Behind Her Eyes – Sarah Pinborough

Don’t Trust This Book

Don’t Trust These People

Don’t Trust Yourself

And whatever you do, DON’T give away that ending…

 

Louise

Since her husband walked out, Louise has made her son her world, supporting them both with her part-time job. But all that changes when she meets…

David

Young, successful and charming – Louise cannot believe a man like him would look at her twice let alone be attracted to her. But that all comes to a grinding halt when she meets his wife…

Adele

Beautiful, elegant and sweet – Louise’s new friend seems perfect in every way. As she becomes obsessed by this flawless couple, entangled in the intricate web of their marriage, they each, in turn, reach out to her.

But only when she gets to know them both does she begin to see the cracks… Is David really is the man she thought she knew and is Adele as vulnerable as she appears?
Just what terrible secrets are they both hiding and how far will they go to keep them?

 

My thanks to Jaime at Harper Collins for my review copy and the chance to join the blog tour.

 

Today I am thrilled to host the first leg of the Behind Her Eyes blog tour and I immediately have a problem. I need to be VERY careful about what I say!

You see Behind Her Eyes is the “Fight Club” of the 2017 new releases – you can’t talk about Behind Her Eyes, because you must keep the secret. The secret?  Well this book is responsible for the social media hashtag #WTFthatending so as you read you know that something big/unexpected/unusual/gobsmacking is going to happen. You just don’t know what (and it will be on your mind the whole time you are reading).

But there is much more to Behind Her Eyes than the ending. The story follows Louise, a single mum who is low on confidence as her ex-husband  and his new partner are expecting their first child. They want to take Louise’s young son Adam to France for a month’s vacation and Louise is uncomfortable with the thought of Adam being away so long.

But Louise has another distraction, she met a charming and good looking guy in a bar and they hit it off. But the evening ended unexpectedly when the guy got uncomfortable and fled only to turn up the next morning at Louise’s work and to their mutual horror they learn that he is her new boss.

The mutual attraction does not fade though and Louise and her boss, David, are going to find it difficult to keep their relationship platonic.

Enter David’s beautiful wife Adele.  She provides the second narrative to the story and Behind Her Eyes unfolds as Louise and Adele drive the story forward. They meet by chance and become friends. Louise realises that Adele is David’s wife but chooses to keep their friendship a secret from David as she is not sure how he may react to his wife and his lover being friends.

Readers soon become to realise that Adele is fully aware of Louise and David’s relationship but she seems to be playing a game of her own. Adele has a plan and bringing Louise and David together just seems a small part of it. But to what end? Adele has a history of mental illness and there is a third narrative thread recounting time she has spent in a care home receiving psychological treatment. Does Adele become an unreliable narrator or is Louise’s narrative misleading us over how fragile David and Adele’s marriage may actually be?

Behind Her Eyes is an engaging and tense read and the promise of the #WTFthatending will keep you hooked. I love Sarah Pinborough’s stories, she is not afraid to put her characters through an emotional wringer so I know that no-one is safe and that anything could happen. That unpredictability is a treat for a reader and Behind Her Eyes does not disappoint.

Read it (and avoid spoilers).

 

Behind Her Eyes is published by Harper Collins and releases on 26 January. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behind-Her-Eyes-Sarah-Pinborough/dp/0008131961/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484992145&sr=8-1&keywords=behind+her+eyes