Today I’m joining the blog tour for Your Child Next. My review is written with thanks to Tracy Fenton for inviting me on the tour and to the publisher for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

THEY’VE FAKED YOUR CHILD’S DEATH. AND IF YOU DON’T GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT, THEY’LL MAKE IT A REALITY.

Things have been difficult for Annie since her husband left; her teenage daughter, Isla, has become a ghost of her former self. Annie’s terrified that Isla might do something desperate, and she’ll lose her, too. So when Annie receives a video of herself crying at Isla’s funeral, her blood runs cold.

Confused and horrified, Annie races upstairs to check on Isla, who is alive and well. The video has been faked. But who sent it and what do they want?

One dark truth soon becomes clear: Annie is the latest in a string of parents being blackmailed, and Isla will be killed if Annie goes to the police or if she fails to give the sender what they want. Annie has a deadly choice: comply with the demands, or try to unmask the dangerous criminal.

Your Child Next is a thrilling and unputdownable novel that asks you how far you’d go to protect the ones you love. Perfect for fans of Harlan Coben and Steve Cavanagh.

Review:

Your Child Next is the first of MJ Arlidge’s collaborations that I have read, but I’m definitely keen to read the others in the collection. I love his solo work and I really enjoyed the opportunity to familiarise myself with the work of an author who is new to me in Andy Maslen. Their styles complement each other really well and the story runs together seamlessly.

The premise of Your Child Next is fascinating, and it’s one that drew me into the story straight away. At the beginning of the novel, the characters are introduced separately, and it take me a while to get my head around that, but I was intrigued by how they were connected. I imagine for readers who are parents, the story is especially terrifying, and I think the authors managed to convey the emotions of the characters, particularly the parents, really strongly. I had a lot of sympathy for their plight and I was interested to see how things would work out for them.

In terms of Isla’s character, I felt the authors conveyed her anxieties in a lot of detail that made it feel very realistic. They combined her mental health issues very cleverly with the concerns of a teenager in a way that made her journey feel very realistic.

The reader knows who the perpetrators of the crimes are fairly early on, which means Your Child Next is essentially a cat and mouse chase – and if you’ve read my reviews before, you’ll know I love the tension in this type of story. The novel definitely picked up pace towards the end and I loved the fast paced writing style that had my heart beating faster as I was reading. There is a sense of danger in the final chapters prior to the epilogue and I was desperate to know how everything would end.

Your Child Next is available from Amazon.

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