the previous books I've read by this author, so I got this one months ago and mow I finally picked it up. I think that this one ended up being the weaker of the three for me, but I liked spending time reading, that's for sure.

In this book we meet Genevieve, a young woman who is living in a boat called Revenge of the Tide, a boat she managed to afford because she worked as a dancer at a gentleman's club for a while. Things weren't always easy there, though, and Genevieve left when she could. 

Now her supposedly easy life of restoring the boat is in danger because at the night of her welcoming party to the boat, a body is found near her boat, in the water. She finds the body an realizes it's her former friend and co worker Caddy, from the club. 

Can her past life and her current one be so close already?

I liked this book simply because I seem to enjoy the author's "voice" a lot, so it was quite an easy task to just read and keep going.

However, when thinking about general terms, I do think this story wasn't as well done when it comes to pacing and suspense. I mean, it was great that the mystery surrounding Genevieve wasn't as strong as not to be bearable but when everything is solved, things seem a little too plain and that brings the plot's tension down, which can be sort of anti climatic.

The pacing also felt a bit unbalanced because at the end things just don't seem to matter much, which can make the whole story seem to lack importance, so what was the purpose...

I actually liked how we could alternate what was happening now in Genevieve's life and how her work at the club begun, so innocently, up to the point where things are now. I guess this is part of the suspense element and while I don't mind much, it does feel a bit weirdly paced.

Genevieve seems a good heroine but some of her current choices (I mean the current time, when she's fixing the boat and dealing with the aftermath of leaving the club) don't seem to fit what her personality has been like previously but maybe this is just me being picky.

The love interest isn't well developed, I think. I can understand the need to keep things almost opaque, like looking through a glass so that our impressions aren't immediate or easy but this means that at the end, when the book is ending and we are waiting for the finale to bring something, the resolution seemed untimely and difficult to accept, considering how the plot developed regarding the main characters. Everything was a little bit unsolved and lacked power.

Despite the things I'd change, I still liked to read this. I had no trouble reading nor finding the will to carry on and this can always be something to add to the plus side of things.

I'll keep trying other books by the author because her work has a lot of good element for me, maybe just not always dealt with in the best way.

Grade: 7/10

Elizabeth Haynes - Human Remains

How well do you know your neighbours? Would you notice if they lived or died? Police analyst Annabel wouldn’t describe herself as lonely. Her work keeps her busy and the needs of her ageing mother and her cat are more than enough to fill her time when she’s on her own. But Annabel is shocked when she discovers her neighbour’s decomposing body in the house next door, and appalled to think that no one, including herself, noticed her absence. Back at work she sets out to investigate, despite her police officer colleagues’ lack of interest, and finds data showing that such cases are frighteningly common in her own home town. A chilling thriller and a hymn to all the lonely people, whose individual voices haunt the pages, Elizabeth Haynes’ new novel is a deeply disturbing and powerful thriller that preys on our darkest fears, showing how vulnerable we are when we live alone, and how easily ordinary lives can fall apart when no one is watching.

Comment: Since I've read Into the Darkest Corner, another book by the author, and liked it, I looked at her other titles and this one caught my attention. I was very curious about it and if it would have the same psychological effect as the other one, which was quite the suspense and thriller. In a way this was better in some things but not as much in others, simply different.

This book starts with Annabel, a woman who works in the police station as an analyst and who takes care of her mother, while living a very lonely life too. She isn't the most popular person at work and is slightly overweight which makes her someone overlooked and dismissed.

The story starts when Annabel discovers the decomposing body of her neighbor and she never guessed she was missing, much less dead. After some research, she finds out the number of people found dead at home has increased a lot in the city, much more than in anywhere else. Could something be going on? Are all those people just dead of natural causes? And what about neighbors, family, how can so many people die without someone else giving the alert?

This is a very clever book but then again, the author has proved she has a mind for details, logic and a structured plot.

There are differences to the other book I've read by her. This one I felt was less oppressive, not as suggestive but the villain was a quiet one at it. This book doesn't have a romance interest either, which made it less thrilling in that aspect. I think I could stomach this one better in terms of reading but the theme is surely a lot more twisted.

The way I saw it, there are two main ideas to make us think in this book.

1) depression exists and has an impact on people and

2) getting to know the people around might not be nosiness but care and concern.

The truly incisive issue in the book is an alert to us, because we live our busy lives without much attention to what surrounds us and to our neighbors. In small places maybe that wouldn't happen as easily, but in big cities, anonymity is a way of life but also a problem if psychopaths are around. Because we can't know for sure what someone else is thinking and how can we survive if someone preys on us. The solution isn't to call each neighbor in out street every day, but to keep an eye on people who live alone, be alert in case strange people are in the area...that won't stop a mad person from doing harm, but it will be a step to try to help.

Another issue is depression. This book deals with it, how easy it is to forget those ill people because so many of us - and society itself - won't acknowledge how problematic and dangerous that illness can be. Being depressive isn't a state of being, is an illness that affects you and changes you and makes you believe in wrong things. I haven't read many romance novels with this theme but in this thriller, the author does a great job portraying the extreme side effects of it.

So, basically, this novel has a villain that uses techniques - proved somehow - to convince depressive people they are better dead, we learn this very early in the story. The whys or hows of this are quite the interesting theme but yes, they can have some morbidity involved some readers might think too much.

The we have Annabel, someone with the symptoms of depression as well, someone who fits the pattern and someone who will be key to show us it is possible to overcome that but if we have help, if we have people who care about us, all will be easier. Any burden is always easier if we can trust in someone who will help us. I think this is a good lesson, if not always as easy to practice.

