Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

A special thank you to Raincoast Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

You can save hundreds of lives. Or the one that matters most.

Mina is trying to focus on her job as a flight attendant, not the problems of her five-year-old daughter back home, or the fissures in her marriage. But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination. Someone who needs Mina's assistance and who knows exactly how to make her comply. 

It's twenty hours to landing. A lot can happen in twenty hours.

Ladies and gentlemen, Clare Mackintosh has turned on the fasten seat belt sign. We are going to experience severe turbulence. Please return to your seats and keep your seat belts fastened. 

Set over twenty hours on an inaugural nonstop flight from London to Sydney, Hostage is a pulse-pounding, claustrophobic, locked-room thriller. With themes of motherhood, morals, and activism this book is utterly electric and unputdownable.  

Hostage is told from alternating points of view between Mina and Adam with perspectives from other passengers interspersed. By getting deep into her characters' psyches, Mackintosh brilliantly executes her latest thriller. The incredible character development and passenger-centric chapters are what elevates the novel—this extra insight into the passengers is utterly captivating.  

This book is a union of a locked-room mystery and action thriller sprinkled with a bit of domestic noir. Hostage is an absolute blockbuster that delivers on so many levels. The fear of the passengers is palpable and the twists are believable with one exception—the motivation for the highjacking is completely contrived. But Mackintosh makes up for it with the explosive and shocking Epilogue. Highly recommend.

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CLARE MACKINTOSH is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of I Let You Go, I See You, Let Me Lie, and After the End. Her books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages and have sold more than two million copies worldwide.

She lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children.

After the End by Clare Mackintosh

A special thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Max and Pip are best friends, lovers, soul mates. They are unshakable, the strongest couple you know. But then their only son, Dylan, gets sick and they are faced with making a decision—that no parent should ever have to make—based on recommendations from the doctors that care for their son. For the first time in their relationship, they are not in agreement and each wants a different future for their son. Max doesn’t want to give up on Dylan, he wants to seek alternative treatments to prolong Dylan's life, whereas Pip doesn't want to give up on Dylan, but she doesn't want him to be in pain for the rest of his days.

What if they could have both?

This book was a gift even though it totally shattered me. It is an emotionally wrought page-turner about an impossible situation. Because none of us know the future, we make our decisions based upon the facts we have at the time. MacIntosh draws on her own personal tragedy and reflects on the life-changing decision that she and her husband were forced to make for their own critically ill child.

There is an incredible plot twist done through the narration (that unfortunately I see is given away in the publisher provided synopsis). I literally had to reread the ending of the proceeding chapter because I was so caught off guard. What an interesting take on a narrative that has been done time and time again and I loved it!

Mackintosh's After the End explores marriage, parenthood, and love. It brings us a family that forges new relationships in the face of tragedy and speaks to the resilience of the human spirit. This is a story of hope, of what the future may bring, and what the heart tells us.

CLARE MACKINTOSH is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of I Let You Go, I See You, and Let Me Lie, translated into more than thirty-five languages and with more than two million copies sold worldwide.

She lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children.

Let Me Lie by Clare Mackintosh

A special thank you to Penguin First to Read for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Anna Johnson is struggling with the death of both of her parents only moths apart to suicide.  She misses her mother especially as she has recently become a mother herself. Her therapist partner, Mark, worries that she is not coping.

On the anniversary of her mother's death, she receives a card that simply says "Suicide? Think again."  The police still insist it was suicide, Anna thinks it was murder, but they are both wrong.

Told from multiple points of view, readers gain enough insight to be engaged and vested in the story and characters themselves.  Mackintosh treats the secondary characters with as much care and development as the main characters and this pays off as I was equally enthralled, if not more, in officer Murray Mackenzie's storyline.  He has a complicated relationship with his wife Sarah who struggles with mental illness.  Murray cares for her as best as he can and loves her unconditionally amongst the ups and downs.  This was unexpected and adds another layer to this already enthralling read.

Mackintosh spent 12 years with the police force and this experience enhances her writing.  The story was sharp, and paced appropriately to build suspense and intrigue.  There were enough twists that I was always one step behind and did not have it all figured out.  This was refreshing, as of late this genre has been letting me down with too many books being overly predictable.

Family dynamics are a paramount theme to the book as well as secrets and lies.  Mackintosh explores just how far one will go to keep those they love safe.  The book is riveting and will have you guessing right up until the last page for one last twist!  

CLARE MACKINTOSH is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of I Let You Go, and I See You.

She is the founder of Chipping Norton Literary Festival and is the patron of the Silver Star Society, an Oxford-based charity that provides special care for mothers with medical complications during pregnancy at John Radcliffe Hospital.

She lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children.