I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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The Broken Ones by Carla Kovach Also by this author: The Next Girl, Her Final Hour, Her Pretty Bones, The Liar's House
Series: Detective Gina Harte #8
Also in this series: The Next Girl, Her Final Hour, Her Pretty Bones, The Liar's House
Published by Bookouture on 1st March 2021
Genres: Crime, Suspense, Thriller
Pages: 359
Format: eARC
Source: from Netgalley
Goodreads
Amazon Kindle
Amber applies a dash of red lipstick and checks herself out in the mirror before heading out on a date. ‘Don’t wait up!’ she calls to her housemates as she leaves. But Amber never returns home that night. Amber Slater is never seen again.
The last person to see Amber was her housemate. He remembers everything she was wearing that night. He watched her leave. He listened to every word of her phone conversation with her friend before she left. He knows more about Amber’s movements than anyone.
At university, she is well-liked by her fellow students and teachers. Her tutor’s voice shakes when he is questioned by the police. Some say he and Amber were very close. Too close. Some say his wife had just found out about their relationship.
The manager at the restaurant where Amber was supposed to eat that night says she didn’t show up. Yet the chef at the restaurant is overly chatty about her. He wasn’t working that night. He wasn’t answering his phone. Nobody knows where he was when Amber went missing.
Rumours begin to circulate about Amber, it seems that everyone has a story to tell. But when the young girl’s lifeless body is found in a local park, with her blue lips glued shut, the gossip suddenly goes quiet. As the police trace the last few hours of Amber’s life, it seems that the girl simply vanished on her way to catch her bus. And when another woman goes missing in the dead of night, it’s a race against time to find her before she too is silenced forever.
Thank you to Bookouture for my copy of this book via Netgalley and for letting me take part in this tour. I am a huge fan of Gina Harte so I was very excited to see what the next installment held.
This case had so many dead ends and false starts. No one told the damn truth about anything so I was suspicious of almost everyone. I was tense for pretty much the whole book. This person lived in the shadows and in plain sight. He seems pretty normal on the surface. But like Gina says so do a lot of killers. If I was still a young girl living alone I think this book would have seriously creeped me out. The stalking and the tricks he played on these characters by the killer make me shiver.
Carla did an excellent job of holding me in suspense. The story is well thought out and the fast pace was perfect. I felt like I was in that station and almost part of the team. I was as invested as they were in the case.
This was a tense but thrilling ride and I can’t wait for the next book!
About Carla Kovach
Carla Kovach was born in Birmingham, UK and now resides in Redditch, Worcestershire. Author of supernatural drama ‘Flame,’ psychological thriller ‘To Let,’ crime thriller ‘Whispers Beneath the Pines,’ and holiday comedy, ‘Meet Me at Marmaris Castle.’ Carla also writes stage and screenplays, some of which have been produced in the Worcestershire area. Her feature film ‘Penny for the Guy’ is being made and is set for release in 2019.
Her latest book, The Next Girl, has been published by Bookouture. It is the first in the DI Gina Harte crime series
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
@CKovachAuthor Thank you!
@bookouture Thank you so much, Emma!