Contemporary Authors

• Before I Wake Sourcebooks Landmark (Naperville, IL), 2014
• The Lie Sourcebooks Landmark (Naperville, IL), 2015

1. The lie LCCN 2015041053 Type of material Book Personal name Taylor, C. L., 1973- author. Main title The lie / C. L. Taylor. Published/Produced Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Landmark, [2016] ©2015 Projected pub date 1606 Description pages cm ISBN 9781492602651 (pbk. : alk. paper) Library of Congress Holdings Information not available. 2. Before I wake LCCN 2014504540 Type of material Book Personal name Taylor, C. L., 1973- author. Main title Before I wake / C.L. Taylor Published/Produced Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Landmark, [2014] Description 331 pages ; 21 cm ISBN 9781402294181 (pbk.) 1402294182 (pbk.) Shelf Location FLS2016 012909 CALL NUMBER PR6120.A89 B44 2014 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLS2)

• The Accident - 2014 Avon, New York, NY
• The Missing - 2016 Avon, New York, NY

• Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/C.L.-Taylor/e/B00ICKTWPE

  CL Taylor lives in Bristol with her partner and young son. She studied for a degree in Psychology at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle and has worked as a sales administrator, web developer, instructional designer and as the manager of a distance learning team at a London university. She now writes full time.

  CL Taylor's first psychological thriller BEFORE I WAKE (THE ACCIDENT in the UK) was one of the top ten bestselling debut novels of 2014 according to The Bookseller. Her second and third novels, THE LIE and THE MISSING, were Sunday Times Bestsellers and #1 Amazon Kindle chart bestsellers. She is currently writing her fourth psychological thriller which will be published in April 2017.

  Sign up to join the CL Taylor Book Club for access to news, updates and information that isn't available on the web, as well as exclusive newsletter-only competitions and giveaways and the books that CL Taylor thinks will be the next big thing:

  http://www.callytaylor.co.uk/cltaylorbookclub.html

  www.cltaylorauthor.com
  www.twitter.com/callytaylor
  www.Instagram.com/cltaylorauthor
  www.facebook.com/callytaylorauthor

• C.L. Taylor Home Page - https://cltaylorauthor.com/

  CL Taylor is the Sunday Times bestselling author of three psychological thrillers – THE ACCIDENT, THE LIE and THE MISSING.

  THE ACCIDENT was published in the UK by HarperCollins in 2014 and by Sourcebooks in the US (with the title ‘Before I Wake’). It was one of the top ten bestselling debuts of 2014 according to The Bookseller magazine.

  CL Taylor’s second novel THE LIE, a psychological thriller about friendship, betrayal and murder was published in the UK in 2015 and charted at #5 on the Sunday Times paperback bestseller list. The ebook hit the #1 slots on Amazon Kindle, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play and Sainsbury ebooks. It was nominated for two Dead Good Books awards – Most Recommended Read and Most Exotic Location – and was the 9th bestselling product on Amazon.co.uk (beating the new FIFA game!)

  Cally’s third psychological thriller THE MISSING was published in the UK in April 2016 and charted at #6 on the Sunday Times paperback bestseller list. It also hit the #1 slots on Amazon Kindle, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play and Sainsbury ebooks.

  CL Taylor’s books have sold over 900,000 copies in the UK to date and rights have been sold to 15 territories. Her fourth psychological thriller, THE ESCAPE, will be published in the UK by Avon HarperCollins on 23rd March 2017. CL Taylor’s first Young Adult thriller, THE TREATMENT, will be published by HarperCollins HQ in September 2017.

  C.L. Taylor was born in Worcester and spent her early years living in various army camps in the UK and Germany. She studied Psychology at the University of Northumbria and went on forge a career in instructional design and e-Learning. She now writes full time and lives in Bristol with her partner and young son.

• Mumsnet - https://www.mumsnet.com/books/bookclub/2016/book-giveaway-the-missing-by-c-l-taylor?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Tweet&utm_campaign=CL+Taylor+The+Missing+book+giveaway+thrille

  QUOTE:
  Don't follow trends. Instead write about a theme that you feel strongly about. I really believe that's the secret of a successful book. I write about my fears - about abusive ex-boyfriends returning (The Accident), friends turning on each other (The Lie), and losing a child (The Missing).
  Don't spend too much time writing and rewriting your first few chapters, keep writing until you reach the end. You may find that you have started the book in the wrong place and you need to cut your first few chapters.

  Book giveaway: The Missing by CL Taylor

  This giveaway is sponsored by Avon, HarperCollins
  Share this on Facebook

  You love your family. They make you feel safe. You trust them. Or do you…?
  When fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire, blames herself. She's not the only one. There isn't a single member of Billy's family that doesn't feel guilty. But the Wilkinsons are so used to keeping secrets from one another that it isn't until six months later, after an appeal for information goes horribly wrong, that the truth begins to surface.
  Claire is sure of two things – that Billy is still alive, and that her friends and family had nothing to do with his disappearance. A mother's instinct is never wrong. Or is it?
  Sometimes those closest to us are the ones with the most to hide.
  From CL Taylor, the Sunday Times Top Five bestselling author of The Accident and The Lie, comes a highly anticipated new psychological thriller.

  Meet the author: CL Taylor

  What are you reading now?
  I am currently reading a proof called The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena. It's about a couple who go for dinner with their neighbours next door. They take the baby monitor with them and check on their daughter every couple of hours. But when they return home, the baby is gone. It's a gripping read so far.

  What is the last book you bought someone as a gift?
  My partner is a huge science fiction fan and I bought him the hardback of The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. It had won an award and the blurb on the back sounded like the sort of thing he'd enjoy. My partner is really enjoying it, which is great.

  Is research a big part of your writing process?
  It's a huge part of my writing process. I spend nearly as much time researching a book as I do writing it, as it's really important to me that all the factual details are accurate. When I wrote The Missing I spoke to an ex-Detective Inspector and a psychologist. I also read a lot of non-fiction books about missing children and online accounts of people who had suffered from dissociative amnesia. I also visited Weston-super-Mare and various locations in Bristol to ensure the settings in the book were spot-on.

  Do you have any peculiar writing rituals or habits?
  I can't write with cold feet so I keep a pair of ski socks under my desk to put on before I start writing. I also light a scented candle (rose-scented for The Missing) and listen to a soundtrack. I can't write to lyrics as I find the words too distracting so it has to be instrumental music. Film soundtracks work well. I wrote The Missing to the music of Max Richter and The Lie to the soundtrack of In Time. I played it on a loop.

