Hey everyone! I’m back to reading and reviewing! I wrote this review a few months ago so I thought I’d post it. Hopefully I’ll have a review up by next Wednesday! Looking forward to reading your reviews and blogging!
The novel follows Catherine Bailey who upon meeting Lee Brightman – a handsome, mysterious guy – instantly falls under his spell and starts a relationship with him. But as the relationship progresses Lee turns out to be someone else: his behaviour changes from a loving and caring to a controlling, jealous and twisted personality.
Upon the realisation that Lee isn’t who she thought he was Catherine begins to slowly pull away from him. She confides in her friends who she trusts the most – surely they’ll believe her? Shockingly they don’t believe her because a sweet, charming guy like Lee couldn’t do such a thing. What Lee does to her is cause her pain, trust issues and changes her mindset completely with his behaviour. Four years have passed and Lee is in prison and Catherne has a chance to build a new life for herself, she can forget about Lee. She meets Stuart Richardson a kind clinical psychologist who is set to help her overcome her fears and make it easier for her to trust people. Then on one usual day, the phone rings and she begins to fear for her life once again.
Into the Darkest Corner was an excellent read. The novel is made up of small chapters which switch back and forth from the past to the present. Elizabeth Haynes paints our protagonist really well – she shows to us that she is mentally unstable, fearful and real. I have to say that this subject matter is quite hard for a person to read. I can’t believe that this sort of thing exists in real life – abuse and rape should be stopped and the perpetrator should be punished with more rigorous sentence. I loved the way Haynes showed us Catherine – we got inside her fragile mind and got to re-live her story with her. We got scared for her, we cheered for her. This was a hard but and an amazing read which deals with real issues in our society.
I would definitely recommend this page-turner to all psychological thriller fans because it won’t disappoint. An engaging novel which makes you think about it long after you’ve finished it.
My rating:
Elizabeth Haynes grew up in Seaford, East Sussex, and studied English, German and Art History at Leicester University. Her writing is partly inspired by her work as a police intelligence analyst in Kent.
She was encouraged to submit her debut novel Into the Darkest Corner following a creative writing course at West Dean College and it was published by Myriad Editions in February 2011. Elizabeth Haynes won the Amazon UK 2011 Rising Stars award and Into the Darkest Corner was Amazon UK’s Book of the Year for 2011. Following publication by Harper Collins in the USA it became a New York Times bestseller.
I think if you like this one you might like Witness by Caroline Mitchell as well, it is kind of the same genre.. It sounds interesting but I’ve read only one of her novels before and while it was an enjoyable read I was disappointed in the ending so I don’t know yet.. although from what you’re saying that doesn’t seem the case here! Great review!
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Hi Inge! I’ll definitely check it out! Thanks for the rec! This one is really good and you’ll definitely like it!
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Lovely to see you back Nikola! 🙂 Great review!
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Thanks Misti!
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Great review and good to see you back! 🙂
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Thanks Yvo!
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Great to see you back in again, Nikola. Sounds like this book was an excellent page-turner and developed its characters with finesse. Excellent review. 🙂
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Thanks so much Lashaan! Thanks for stopping by!
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Great review Nikola. I didn’t know about this one but I do like a good psychological thriller so I will definitely add this to my TBR:-)
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Thanks Diana! I am so glad I read it. It was pretty amazing! Hope you enjoy it too when you get to it!
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