The Very Pink Notebook is thrilled to be part of the tour for Sherri Smith's psychological thriller Follow Me Down. With thanks to Philippa Ward at Titan books for involving me in the tour and for an advance copy of the book.
Published by : Titan Books
21 March 2017
Copy : Paperback - Received from Publisher as part of blog tour
The Blurb
THEY SAY ONLY THE GUILTY RUN
Mia never intended to go home again, but has no choice when her twin brother goes missing. Back to the people she left behind, the person she used to be, and the secrets she thought she'd buried.
Her brother Lucas, a popular teacher, has disappeared on the same day as the murdered body of one of his students was pulled from the river. Trying to wrap her head around the rumors of Lucas's affair with the teenager, and unable to reconcile the media's vicious portrayal of Lucas with her own memories of him, Mia is desperate to find another suspect.
All the while, she wonders, if he's innocent, why did he run?
The Very Pink Notebook Review
If you like gritty psychological thrillers combined with the dynamics of messed up families then this is a book for you. Follow Me Down is a very dark and twisted tale and when I say twisted I mean it, in every possible sense.
The reader is thrown right into the story from the first page, when protagonist Mia, a Chicago based pharmacist, receives a call from the police alerting her to the fact her twin brother Lucas, popular school teacher who still lives in the small minded town they grew up in, is missing. However, not only is he missing, he is wanted.
Smith has cleverly filtered the story through the mind of Mia, you are in her head and go on the journey of discovery as solely seen through her eyes. The problem with her eyes is they are often tainted by abuse of prescription drugs and alcohol - unreliable narrator alert. Obviously Mia is convinced of her brother's innocence, or is she? Even as an unreliable narrator, the author manages to pass every conceivable idea through Mia's mind, who tries to weigh up the probability of these things happening. She then starts piecing together parts of the puzzle that is the situation and finds things and people in the small town are not always what they seem. Slowly, and a little crazily, she starts to form a picture of what was going on right up to the day the body was discovered and her brother went missing.
As I said, there are so many twists and turns in this book you can get quite dizzy, but that is brilliant because every possibility is really quite feasible and I had absolutely no clue as to where this ride was going to end, and what a well executed ending it was, with all ends tied up, some of them somewhat messily for the characters.
This novel has a host of unlikeable characters and this may be a little controversial, having seen some other reviews, but I actually didn't dislike Mia at all. I also loved their narcissistic mother Mimi as well. In fact, in the end I really felt quite sorry for her.
This book has a complex plot that Sherri Smith has managed to deconstruct and deliver in an easy, fast paced and exciting novel. I would highly recommend it to psychological thriller lovers that like their work on the dark side.
Follow Me Down receives a highly recommend Very Pink Notebook rating of :
Follow The Tour
About The Author
Sherri Smith spends time with her family and two rescue dogs, and restores vintage furniture that would otherwise be destined for the dump. She lives in Winnipeg, Canada, where the long, cold winters nurture her dark side. Follow Me Down is her first thriller.
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