  What advice would you offer to aspiring writers?
  Don't follow trends. Instead write about a theme that you feel strongly about. I really believe that's the secret of a successful book. I write about my fears - about abusive ex-boyfriends returning (The Accident), friends turning on each other (The Lie), and losing a child (The Missing).
  Don't spend too much time writing and rewriting your first few chapters, keep writing until you reach the end. You may find that you have started the book in the wrong place and you need to cut your first few chapters.
  All writers reach points in their books when they become convinced that it's awful and they should write something else instead. Typically these points are at 20,000, 40,000 and 60,000 words. Keep writing through your doubts. You can fix anything that isn't working in the rewrite.
  Join a local or online writing group to get feedback on your book. Find a writing buddy or, if you can afford it, pay a freelance editor to look it over. Then, when it's as good as you can get it, buy a copy of The Writers and Artists' Yearbook and look through all the literary agent listings. Only approach the ones that represent your genre (it helps to look at their list of authors). Send them a covering letter, synopsis and the first three chapters (or whatever they ask for).

  Can you tell us about The Missing?
  If you love TV programmes like Broadchurch, or family dramas with a dark mystery at the heart, you should love The Missing. It's about an ordinary woman called Claire Wilkinson who is doing her best to hold her family together. When her fifteen-year-old son Billy disappears in the night, Claire is convinced that he is alive, and she refuses to believe that any of her friends or family had anything to do with his disappearance. But when a television appeal goes wrong, the stress becomes too much for Claire and she starts suffering from terrifying blackouts. Someone has been lying to Claire about their relationship with Billy... but who?

  About the Author
  CL Taylor lives in Bristol with her partner and son. She started writing fiction in 2005. Her short stories have won several awards, and have been published by a variety of literary and women’s magazines. Taylor's 2014 debut novel, The Accident, sold over 150,000 copies, making it one of The Bookseller’s top ten bestselling adult debut fiction titles for the year. She has sold over half a million copies in total to date.

• Random Things Through My Letterbox - http://randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/my-life-in-books-talking-to-author-c-l.html?m=1

  TUESDAY, 12 APRIL 2016

  MY LIFE IN BOOKS ~ TALKING TO AUTHOR C L TAYLOR

  My Life In Books is an occasional feature on Random Things Through My Letterbox
  I've invited authors to share with us a list of books that are special to them and have made a lasting impression on their life.

  I'm really pleased to welcome C L Taylor to Random Things today. Cally is the author of three psychological thrillers, published by Avon HarperCollins; The Accident, The Lie and The Missing.

  I've read and enjoyed all of her books, you can read my reviews by clicking on the title of the book; The Accident (April 2014), The Lie (May 2015) and The Missing (April 2016)

  My Life In Books ~ C L Taylor

  The Garden Gang by Jayne Fisher I loved this series of books and was hugely inspired by the fact that, at nine years old, Jayne Fisher was the youngest ever author to write for Ladybird books. Aged eight I sent Ladybird a book I had written. It was called "The Evil Weed" and it was about a group of flower friends and their nemesis 'Evil Weed'. I received my first rejection.

  The Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton I can't think about this series of books without feeling a bubble of excitement inside. They were so magical, so enchanting and if the children were ever in danger of being stuck in a world at the top of the tree my heart would beat faster and I'd feel genuine fear. I devoured everything I could by Enid Blyton. She was the reason I wanted to go to boarding school, and her books made me want to be an author too.

  Are You There God, It's Me Margaret by Judy Bloom If Enid Blyton held my hand through childhood then Judy Bloom guided me through adolescence. She taught me that the changes my body was undergoing were normal, that it was OK to feel different and that friendships could be difficult. And then, when I got hold of 'Forever', I learned about 'Ralph'!

  1984 by George Orwell Towards the end of my teens I became obsessed with dystopian science fiction and read everything and anything I could get my hands on. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury were other favourites. Looking back my interest in this genre coincides with a time in my life when I began clashing with the authority figures in my life - with my teachers, with my parents - and I felt an affinity with the characters whose lives were oppressed by powerful governments. When they fought back I was mentally right there with them.

  Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder If I spent my late teens wanting to fight against the world, I spent my twenties trying to understand it. I bought most of my books second hand and read a lot of literary fiction. I couldn't get enough of Milan Kundera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Herman Hesse. When I picked up Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder I had no idea what to expect and I was blown away. I'd never studied philosophy and the concepts and ideas I was introduced to made my head spin. I was living in London at the time and had taken the book to a park to read. I can still remember how I felt, lying on the grass in the sunshine, feeling like I had just read something truly life changing.

  Ralph's Party by Lisa Jewell This was the book that introduced me to the world of chick lit. I fell in love with Jewell's characters. They felt so familiar, so like me and my friends and, after a surfeit of heavy, literary novels it was like a breath of fresh air. In the back of the book Lisa wrote that she'd written the novel as a result of a bet with a friend on holiday. Lisa had been a PA in London before she wrote her first novel. I was an admin assistant. It was a revelation. You didn't have to know someone in publishing to become an author, normal people like me could do it!

  After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell I read this in my early thirties and it knocked me for six. I felt like I couldn't breathe when I finished it and I walked around in a daze for at least twenty four hours. I couldn't believe that a fictional story could pack such an emotional punch. It's a book I will never forget.

  Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson I listened to the audio book of this novel in the weeks and months after my son was born. For the first time in my life I didn't have the energy of the concentration span to read but SJ Watson's creepy and compelling tale kept me company and kept me sane as I pushed my son's pram round and round the streets in a desperate attempt to get him to sleep. Six months earlier I'd begun a creepy tale of my own, and SJ Watson's smash hit novel inspired me to continue writing it. A year later, my first psychological thriller, The Accident, was published.

  Fast forward four years. These days I read a mixture of proofs (mostly psychological thrillers and crime), picture books (to my son each night) and a variety of novels selected by my local book group. I still buy a lot of books. I just wish I had the time to read them all.

  C L Taylor ~ April 2016

• Female First - http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/books/the-lie-c-l-taylor-714043.html

  QUOTE:
  When I was very young I decided I wanted to become an author and wrote story after story after story, writing them out by hand, illustrating them and stapling them together. My mum kept them all in the attic and recently gave me a bundle of over 20 of my 'books'. When I was eight I sent one of them, 'The Flower Friends and the Evil Weed' to Penguin Publishers and received my very first rejection

  10 Things author C L Taylor wants you to know about her
  by Lucy Moore | 23 April 2015

  The Lie
  The Lie

  The most terrifying experience of my life was white-water rafting in Nepal. The dinghy overturned in the rapids and we were tipped into the water. Being heavier than my fellow rafters I dropped deeper into the river than everyone else and they stamped on my helmet as I tried to surface, not knowing I was still in the water below them. The lack of oxygen made me hallucinate and I saw a strange, ethereal figure under the water. You couldn't pay me to white-water raft again.

  When I was very young I decided I wanted to become an author and wrote story after story after story, writing them out by hand, illustrating them and stapling them together. My mum kept them all in the attic and recently gave me a bundle of over 20 of my 'books'. When I was eight I sent one of them, 'The Flower Friends and the Evil Weed' to Penguin Publishers and received my very first rejection. I've got that too.

  When I was eleven I became fascinated by hypnotism, took several books on the subject out of the library and attempted to hypnotise my friends (with their consent!). It never worked.

