I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Her Secret Past by Kerry Watts Also by this author: Heartlands, Her Missing Child
Series: Detective Jessie Blake #3
Also in this series: Heartlands, Her Missing Child
Published by Bookouture on 22nd January 2020
Genres: Crime, Suspense, Thriller
Pages: 326
Format: eARC
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Jean Angus pours the last of the lukewarm tea into her chipped cup, shivering as she looks outside into the dark night. Her eyes are drawn to a slow movement not far from her cosy farmhouse. She’s not expecting visitors. And as the back door opens with a bang, she doesn’t even have time to shout for help.
On a dark winter night, the bodies of Malcolm and Jean Angus lie cold and still in a pool of blood in their kitchen. Detective Jessie Blake is called in to find out what happened to the reclusive pair.
Searching the couple’s property, Jessie learns about a vicious dispute with a nearby landowner, Rachel Ferguson, and when Jessie looks into Rachel further, she doesn’t expect what comes up. Rachel isn’t the person everyone thinks she is and a previous murder conviction just made her Jessie’s prime suspect.
The small Perthshire town begins to gossip about the double murder and Jessie’s own past comes back to haunt her when her abusive ex-husband begins to interfere in her new life. As the town starts a witch hunt against Rachel, Jessie is under pressure to find out what really happened in the farmhouse that night. Because if it isn’t Rachel, then who is the murderer living among them, waiting to kill again?
Thank you to Bookouture for letting me take part in this tour and for my copy of this book via netgalley. This is the third book in the Detective Blake series but each one can be read as a standalone.
In this book, we follow Jessie Blake as she tries to uncover the truth in the murder of the Angus’. Jessie is an easy character to root for. You can tell she has a dark past before it’s even revealed. She is a determined and hard-working detective. We find out more about her past in this instalment and I hope that even more will be revealed in the next book.
Another favourite character of mine is Jessie’s partner Dylan. Dylan is a good man, he’s an excellent father and a hard-working detective.
The story itself had lots of twists and turns. It kept me guessing all the way through. As well as uncovering the murderer this book also deals with lots of other issues domestic abuse, sexual abuse and mental health. Kerry deals with these issues in a sensitive way while still showing the seriousness of these.
Kerry had me gripped from the prologue to the epilogue and I cannot wait to return to the world of Jessie Blake!
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
@Denmanisfab Thank you!