Welcome to my stop on the Take Me Home blog tour! Today is also, excitingly, Take Me Home‘s paperback publication day so you can literally get your hands on this great book as you read this. Are you in the mood to be swept up in the mystery and drama of a great crime thriller? Then Alex Hart’s debut novel is one you need to add to your TBR.
Opening sentence: The signs were there.
My worst nightmare
If you’re a parent then the theme of this book is definitely going to resonate with you and possibly give you heart palpitations. 4-year-old May is left in a New York department store. On her own – just left there!
Clasping May’s tiny hand in mine, all I could think as I led her out onto the street was – who in their right mind leaves a kid alone in New York City?
The shop assistants don’t notice her but photojournalist Harper Stein does and when she steps in to help, she ends up taking on far more than she bargained for. What starts out as her doing her good citizen duty, results in her not wanting May to be taken into the Family Services department of the police.
As someone with a chequered history as a child in care, Harper wants to do everything she can to find May’s parents herself before subjecting sweet, innocent May to the horrors of the system.
A little help from her ex…
So, Harper enlists the help of her longtime friend and retired cop, TJ who, in turn, enlists the help of current cop and Harper’s ex-boyfriend, Reggie. Between the three of them, they follow the scant clues they initially have which leads to May’s home state of Florida and a mystery involving the Liberty of the Mind Legacy… Just who are May’s parents? And why was she so awfully just abandoned in New York city?
Always ask a 4 year old questions
I did feel that Harper might have missed a trick by not trying to pump a little more information out of May – she didn’t ask her that many questions and – being a mother of a 4 year old, I know how much they love questions – asking them, answering them, just generally talking non-stop. Although the story might have been a lot shorter if it had taken this route!
There were lost of moments I felt really nervous about what was going to happen to May. As a plot device this was very well done as I couldn’t not find out what happens to May – ensuring I kept reading until the end of the book. Harper was a great character too, tough but vulnerable you really warm to her there is great sexual tension between Harper and her ex that adds a little sizzle to the read.
I happily whizzed through Take Me Home over a few (randomly sunny for September) afternoons in the garden. The pace is fast, the plot developments keep coming and just when you think you’ve sussed out what’s happening, the narrative takes a swerve. What more could you want from a crime thriller?
- Thank you to Alainna Hadjigeorgiou for inclusion in this tour;
- Snap up your copy here;
- Published by Orion Books 1st October 2020;
- 320 pages
- My rating:
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