  I am scared of heights. The one, and only, time I went skiing aged 35 I cried when I had to get into a cable car alone. I waited until someone else came along, explained how scared I was and asked if I could get in the cable car with him. He talked to me all the way down, distracting me from the, quite frankly, terrifying view through the windows.

  I was a week away from taking my orange belt in kickboxing when I fell pregnant with my son. I still convince myself that, if I just lost a bit of weight and joined a new class, I could still become a ninja.

  I have watched every single series of Big Brother (the version with members of the public and the celebrity specials). I know most people think that's a shameful admission but I love watching the transition from 'we're all friends' to bitching, back-stabbing and clique forming. It's a fascinating insight into what happens when you throw a group of people with different goals and weaknesses into a crucible type situation. I tried to do something similar with my psychological thriller THE LIE.

  I have had the same recurring dream my whole life, about a box of bones in the attic of my house. No matter how fast I run, or where I travel to, it always catches up with me. It's such a powerful dream I always wake up convinced that I have murdered someone and it's only a matter of time until the police catch me. I recently used the dream as the basis of a short story.

  I'm an introvert and was very shy as a child. My mum said I'd grow out of the shyness and she was right (about that at least) but I still crave time alone and I get stressed if I'm around other people for too long.

  I'm not religious and don't believe in an afterlife but I do believe in ghosts. I've seen someone running up stairs when there was no one else in the house. I've woken up in the night to see a pulsing white light on a bedroom wall and felt a malevolence in the room, telling me to get out (I did). And my sister and I both, separately, confided to our mum that we sensed someone watching us when we were alone in one of the rooms of our gran's house.

  When I was in my twenties I went to on a meditation retreat with a friend. We were woken at 5am, were required to meditate half a dozen times, were fed meagre rations, weren't allowed to talk for the majority of the day but were encouraged to open up about past traumas in intense seminars that lasted until the early hours of the morning. If we tried to sit in the garden a read a member of staff would join us and try and convince us to attend more seminars after the retreat ended. We were so convinced we were being groomed to join a cult that we escaped early. The experienced partly inspired my psychological thriller, THE LIE.

  Read more: http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/books/the-lie-c-l-taylor-714043.html#ixzz4Xli5UkTb

• Woman - http://www.womanmagazine.co.uk/lifestyle/books/qa-writer-of-the-lie-c-l-taylor-30710

  Q&A: C L Taylor, writer of new thriller The Lie
  bcoyne April 21, 2015
  We chatted to the writer of thriller The Lie about what inspires her, her tips for aspiring writers and her next novel...

  TAGS:books
  image: http://keyassets-p2.timeincuk.net/wp/prod/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2015/04/thelie.jpg

  thelie

  Did you write stories when you were a child?

  I did, I wrote loads. My mum recently cleared out her attic and found a huge pile of books I’d written and illustrated as a child. When I was eight I sent one of them, ‘The Flower Friends and The Evil Weed’, to Penguin Publishers. They rejected it but they did send me a very nice letter with lots of useful advice like ‘Ask an adult to type it up for you’ and ‘Keep the illustrations on separate pages’. I didn’t submit another novel to a publisher for nearly 30 years but I was a little more successful second time around!

  What books and authors did you read when you were young?

  I was a huge Enid Blyton fan and read everything and anything she’d written. My favourite series was The Faraway Tree. The books were so wonderfully imaginative, the characters so eccentric and fun and there was real peril too when the world at the top of the tree started to turn and the children became worried they might be stuck up there forever.

  What helps you come up with plot lines? (e.g, hot bath, long walks)

  If I’m stuck with a plot I can almost guarantee that the answer will come to me when I’m lying in bed, just about to fall asleep. When that happens I have to sit up, put the light on and write it down because I know it’ll be gone by morning. Fortunately my partner is very understanding!

  What is your writing routine?

  Until this year I held down a full time job and wrote whenever and wherever I could. That became very tricky when my son came along three years ago and now I write full time. My son goes to nursery four days a week and that’s when I write. I drop him off at 8.30am then come home and watch an hour’s worth of TV while I catch up on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc) and I aim to be sitting in front of my laptop by 10am. I write for two hours then break for lunch. If I haven’t managed 1,500 words (the target I set myself every day) I’ll continue writing after lunch. At the moment I’m writing my third psychological thriller THE FORGETTING whilst promoting THE LIE which is out on 23rd April. That means I have to carve out some time in the afternoon to write short stories, articles and blog posts to tie in with the publication of THE LIE. If I can I try and stop writing at 3pm and do half an hour on my treadmill then I give the house a quick tidy up (quick being the operative word!) then catch up on my reading until 4.45pm when I go and collect my son from nursery.

  What tips would you give aspiring writers?

  Write the book you can’t stop thinking about, the one that keeps you awake at night. Readers will pick up on that passion and it will make the book come alive for them. If you try to write a psychological thriller because they’re popular or erotica because you think it will make you as rich as EL James you’ll be setting yourself up to fail because your heart won’t be in it. Agents and publishers can tell when someone is trying to get on a bandwagon. Start your own bandwagon – write the book you have to write. JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter when everyone believed that ‘boarding school books’ were out of vogue but she didn’t care. And look how that turned out!

  Do you have an idea for your next novel?

  Yes, I’m currently writing The Forgetting which is about a woman called Claire whose fourteen year old son disappeared in the middle of the night two years ago. The family do a press conference/appeal to mark the anniversary but it goes very wrong. The next thing Claire knows she’s waking up in a hotel room six hours later with no memory of how she got there or what happened to her.

  Do you have a favourite classic novel?

  My favourite classic novel is 1984 by George Orwell. I find the idea of a society that monitors your every move utterly fascinating and terrifying at the same time.

  What novels are you reading at the moment?

  I’m currently reading ‘The Outcast’ by Sadie Jones for my book club. I’m also lucky enough to be sent advanced copies of books by other authors and We Are All Made of Stars by Rowan Coleman and Disclaimer by Renee Knight on are on my ‘to be read’ pile just waiting for me to pick them up.

  What’s your favourite literary quote?

  It’s this one by Neil Gaiman: ‘Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that – but you are the only you.”

  Read more at http://www.womanmagazine.co.uk/lifestyle/books/qa-writer-of-the-lie-c-l-taylor-30710#smxhqgmLJsCCLHqu.99

• 5:2 Book Club - http://the5-2dietbook.com/april-52-book-club-interview-c-l-taylor

  C.L. Taylor talks to the 5:2 Book Club

  April 10, 2014
  Before I Wake CL Taylor US coverTheAccidentfinalcover
  It’s interview time – and this time we welcome C. L. Taylor, author of The Accident – also known as Before I Wake in the US and Canada. We’re reading this tense page-turner throughout April – you can join in the debate from the middle of the month or on the Facebook group any time – but first, read on to find out all about author Cally’s double life, how her deepest fears inspired the book – and her future plans.

