📖 Book Review ~ The Dare by Lesley Kara

 

Ebook 18 February 2021
Hardback 4 March
Bantam Press
My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

As a child, it was just a game. As an adult, it was a living nightmare.

When teenage friends Lizzie and Alice decide to head off for a walk in the countryside, they are blissfully unaware that this will be their final day together – and that only Lizzie will come back alive.

Lizzie has no memory of what happened in the moments before Alice died, she only knows that it must have been a tragic accident. But as she tries to cope with her grief, she is shocked to find herself alienated from Alice’s friends and relatives. They are convinced she somehow had a part to play in her friend’s death.

Twelve years later, unpacking boxes in the new home she shares with her fiancé, Lizzie is horrified to find traumatic memories and paranoia suddenly surfacing. Is the trauma of the accident finally catching up with her, or could someone be trying to threaten her new-found happiness?

Twelve years is a long time to wait, when you’re planning the perfect revenge...

📖 My Thoughts..

Teenagers, Lizzie and Alice, are best friends but when their favourite walk ends in tragedy, thirteen year old, Lizzie has to try and more forward as best she can but no-one understands the burden of guilt which Lizzie carries about that fateful day.

We get to know Lizzie some twelve years later when she has set up a new home with her handsome GP husband but mysterious things start to happen which take her back to the last day she spent with Alice, and even though time has passed, Lizzie's feelings are still just as raw, in the present, as they were on the day the tragedy happened.

This is a really clever psychological suspense story which is made all the more chilling by the snippets of memories which happened before and after the tragedy and which allow us a tantalising glimpse into Lizzie's life as a young teenager and her subsequent life as a grown woman with plans for the future. Effortlessly moving forwards and backwards in time a chilling picture of lies and deceit starts to emerge. I found Lizzie's character immensely likeable which made the chilling horror of what was happening to her all the more engrossing.

The Dare is expertly controlled so that the suspense is maintained all the way through and there are definitely more than enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. The last third of the book is particularly tense and my heart was in my mouth on more than one occasion when Lizzie's life just seemed to be spiralling out of control.

The Dare is published in hardback on the 4th March by Bantam Press and is available to buy from all good book retailers.

About The Author

Lesley Kara is the author of the Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller, THE RUMOUR, published in December 2018. Her second novel, THE DARE, is out now.

Twitter @LesleyKara #TheDare

@TransworldBooks