I Dare You by Sam Carrington #bookreview blog tour @sam_carrington1 @Sabah_K @AvonBooksUK

I’m delighted to be sharing my review of Sam Carrington’s latest thriller, I Dare You on my blog today. With thanks to Sabah Khan from Avon Books for inviting me to take part.

BLURB

AN INNOCENT GAME. A SHOCKING CRIME. A COMMUNITY FULL OF SECRETS.

Mapledon, 1989
Two little girls were out playing a game of dares. Only one returned home.
The ten-year-old told police what she saw: village loner Bill ‘Creepy’ Cawley dragged her friend into his truck and disappeared.
No body was found, but her testimony sent Cawley to prison for murder. An open and shut case, the right man behind bars.
The village could sleep safe once again.

Now…
Anna thought she had left Mapledon and her nightmares behind but a distraught phone call brings her back to face her past.
30 years ago, someone lied. 30 years ago, the man convicted wasn’t the only guilty party.
Now he’s out of prison and looking for revenge. The question is, who will he start with?

MY THOUGHTS

There’s a sinister atmosphere to Sam Carrington’s latest novel, I Dare You.

Set in the rural village of Mapledon across two timelines, 1989 and 2019, we follow events as they unfolded thirty years ago when a ten-year-old girl disappeared. In 2019, her kidnapper, Bill Crawley has just been released from prison which creates an uproar among the locals. They are determined to make sure he doesn’t step foot back in Mapledon, but it appears that there may be a more disturbing reason why they don’t want him back.

Sam Carrington first introduces us to Anna, who is visiting her mother. Anna hasn’t stepped foot in the village of Mapledon for years and is still haunted by the disappearance of her friend, Joni. But things appear to have taken a more sinister turn. Someone has been tearing off doll pieces and attaching them to her mother’s front door. It causes Anna to consider if Bill Crawley is targeting her family, particularly as she was the one who identified him as Joni’s kidnapper thirty years earlier. Although her mother is quick to dismiss these claims, blaming local kids instead. But Anna is unconvinced.

We also meet Lizzie who lived in the village a very long time ago. Lizzie is now a journalist and is probing the story of Bill Crawley’s release. But what is her connection to the events that took place? What is she hoping to uncover?

You really do get the sense that there is certainly some unfinished business when it comes to Joni’s disappearance. I thought the flashback scenes to 1989 were really creepy, particularly when we meet Bill Crawley for the first time, otherwise known as ‘Creepy Crawley’ to the local kids, and that name seems to have stuck. I could never be sure about him. As rumour after rumour and different accusations flew around the village about him, I was never able to separate fact from fiction. It did feel as though he had become the victim of a witch hunt.

As with all of Sam’s novels, I found her latest intensely gripping and I wanted to find out what the real truth was and what had really happened to Joni on the night she disappeared. I couldn’t stop turning the pages as I got to the end and when Sam’s final revelations came to light.  I Dare You is really good.

Publisher: Avon

Publication date: 12th December 2019

Print length: 416 pages

If you would like to purchase I Dare You, you can do so by clicking on one of the following links below.

Amazon UK  Kobo  Waterstones

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