  I was solely responsible for a little person and knew I had to protect him for the rest of his life. I needed to explore my darkest fears…

  First of all, Cally, tell us about the book.

  ‘The Accident’ is a psychological thriller about a woman called Susan whose teenaged daughter Charlotte steps in front of a bus and falls into a coma. Susan’s husband Brian thinks it was an accident but Sue isn’t convinced and when she finds an entry in Charlotte’s diary that says ‘keeping this secret is killing me’ she sets out to discover exactly what that secret is.

  It’s such a dramatic place to begin the story. Where did the idea come from?

  I was pregnant with my son when the idea first came to me. I wanted to write a novel about ‘keeping secrets’ but I had no idea who would be keeping the secrets or what those secrets would be. Then one day, when I was walking back from the supermarket – waddling along under the weight of my groceries – the first three lines popped into my head:

  “Coma. There’s something innocuous about the word, soothing almost in the way it conjures up the image of a dreamless sleep. Only Charlotte doesn’t look as though she’s sleeping to me.”

  Author Photo CL TaylorI heard Susan’s voice as clear as day and knew immediately that she was the mother of a teenaged girl who’d stepped in front of a bus. I kept repeating those three lines over and over again as I walked home so I wouldn’t forget them, then frantically scribbled them down. I kept writing and, less than two hours later, I had the first chapter.

  When my son was born I started thinking about how to progress the novel. I wondered how I’d react if my son was in danger from something very different from SIDS or choking or falling or any of the other ‘normal’ dangers. What if there was a person who meant him harm? Years before I met my current partner I was in an emotionally abusive relationship and, while I never really believed that my ex would come after my child, I channelled those fears into Susan who’d been through a much more horrific experience than me.

  You’ve had your romantic comedies – Heaven Can Wait and Home for Christmas – published all over the world and have lots of fans. So what made you want to change direction and write a thriller with a much darker theme? And how did you find it, writing in a genre with very different expectations and tone?

  I’ve always been lead by my heart and if my heart tells me ‘you need to write this novel’ I find it very hard to say no. When I wrote my romantic comedies I was single, lived alone and was searching for love but, after I had my child, my priorities changed. I was solely responsible for a little person and knew I had to protect him for the rest of his life. I could have written a romantic comedy about having a baby but I needed to explore my darkest fears and I could only do that by writing a psychological thriller.

  I found myself in a position where my heart was telling me to write ‘The Accident’ but my head was telling me that doing so might damage my career as an author. I asked my agent what she thought I should do and she told me to write it. When I’d finished it she told me it was the best book I’d ever written so I’m so glad I did.

  I didn’t really think about the expectations of psychological thriller readers. I didn’t get a book deal until after I’d written it so I just wrote it for me. I wrote the tale I felt needed telling. Getting the tone right wasn’t hard – I was severely sleep deprived, isolated (I was living in a city where I only knew my partner and one other person), and struggling with undiagnosed Post Natal Depression – so I found writing something dark came naturally.

  Without giving too much away, I found the relationships portrayed in the present day story and particularly the flashbacks, very compelling and also very raw. How did it feel to write that and how much research did you do?

  I found writing the flashbacks particularly hard to write as James was such a brutal character and it was horrible putting Sue through so much pain and hurt. I had to do it though as forty-three year old Susan has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and her past informs the decisions she makes in the present. In order to make James’s character as realistic as possible I did a lot of research into sociopaths and abusive relationships.

  southkenatnight
  The present day story was easier to write but it was still a challenge to maintain the balance between the reader believing in Sue and suspecting her of being an unreliable narrator. If the reader tipped too far one way the suspense would be lost.

  There’s a fantastic choice of ‘psychological suspense’ or ‘marriage thriller’ books available now, like Gone Girl and Before I Go to Sleep. I love them – but what do you think that says about what readers are looking for?

  I think there’s a huge appetite for page-turning mysteries that make your heart beat a little bit faster. I can’t speak for all readers of the genre but I love them because, with a toddler, a day job and a writing career, my attention span isn’t what it was so a book has to really grab me and pull me in for me to keep reading it and not put it down. I also think ‘marriage thrillers’ tap into our darkest fears – of our husbands or wives keeping secrets from us, our children in danger or being separated from those we love.

  darkalley2
  What books do you LOVE to read? What are you reading right now?

  I love all sorts of book. At the moment I’m devouring psychological thrillers by my contemporaries (I’m currently reading ‘Apple Tree Yard’ by Louise Doughty) but I’m also a huge sci fi fan, adore women’s fiction and love a good literary novel too. I’m a member of a book club who meet once a month for book talk and wine (mostly wine) and ‘The Night Circus’ by Erin Morgenstern is next on my ‘to be read’ pile.

  We love good food in the 5:2 Book Club – so what’s your favourite meal?

  That’s the toughest question so far in this interview! So hard to choose. I can’t resist a pork belly roast dinner so it would have to be that.

  What are you working on now?

  I’m currently working on my second psychological thriller, Last Girl Standing. It’s about four female friends, each with a dark secret, who go to a retreat in Nepal. Instead of finding peace and relaxation they find themselves in a deadly situation where they’re forced to turn against each other if they want to survive.

  2
  Thanks, Cally. You can read more about C.L Taylor on her website or via Twitter. And keep an eye out on here and the 5:2 Facebook group for an announcement about our next book, for May: it’s a fantastically written read that will have you absolutely gripped by the kind of dilemma that has no ‘right answer’…

QUOTE:
dark, intermittently gripping thriller

The Lie
Publishers Weekly.
263.17 (Apr. 25, 2016): p71.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Lie
C.L. Taylor. Sourcebooks Landmark, $14.99 trade paper (400p) ISBN 978­1­4926­0265­1
Veterinary aide Jane Hughes, the heroine of this dark, intermittently gripping thriller from British author Taylor (Before
I Wake), has created a new life in Wales after a disastrous trip to a spa in the mountains of Nepal cost two of her
friends their lives. Jane, whose birth name is Emma Woolfe, lives in terror that the past will catch up to her, as indeed it
does. Two voices share the narrative: Emma's from five years earlier and Jane's in the present. The spa slowly reveals
its evil heart, but the drama is undercut by the women's implausible behavior. They aren't at the spa more than a day
before the reader is tempted to shout, "Stay out of the cellar! Run!" But of course they don't. In the more suspenseful
present­day chapters, Jane clings to her fragile new existence as someone tries to destroy it. This otherwise grim tales
closes on a note of hope. Agent: Madeleine Milhurn, Madeleine Milburn Literary. June)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"The Lie." Publishers Weekly, 25 Apr. 2016, p. 71. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA450904551&it=r&asid=c2e2ec5aedf3ec4c10a5352d562e83f1.
Accessed 4 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A450904551
2/4/2017 General OneFile ­ Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1486256805676 2/3

QUOTE:
This psychological suspense is for those who read for plot and do
not mind seedier elements