The book is told from Annabel and Colin's POV, heroine and villain. We also have some POVs of the victims, which helps to explain why they got to the point where Colin was able to convince them the end was better than any fighting.

And here's the twist: some of the villain's arguments to why his actions have merit are actually reasonable. This is how a psychopath's mind works, it convinces you that what they do isn't totally wrong. Of course, the point here is, if we do have the ability or possibility to help, then we should do it and not influence people to do something they shouldn't.

With time we learn about how everything is possible, how twisted the villain's mind is...how is it possible that some people can think like that, how can it be possible that some individuals have brains that degenerate like that? This is the truly sick part of all this, that people who look and act normal might be hiding someone as awful and clinical as this villain.

The end is positive for Annabel, but I wished her life would have a stronger purpose, namely with the help of a romance...but it didn't happen. The last chapter is a sad reality, unless dead, a psychopath is always plotting...

I think this is a great book, it gives you food for thought. The police procedures seem realistic, the plot structure too and Annabel's personality fitting today's society that pushes aside anyone away from the so called norm. But among all the problems and challenges indifference puts in out way, there are still beacons of hope and in a way, this book can be one to let us be aware that positivism can exist and help can be there if one needs it.

I'll look forward to read more things by this author.

Grade: 8/10

Elizabeth Haynes - Into the Darkest Corner

Catherine has been enjoying the single life for long enough to know a good catch when she sees one. Gorgeous, charismatic, spontaneous - Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. And her friends clearly agree, as each in turn falls under his spell. But there is a darker side to Lee. His erratic, controlling and sometimes frightening behaviour means that Catherine is increasingly isolated. Driven into the darkest corner of her world, and trusting no one, she plans a meticulous escape. 
Four years later, struggling to overcome her demons, Catherine dares to believe she might be safe from harm. Until one phone call changes everything. This is an edgy and powerful first novel, utterly convincing in its portrayal of obsession, and a tour de force of suspense.

Comment: I decided to get this book after seeing it featured in one of the forums I participate in. The blurb seemed intriguing and despite not know the author I thought it would be a good way to start reading her work. I got the book months ago, it waited on the pile but I grabbed it to end the reading of March. I'm glad I picked it up, all things considered because I liked it.

This is the story of Catherine, a young British woman who has a life her own way, not caring about much except her freedom and the time she spends with her friends and meeting new guys. One day she met Lee, a wonderful guy, and her life was exciting but it soon changed into something completely unexpected. After a conclusion to their relationship that left Catherine with deep scars, she is leaving a different life until the day a phone call makes it all change again.

I liked this story. I liked how it starts quietly and increases its intensity again and again until the end.

Another thing I liked about this story is the graphic text and how it's presented. This book doesn't have chapters, the plot develops through two time lines, both told in the first person by Catherine.

Catherine is telling her story in two different years.

There's 2003 when she is carefree and meets Lee and then there's 2007 when we see her again with a different live, different take on everything and wanting only peace and quietness.

The two time lines go along side by side, meaning we see the action take place on both times one at a time. There's an entry in 2003 where we follow the younger Catherine and then an entry in 2007 where we see her as she is now. Usually the entries match in terms of days and months but not always.

I liked this new way of going through the lot development, I've seen in happen but not one after the other during the whole book.

Of course this story isn't a happy romance. This is a thriller and the main issue to be dealt here is a very serious and real problem. I'll try not to give up spoilers but I assume it's obvious there's a situation of an abusive relationship in the middle of this all. Until how far I won't spoiler it but it's not easy and some parts are hard to imagine and read about.

There are some interesting concepts to think about in this book. 

First there's the OCD and PSTD examples. Catherine suffers from both and I think the author did a good job of showing how Catherine lived in 2007 with both of those things to the extend of her whole day being dedicated to them in their own way. The OCD in particular is heavy on Catherine's routine and she dedicates a long time to check things, to count steps and to do things over and over because it makes her feel safer. When something isn't what is used to be, she can't help but check again.

I think this is a goo way to show how OCD can disturb someone life.

Another interesting concept is the idea of being desperate and we see Catherine dealing with it and how that affects her behavior, her relationships and her peace of mind. The biggest interest in this novel is surely the psychological element in everything and in that aspect, the book was very successful.

I think the plot took a bit too long to build up but in a way it was necessary because it helped to show how certainly these kinds of relationships don't go wrong after just one day or one week, it's something that starts slowly and might build up for a long time before changing.

There's a sort of desperation and suffocation that comes with it and we see Catherine going through it and trying to cope, trying to be sane and to escape and how that all ends is a shock.

I liked the story a lot. There are many scenes where little details would catch Catherine's attention and that meant trouble. We don't pay attention to daily chores or never thought about certain things in a serious way, like, say, cutlery drawers, but for Catherine that started her problems and originated from a very sick game and situation. Again, I think the author's work on the details, the growing despair was vividly told and one important thing wasn't forgotten, which is how society believes what is shown and how people we trust don't always believe in us in some specific situation if led wrong by others.

I really think the author thought about several elements that make a good thriller. Of course Catherine does get a break but I don't know if it's right all the time. Anyway, I'm glad she could manage to have a life as normal as she could, I liked we saw her getting help and how she could get better even if it took time.

All in all, this book is powerful, gripping and full of details and things that we feel so focused on, it's hard to let go of the book. I recommend it to everyone who likes thrillers and suspense stories.

Grade: 8/10