On My Life by Angela Clarke #bookreview

I featured On My Life in my most anticipated reads post earlier in the year and I’m kicking myself that I’ve taken this long to read it and I’m pleased to say that it’s a real corker.

BLURB

Jenna knows she didn’t do it. But she is running out of time to prove it . . .
A heartbreaking, compulsive thriller with a killer twist!

Framed. Imprisoned. Pregnant. 

Jenna thought she had the perfect life: a loving fiancé, a great job, a beautiful home. Then she finds her stepdaughter murdered; her partner missing.

And the police think she did it . . .

Locked up to await trial, surrounded by prisoners who’d hurt her if they knew what she’s accused of, certain someone close to her has framed her, Jenna knows what she needs to do:

Clear her name
Save her baby
Find the killer

But can she do it in time?

MY THOUGHTS

On My Life by Angela Clarke is a powerful read that will pull at the heartstrings. There’s action right from the get-go when we find our protagonist, Jenna being escorted in a prison van towards her new life. Jenna knows she is innocent of the crime she has been accused of, and Jenna knows she has a fight on her hands to prove her innocence, especially when the whole country and the justice system is against her.

Angela Clarke’s latest novel is really taut. Right from the first page, you’re thrown into the action, and you are fighting with Jenna as she attempts to prove her innocence. What she has been accused of is a heinous crime which makes her a target among certain prison inmates, who are out to cause her harm. At the same time, she is trying to keep it a secret from everyone else inside. You feel as though she is walking on eggshells. It seems that at any moment her secret is going to come out and everyone will know what she has been accused of. As the reader, you know that once this does happen, everyone will turn against her.

Angela Clarke’s writing kept me furiously turning those pages as I waited to see how Jenna was going to be able to prove her innocence when it seemed that so much evidence was stacked against her. You can sense the walls closing in on her, but she is determined not to let this happen. I felt really angry for her. She has to try and grow accustomed to her new life before her trial, but a spanner is thrown into the works when she finds out that she is expecting her fiancés baby. Her fiancé has disappeared, and she has been accused of having a hand in his disappearance. But she has also been accused of killing his teenage daughter.

I really liked the friendship Jenna had with the woman she shares a cell with, Kelly. Kelly is inside for a much lesser offence, but the two women form a bond, and Kelly seems to be the only source of solace Jenna has. Kelly is also pregnant, and this strengthens their friendship. You can tell that Angela Clarke has put in a lot of research into this subject within the prison system. You can’t help but feel sorry for Jenna, and I was just hoping that she was going to be able to get out of the situation she was in.

On My Life is really tense and thought-provoking; I’m still thinking about the ending days after I’ve read it. You will be rooting for Jenna right from the first page.

It’s one of my top reads of the year.

Publisher: Mulholland Books

Publication date: 7th March 2019

Print length: 384 pages

If you would like to purchase On My Life, you can do so by clicking on one of the following links below.

Amazon UK  Kobo  Waterstones