Taylor, C.L. Before I Wake
Sonia Reppe
Library Journal.
139.10 (June 1, 2014): p92.
COPYRIGHT 2014 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Taylor, C.L. Before I Wake. Sourcebooks Landmark. Jun. 2014.336p. ISBN 9781402294181. pap. $14.99; ebk. ISBN
9781402294198. F
Suzy is obsessed with finding out the reason her daughter Charlotte, now lying in a coma, stepped in front of a bus.
Certain that it was not an accident, she tracks down the secret that Charlotte was hiding, finding clues in her diary,
phone, and computer. But are they hints or just coincidences? The reader soon finds out that Suzy suffers from posttraumatic
stress disorder and has had "episodes." Her harrowing past is revealed in flashbacks at the end of every
chapter, taking the reader to a time in her early twenties when she was trapped in an abusive relationship with a
sometimes charming but mainly controlling, explosively angry lover who eventually locked her in his house and
wouldn't let her out. These scenes are dramatic and read quickly­­and give the reader doubts about Suzy's fragile
psyche. The present­day scenes are not as intense, yet first­time author Taylor keeps the plot moving and knows how to
layer on tension and bring it to a climax. VERDICT This psychological suspense is for those who read for plot and do
not mind seedier elements.­­Sonia Reppe, Stickney­Forest View P.L., IL
Reppe, Sonia
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Reppe, Sonia. "Taylor, C.L. Before I Wake." Library Journal, 1 June 2014, p. 92. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA370032452&it=r&asid=5ce2360b108c4770bf28432b1e82f45b.
Accessed 4 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A370032452
2/4/2017 General OneFile ­ Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1486256805676 3/3

QUOTE:
gripping
This
psychological thriller will resonate long after the final page

Before I Wake
Publishers Weekly.
261.16 (Apr. 21, 2014): p59.
COPYRIGHT 2014 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Before I Wake
C.L. Banks. Sourcebooks Landmark, $14.99 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978­1­4022­9418­1
At the outset of British author Banks's gripping first novel, 15­year­old Charlotte Jackson has been lying in a coma in a
hospital after being hit by a London bus in an apparent suicide attempt six weeks earlier. Charlotte's 43­year­old
mother, Sue, looks for clues in her daughter's secret diary to the girl's rash actions. Charlotte's father, Brian, is sure that
the bus driver's claim that she deliberately stepped in front of the bus is a lie. When the suspicious Sue catches her
husband lying­­about his whereabouts on a morning when he should have been at his office, for instance­­he questions
her sanity. Sue soon realizes that she can trust no one. Flashbacks from two decades earlier chart the course of her
abusive relationship with ex­boyfriend James­­whose reappearance in the present ratchets up the suspense. This
psychological thriller will resonate long after the final page. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Before I Wake." Publishers Weekly, 21 Apr. 2014, p. 59. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA366618017&it=r&asid=754051872aabdc08299109fa9a91de2b.
Accessed 4 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A366618017

"The Lie." Publishers Weekly, 25 Apr. 2016, p. 71. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA450904551&it=r. Accessed 4 Feb. 2017. Reppe, Sonia. "Taylor, C.L. Before I Wake." Library Journal, 1 June 2014, p. 92. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA370032452&it=r. Accessed 4 Feb. 2017. "Before I Wake." Publishers Weekly, 21 Apr. 2014, p. 59. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA366618017&it=r. Accessed 4 Feb. 2017.

• The Bookworm's Fantasy
  https://thebookwormsfantasy.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/book-review-the-lie-by-c-l-taylor/
  Word count: 1207

  QUOTE:
  I absolutely loved every minute of ‘THE LIE’. The story was extremely well written and kept me hooked until the very end, and the twist at the end was just unbelievable

  Book Review: ‘THE LIE’ By C.L. Taylor
  July 24, 2016

  Read more
  BOOKS, FAVOURITES, READ, READING, REVIEW, THRILLER
  3 COMMENTS
  #Books #Reading #Review #Thriller #Suspense #Favourite
  Hello and welcome back to The Bookworm’s Fantasy! I hope you’re all doing well. This post is going to be slightly different to anything I’ve ever written before…it’s a book review! Hope you enjoy it, and happy reading 🙂

  ‘THE LIE’ by C.L. Taylor

  image1 (3)

  image2 (2)

  C.L. Taylor’s ‘THE LIE’ has been labelled as “Dark and creepy…a must-read” by The Sun. I stumbled upon this book via Pinterest, and it was described as a book similar to Paula Hawkins’ ‘The Girl On The Train’ (one of my favourites). ‘The Girl On The Train’ captivated me so much and pretty much introduced me to the whole Thriller/Suspense genre, which I wanted to explore in greater detail.

  ‘THE LIE’ was published in 2015 and is C.L. Taylor’s (Cally Taylor’s) second novel. Her first novel, ‘THE ACCIDENT’, did extremely well and received good reviews. ‘THE LIE’ received similar success upon publishing, reaching Number 5 on the Sunday Times paperback bestseller list. Some big names in writing also reviewed the book: Elizabeth Haynes referred to it as “Claustrophobic and tense, a thrill-ride of a novel that keeps you guessing”, Louise Douglas wrote “Compelling, addictive and wonderfully written” and Rowan Coleman stated “My heart was racing after I finished The Lie. Dark, creepy and full of twists. I loved it.”

  ‘THE LIE’ immediately hooked me. That’s no exaggeration. After just the first chapter, I was immediately addicted and knew that I’d love this book. The book opens in the present day, in which the protagonist Jane Hughes is working at an animal sanctuary and living in rural Wales. Jane receives a letter at work, stating “I know your name’s not really Jane Hughes.” From that point onwards, I knew there was much more to Jane than first meets the eye, and she obviously has a dark past which has come back to haunt her. To an outsider, Jane does seem to have the perfect life. But it was clear to me, from that first opening chapter, that Jane has some buried secrets which are about to become unearthed.

  I’m not going to go into too much detail about the plot here – I’d only spoil the book for you! But throughout the novel, suspense builds – sometimes creating such a sense of claustrophobia that I physically couldn’t put the book down. The narrative switches backwards and forwards in time throughout, from the present day, in which Jane is being stalked, to the past, i.e. Emma’s (Jane’s) relationships with her friends Al, Leanne and Daisy, and what happened on their disastrous trip to Nepal. The plot does become quite intricate in places and many new characters become involved, but I didn’t find myself getting lost or confused at all, which is definitely one of C.L. Taylor’s strengths. The constant time switches are extremely clever and well written, and as the past narrative motors on, so does the present narrative, until the two collide and the tension reaches an almighty climax in the final few chapters.

