After an intriguing scene-setting first chapter, the second chapter takes us back to five years earlier. Leigh Simon goes to her usual coffee shop for a cappuccino before work. The usually bubbly barista Gina isn’t her normal self that morning and confides to Leigh that she needs to move out of her current place and find somewhere else to live. Leigh says she has a spare bedroom and Gina moves in. But is everything as it seems?
Leigh isn’t particularly happy at work and her long-distance relationship with Matt isn’t the best either. She thought having Gina around would be company, but only a few hours after she’s moved in, Leigh is wondering if she has done the right thing.
Wow! What an exciting, twisty-turny book this is! Poor Leigh is put through so much, you feel really sorry for her and she’s very likeable, you want her to be happy. You’ll want to set aside a spare day or two for this book, because you won’t want to tear yourself away too much.
You meet characters and think you know what they’re like, then something happens and your opinion of them changes. Oh, this is such a clever book, it keeps you guessing all the way through and there are lots of threads going through the book – not so many that it gets confusing, just the right amount to keep your interest sustained from the first page to the last. And the last couple of chapters … well, it doesn’t disappoint on any level!
9.5 out of 10
BLURB
The Lodger
She’s in your home…
Leigh Simon can’t say for sure what made her do it. A moment of madness, perhaps, but when the young, loud and gorgeous waitress at her favourite coffee shop reveals she is homeless, Leigh offers her the empty room in her house.
In your head…
Gina is the perfect lodger; Leigh, lonely and frustrated with her life, becomes infatuated with the woman – her boldness, her zeal. If only Leigh could be more like Gina…
And missing without trace.
So when Leigh returns from a work trip she’s shocked to find Gina missing. Where could the young woman have gone…and why?
Leigh fears that something terrible has happened – why else would Gina leave her?
But as she sets out to find her missing lodger, what Leigh discovers changes everything she knows about Gina….and her own life, too.
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Author Bio –
Valerie Keogh is the internationally bestselling author of several psychological thrillers and crime series, most recently published by Bloodhound. She originally comes from Dublin but now lives in Wiltshire and worked as a nurse for many years. Her first thriller for Boldwood will be published in August 2022.
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