Book Review : Until You’re Mine by Samantha Hayes

June 17, 2013 trish Book review 0

Book Title : Until You’re Mine

Author : Samantha Hayes

My Rating : 4 out of 5 stars

Until You’re Mine is a well constructed, well executed suspense novel. There are two main characters, a heavily pregnant Claudia who recruits a nanny to help mind her new baby and her twin step sons. And the other character is Zoe, the nanny who is not all she seems. The narrative changes first person point of view between these characters. This is something that can annoy me in books as it can be confusing but this book is so well written, it just flowed seamlessly from one to the other. We also have a third character, a detective who is investigating brutal murders of mums-to-be.

The plot is well thought out and kept me guessing until nearly the end. There are red herrings a plenty, swimming around merrily just to confuse you. I had a few convoluted theories along the way but I was way off base with those. What I did like was that there were sufficient clues given which makes it possible for you to solve it before the big reveal. I hate suspense books that don’t share the clues with you, I always feel cheated, I want show my off my Miss Marble like skills!

The 3 female characters are intriguing, complex and multi layered. They feel like people I could know in real life and the setting is well described, I could picture it clearly. The issue of infertility is dealt with in the book and either the author has personal experience or has done huge research as the pain is very accurately portrayed. I don’t often read a book where I feel the grief, loss and darkness is exposed in all its raw, bloody state. I’m glad it’s an issue that gets explored however it’s also the reason I’m deducting one star. I hate the myth that all infertile women are Looney Tunes who are just waiting for a chance to steal your baby and this book feeds into that a bit.

The suspense is nicely built up, more than one scene had my heart pounding, hands sweaty and bladder on high alert! I was screaming ‘get out of there, you crazy fool’! Why do people take such risks when they suspect something is wrong, they are just asking for a cartload of trouble. And they do my blood pressure no good at all. Especially as I was never really sure who the baddie was.
The pacing was perfect, too often suspense books can drag in the middle but I never felt that here. I sound like Goldilocks but it wasn’t too fast or too slow, there wasn’t too much description or too little, it was just right.

Overall, a great read and I have no hesitation in recommending it to fans of whodunit/suspense books. I’ll will also be having a good look at the rest of this author’s books as I will definitely read more.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.