  Slowly but surely, the details about the eventful trip to Nepal are revealed. Quite early on (in fact, it’s even in the blurb), it is revealed that only two of the girls return from the trip, but the reader is constantly left wondering what happened. The four girls – Al, Leanne, Daisy and Emma – embark on the trip hoping that it will be the trip of a lifetime. They are all friends from university, who have been close for many years. But the cracks in their friendships are slowly revealed, and the cracks become larger and larger until friendships ultimately shatter. I particularly enjoyed reading about Emma and Daisy’s relationship. The girls appear to be in competition with each other and this is further heightened when they reach Nepal – fighting over men, alcohol and the other girls. Each of the four girls has their own backstories which are revealed, from abusive parents to abortions. Each character is explored in great detail, leaving me with the feeling that I personally knew all of the girls and all their ins and outs.

  The trip to Nepal seemed amazing at first, but C.L. Taylor constantly drops subtle hints that there is something or someone there who isn’t quite right. These hints are subtle at first but they build and build, until the reader is able to see what a corrupt place the girls have stumbled upon. Characters like Isaac and Frank, in particular, intrigued me from the very beginning. Every single character in this novel reveals their true colours, and the reader is given an important moral: sometimes the people you trust the most are those who end up betraying you. The events that happen in Nepal change every single one of the girls, either for better or for worse. It is a true exploration of how tragedies affect people.

  Betrayal and guilt are particularly prevalent themes in ‘THE LIE’. The fragility of the close friendships are illustrated, leaving me wondering whether some of my personal friendships would survive such atrocities. There were many issues explored throughout that I found myself relating to: alcohol, mental illness, abuse and relationships. I found myself unable to put it down; reading on the train, in bed, on the sofa…just everywhere, all of the time. As both the past and present narratives motored forwards, I found myself more and more engrossed in the story, often retreating to my bedroom in the middle of the day so I could read some more.

  The ending was just absolutely immense. Talk about a twist! I was totally shocked and blown away by what happened, and it really was the person I least expected who is found to be stalking Jane in the present day. Both the past and present narratives join in the final few chapters and reach an almighty crescendo, and I truly was surprised by the turn of events. I remember sitting down for a few moments after finishing the final page, and just thinking “wow”. The entire story reaches a troubling closure and the pieces of the puzzle finally come together.

  Overall, I absolutely loved every minute of ‘THE LIE’. The story was extremely well written and kept me hooked until the very end, and the twist at the end was just unbelievable. I urge every one of you to check it out, and I’ll definitely be reading C.L. Taylor’s other books in the near future! I loved it so much that this is even going on my “favourites” shelf of my bookshelf.

  5 stars

• CultureFly
  http://culturefly.co.uk/the-lie-c-l-taylor-review/
  Word count: 678

  QUOTE:
  The Lie is a disturbing tale that takes the idea of the idyllic destination we all dream of jetting off to and turns it into a nightmare.

  THE LIE – C. L. TAYLOR REVIEW
  NATALIE XENOSAPRIL 19, 2015
  BOOK REVIEWSBOOKS
  the-lie-c-l-taylorReleased: April 2015

  Following on from her debut novel, The Accident, C.L. Taylor has written her second psychological thriller about four girlfriends who travel to a magical retreat in South Asia, only to fall prey to a twisted cult.

  The story starts with an envelope, and in that envelope is a single piece of paper, folded into four, with one sentence written in the centre of the page: ‘I know your name’s not really Jane Hughes’. Our main character, Jane, is hiding her murky past; she’s moved where nobody knows her history – including her real name – and has shaped a safe and easy life for herself, which involves working at an animal sanctuary.

  Realising that someone is trying to draw her out, Jane is forced to remember the events that only brought two out of four girls home from their holiday of a lifetime. From here the story switches between the present, as Jane tries to figure out who’s trying to hurt her, and the past, where Emma (Jane’s real name) and her three friends travel to Nepal in search of rest and relaxation.

  The girls’ retreat to Ekanta Yatra looked wonderful on paper but the cracks in their friendship begin to form almost immediately. At best, the four girls share a strained relationship, with each playing their part to make the group work. Emma is the pushover, Daisy the attention seeker, Al just wants to wallow over her broken heart, while Lianne just wants to do whatever Daisy does. On the outside they’re a normal set of friends, but bubbling under the surface is resentment, anger and jealousy just waiting to be unleashed.

  Emma and her friends become entangled in a dangerous cult, which slowly turns them against each other. But the creepy mountain-top community ruins more than the girls’ already fractured friendship; it threatens to ruin the girls’ lives if they don’t escape. Al and Emma see the warning signs and want to leave, but Daisy and Leanne are adamant that they must stay and get the most out of their experience. If you’ve ever been on an all-girls holiday, you’ll have encountered the tug of war between different personalities and C.L. Taylor has captured this female power struggle perfectly.

  The Lie is a disturbing tale that takes the idea of the idyllic destination we all dream of jetting off to and turns it into a nightmare. The cult masquerading as a retreat is the obvious threat of the novel, but it is the girls themselves that pose the biggest danger to one another. The cult-leaders draw out the brittleness of the friendship and it’s both fascinating and frightening to see the story pan out as the girls pick their allegiances.

  Taylor cleverly reveals little pieces of the puzzle as the novel progresses, ensuring that the reader is kept in the dark until the very end. So after such an action packed and exciting novel, I was slightly disappointed that the finale – which pits Jane against her tormentor – feels a bit rushed. Such detail is given to the past and Jane’s struggle to keep it buried, that we’re barely given enough time to process who the antagonist is before the book ends.

  If anything, that criticism is a compliment to Taylor’s writing because I became so absorbed in The Lie that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the characters. When the final page turns, Ekanta Yakra is still shrouded in mystery, but what’s not is C. L. Taylor’s talent for writing a suspense-filled novel.

  ★★★★

  The Lie is published in paperback on April 23rd.

• Bingeing on Books
  https://bookbinges.blogspot.com/2015/04/book-review-lie-by-cl-taylor.html
  Word count: 760

  Thursday, April 23, 2015
  BOOK REVIEW: The Lie by C.L. Taylor

  This is a book review for The Lie by C.L. Taylor. I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

  Jane Hughes has a loving partner, a job in an animal sanctuary and a tiny cottage in rural Wales. She's happier than she's ever been but her life is a lie. Jane Hughes does not really exist. Five years earlier Jane and her then best friends went on holiday but what should have been the trip of a lifetime rapidly descended into a nightmare that claimed the lives of two of the women. Jane has tried to put her past behind her but someone knows the truth about what happened. Someone who won't stop until they've destroyed Jane and everything she loves.

  The book starts on a day when Jane receives an anonymous note from someone who says they know who Jane really is. The reader learns that Jane's real name is Emma and she is hiding from reporters after an incident in Nepal five years earlier. The narration goes back and forth between the present and the past. The chapters that take place five years prior slowly build suspense and lets the reader know, bit by bit, how a normal vacation with three other friends turned into a nightmare. I was way more interested in what happened with Emma and her friends than I was in Jane's life at the present. Jane in the here and now was kind of boring and she was with a boring guy. Her and Will had no chemistry. It is revealed they have been dating for a couple of months. Maybe it was because they didn't seem very serious or the fact that the book started after they started their relationship, but I wasn't very invested in it.

