Today I’m taking part in the blog tour for A Tidy Ending. My review is written with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the tour and to the publisher for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

A NICE, NORMAL HOUSE

Linda has lived around here ever since she fled the dark events of her childhood in Wales. Now she sits in her kitchen, wondering if this is all there is – pushing the Hoover round and cooking fish fingers for tea is a far cry from the glamorous lifestyle she sees in the glossy catalogues coming through the door for the house’s previous occupant.

A NICE, NORMAL HUSBAND

Terry isn’t perfect – he picks his teeth, tracks dirt through the house and spends most of his time in front of the TV. But that seems fairly standard – until he starts keeping odd hours at work, at around the same time young women start to go missing in the neighbourhood.

A NICE, NORMAL LIFE…

If Linda could just track down Rebecca, who lived in the house before them, maybe some of that perfection would rub off on her. But the grass isn’t always greener: you can’t change who you really are, and there’s something nasty lurking behind the net curtains on Cavendish Avenue…

Review:

I really enjoyed The Trouble With Goats And Sheep and Three Things About Elsie so I was really pleased to be able to join the blog tour for A Happy Ending. I was not disappointed. Cannon’s writing is so evocative and I love her descriptions, particularly those she uses for abstract concepts and emotions: she makes them feel so real and this really drew me into the lives of the characters.

Our protagonist in A Tidy Ending is Linda, and as the novel is narrated in first person we get a glimpse into her character. I really enjoyed getting to know her and I loved the humour in her voice. She is quite naive and there were times I wanted to jump into the pages and give her a hug. We also see other characters such as Terry, Jolyon and Rebecca from her viewpoint and although this is obviously one sided, we do pick up lots of information about them and having such cleverly created characters helped me to stay engaged in the story.

Although A Tidy Ending is not particularly explicit or gruesome, it does handle some very serious crimes. Cannon raises these issues with great care and sensitivity and this made the novel incredibly poignant. 

A Tidy Ending is incredibly well plotted and very intelligently executed and I will be thinking about it for some time yet. 

A Tidy Ending is available from Amazon.