  The story of the vacation was far more intriguing, The girls go on a trip to parts of Nepal and they wind up at a commune on top of a mountain that is not what it seems. It is revealed that of the four women, only two came back down the mountain. I kept turning the pages because I was dying to know what happened at the top of that mountain. In that respect, it was extremely suspenseful . It is at the commune that the girls' friendships unravel. Being in a place with no way to contact the outside world at all brought a lot of resentments and jealousies to the surface. It did appear as if the people at the commune were taking advantage of that to turn the girls against each other. I am not giving away any spoilers here because this plot point is revealed within the first chapter or two: the commune in Nepal is actually a cult. I am so intrigued by cults and what it takes for people to fall for the cult leader. In this case, the leader isolated everyone and made them feel so good that they never wanted to leave. They researched the people coming so they could know all of their secrets and all of their weaknesses. It was creepy. People even burned their passports, although it is not clear whether some people actually want to do that or not. My issue with the cult though is that it was never fully explained how the cult began or how it turned into what it was. Throughout the girls' time there, you can see the violence that lurks beneath all the calm and peace. One of the members did indicate that it didn't start out like that. So I was curious how it started and how it evolved.

  In the present, Jane is trying to figure out who knows who she really is but she doesn't try very hard. She even dismisses most of it as no big deal. Because she doesn't care very much, it was hard for me to. Once a few more details about the experience in Nepal were revealed, I had a good feeling about who was stalking Jane and I was right. The ending though, was a bit anticlimactic for me. There was all this suspense in the last couple of chapters when the stalking did intensify. But there was no real confrontation with the guilty party and then it was just over. This is a psychological thriller that does have its suspenseful moments, but no big finish.

  Buy/Borrow/Skip: Borrow.

• Nerd Problems
  http://www.nerdprobs.com/books/book-review-the-lie-by-c-l-taylor/
  Word count: 563

  QUOTE:
  Taylor is queen of keeping you on the edge of your seat. Having read other work of hers I knew she was good. This showed me she is great. Every time I thought things were calming down and all would be well, there was another jaw-dropping moment that made me go on

  BOOK REVIEW: “The Lie” by C.L. Taylor
  Kristin Downer April 8, 2015 Blog, Book Reviews, Books Leave a comment

  Title: The Lie
  Editor: C.L. Taylor
  Publication: April 23, 2015
  Publisher: HarperCollins UK/Avon
  Source: NetGalley
  Genre Category: Mystery & Thriller

  23465642

  SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
  I know your name’s not really Jane Hughes . . .

  Jane Hughes has a loving partner, a job in an animal sanctuary and a tiny cottage in rural Wales. She’s happier than she’s ever been but her life is a lie. Jane Hughes does not really exist.

  Five years earlier Jane and her then best friends went on holiday but what should have been the trip of a lifetime rapidly descended into a nightmare that claimed the lives of two of the women.

  Jane has tried to put the past behind her but someone knows the truth about what happened. Someone who won’t stop until they’ve destroyed Jane and everything she loves . . .

  REVIEW:
  Psychological thrillers are everywhere. Everyone wants to be part of that elite group of thrill writers that everyone is talking about. C.L. Taylor is definitely at that status. ‘The Lie’ is the perfect example of her hard earned place at the top. A positively frightening look at a vacation gone horribly wrong, “The Lie” drew me in from the very first page and kept me eagerly pushing forward until the last paragraph.

  ‘The Lie’ follows a group of four friends who go out on the “adventure of a lifetime”… a trip to Nepal where they believe they are going to a relaxing retreat to wash away all their home problems and rejuvenate by the pool with some beers. The story takes a sick turn when things are not what they expected, friendships are torn apart, and surprises lurk around every corner.

  Taylor is queen of keeping you on the edge of your seat. Having read other work of hers I knew she was good. This showed me she is great. Every time I thought things were calming down and all would be well, there was another jaw-dropping moment that made me go on. Imagine at the end of your night and you are reading a few chapters before bed and you tell yourself “just one more”. That was me, but five chapters before. I couldn’t put it down. Exciting, secretive, and nerve-wracking best describes ‘The Lie’.

  The story jumps back and forth between current time and five years prior, but not in a way that would typically upset me. Sometimes jumping stories confuse me or frustrate me, but this one showed the perfect lapse of how things from your past are not always kept in the past. Decisions made can come back to haunt you. C.L. Taylor did an incredible job with this book and I am now anxiously awaiting the next one. A well earned five stars.

• Between the Pages
  http://between-thepages.blogspot.com/2015/05/review-of-lie-by-cl-taylor.html
  Word count: 709

  FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2015
  Review of The Lie by C.L. Taylor

  Title/Author: The Lie by C.L. Taylor
  Publisher/Date published: HarperCollins, April 23rd 2015
  How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley
  Buy this book at: The Book Depository

  Goodreads summary: Best friends are there for each other through thick and thin. You trust them with your life. At least that’s what Emma, Daisy, Leanne and Al think. But all that changes when they embark on a trip of a lifetime together. When they return home, only two of them are left alive and the group has been torn apart by lies and deception.

  Many years later, when the dust has settled and life has moved on, one girl receives a threatening letter. Someone knows the truth about what happened on that holiday and will stop at nothing to expose it...

  OMG, this book was SCARY! AND CRAZY! SO much crazy! I cannot even.

  I'm fascinated by cults/sects/whatever you want to call them that basically is a group of people who do their own thing and some of them do batcrap crazy things. Not all obviously, but those are the ones you hear about on the news or that make the best stories. Obviously. I mean, there's all this taboo about them and well, I just always wonder where this view of the world that they had went wrong. I mean, they probably started out wanting to do good and live a better life, right? But hearing about how things go wrong in such a group always gives me the creeps and also makes me curious. This book was sorta like watching a trainwreck happen, you know you shouldn't be this fascinated by it, but you can't look away.

  Anyway. Our main character Emma was ok, she's flawed and probably because of this, I could relate to her. I could see how she got into this mess and how when you're in the middle of something like this, you can't immediately see what you should do about it. Everything was spinning out of control for her fast and I don't know how I would have handled that. I mean, you think you're going on the holiday of a lifetime with your friends and then you end up in the middle of something that ends with the death of two of said friends? Wow. That is more than you should have to handle.

  I could also relate to her friend situation: in their group of four, Emma is only really friends with Daisy and Al, and she and Leanne tolerate each other for the sake of the other two, but aren't really friends. In the end, I'm not sure any of them were really friends, except for Emma and Al. It pains me to say that Daisy isn't a very nice person. She's petty and jealous and has pulled stuff that a true friend wouldn't in my opinion. And Leanne is just a crazy bitch. I'm sorry, I can't make it any prettier than it is, I truly despised her, and it got worse the further I got into the novel.

  But OMG, this situation they end up in and the people! It changes all of the four girls and they really aren't all that safe there. I was reading it and going:

  But more like EVERYBODY BE CRAZY!

  So The Lie switches back and forth between present time, which is 5 years after the events on holiday and the actual happenings on said holiday and I liked it, but at the same time I wished someone would just hurry up and tell me what happened because the suspense!! Which means it's actually pretty well done by the author because holy wow, it was a 400 page novel with teeny tiny script on my e-reader and I still REALLY wanted to keep reading it.

  If you're looking for a read that is scary and crazy and which will keep you enticed for the whole of it, The Lie is definitely for you.

  My rating: 4 stars

• That's What She Read
  http://www.thatswhatsheread.net/2014/06/book-review-before-i-wake-by-c-l-taylor/
  Word count: 699

  Book Review – Before I Wake by C. L. Taylor

  Written on June 3, 2014 by Michelle in Books Read in 2014, T Author
  Title: Before I WakeBook Review Image
  Author: C. L. Taylor
  ISBN: 9781402294181
  No. of Pages: 336
  Genre: Suspense
  Origins: Sourcebooks Landmark
  Release Date: 1 June 2014
  Bottom Line: Well-written but ultimately too similar to other novels to be memorable

  Before I Wake by C. L. TaylorSynopsis:

  “To the outside world, Susan Jackson has it all—a loving family, successful husband, and beautiful home—but when Charlotte, her teenage daughter, steps in front of a bus and ends up in a coma, she is forced to question all of it.

  Desperate to find out what caused Charlotte’s suicide attempt, she discovers a horrifying entry in her diary: “keeping this secret is killing me.” As Sue spins in desperate circles, she finds herself immersed in a dark world she didn’t know existed—and the closer she comes to the truth, the more dangerous things become.

  Can she wake up from the nightmares that haunt her and save her daughter, or will Charlotte’s secret destroy them both?”

  Thoughts: Before I Wake may seem to be about Charlotte’s suicide attempt and the questions it raises. In actuality, this is very much her mother’s story. Sue may be trying to get answers about the motive behind Charlotte’s actions, but this crisis forces her to come to terms with a previous trauma in her life. This trauma is one that continues to affect her life even twenty years after the fact as well as her on-going reactions to reminders of this trauma. As a result, Sue becomes both a sympathetic figure and a pathetic one. Readers will grieve alongside her as she not-so-patiently waits for her daughter to wake up from her coma, but they will also suspect her inability and/or unwillingness to seek more help for her acknowledged PTSD. She plays the martyr with a bit too much enthusiasm for comfort, and as such, her quest for answers seems like another ploy for attention rather than for desperately-needed closure.

  Readers will recognize certain elements within Before I Wake. In fact, the story follows a similar situation to that of last year’s Reconstructing Amelia in that the mother must reconstruct her daughter’s mysterious life using nothing but diary entries and interviews of her daughter’s friends and acquaintances. Along the same lines, Sue’s questionable rationality mirrors the current publishing trend of psychologically unstable protagonists. The familiarity these elements bring to the novel does the story a disservice because readers will be unlikely to pay attention to Ms. Taylor’s stylized writing style and the fascinating tidbits she leaves as breadcrumbs for careful readers. For, the book is very well-written. Ms. Taylor creates an emotionally charged story that is aptly erratic given the various origins of Sue’s distress. She makes it easy for readers to slip into Sue’s shoes and empathize with her struggles to find answers and support her family even while considering her weak for not seeking help when it is offered to her. Unfortunately, all of her efforts remain hidden under the awareness readers will have about those similarities to other recent popular novels.

  Before I Wake follows a long line of novels with unreliable narrators and the tangential questionable story-telling and motivation. It neither sets itself apart from the crowd nor blends in completely with its competitors. The narrative is taut, and the emotional complexity of the story is equally impressive. The question regarding Sue’s untrustworthy nature as storyteller remains ongoing until the very end, keeping the tension high and readers guessing. For all that though, there is a redundancy to the story that makes it easy to discard and even easier to ignore any nuanced clues. It draws on too many features from other stories to be truly original, while the emotional elements of the story are a bit manipulative. Before I Wake is an average mystery that ends up being a decent but forgettable distraction.

• Random Book Muses
  https://randombookmuses.com/2016/07/07/review-before-i-wake-by-c-l-taylor/
  Word count: 239

  QUOTE:
  This is an interesting read. It presents dual narratives and the characters are given a good amount of room to breathe and develop.

  Jul 7

  Review ~ Before I Wake by C.L Taylor.
  C.L Taylor is perhaps better known in the U.K, but I believe she is going to be a popular author over this side of the pond as well. Befor I Wake, or The Accident, as it’s called in the U.K., focuses on a 17 year old girl who is in a coma after an apparent suicide attempt. Charlotte’s family are trying to come to terms with not only the medical issues, but also the fact that Charlotte felt the need to jump out in front of a bus.

  However, it’s when Charlotte’s mum, Susan, finds her daughter’s diary with “I can’t keep this secret much longer” written down, that the real mystery begins.

  Was Charlotte’s accident an act of malice, or a tragic case of not having the will to live?

  This is an interesting read. It presents dual narratives and the characters are given a good amount of room to breathe and develop.

  A quick and simple read, this is great for those summer days sitting in your garden with a nice iced drink!

  Enjoy!

  Pegasus.

• Nerd Problems
  http://www.nerdprobs.com/feature/book-review-before-i-wake-by-c-l-taylor/
  Word count: 531

  Book Review: “Before I Wake” by C.L. Taylor
  Kristin Downer June 11, 2014 Blog, Book Reviews Leave a comment

  ‘Before I Wake’ is the story of a woman who has gone through many trials and tribulations and has made it through, only to be knocked down yet again. Let me set the scene for you. Sue is a 40-something mother of two. Her fifteen year old daughter Charlotte lies in the hospital in a coma after an apparent suicide attempt by bus. That’s right… she stepped in front of a bus. As Sue’s husband Brian likes to believe that it was just a horrific accident, Sue knows better. She has found her daughters diary that hints at a secret she is tired of keeping and has now tried to end the suffering. The question is… what secret and why is it so bad to warrant wanting death?

  When reading this book you get flash backs that give you a glimpse into Sue’s past and why she is a bit strung out and a bit over emotional and paranoid. An early life mental breakdown a few years before has her family on edge when she starts acting erratically trying to figure out what happened to her daughter. Can you blame them? She is seeing things nobody else has witnessed, and has a history of paranoia and delusions. Even her stepson Oli is concerned about her. But Sue knows she isn’t crazy and goes on a man hunt to find out why her daughter did what she did in hopes to help her wake up from the coma. And to find out her past may have come back to haunt her and her family.

  I don’t want to give too much away because it would spoil it for those who are reading this and haven’t had a chance to finish the book, but I will say this book was incredibly hard to put down. C.L. Taylor figured out a way to peak your interest within the first couple pages of the book and maintained that grasp until the very end. Throughout the book I felt bad for Sue and the flashbacks were somewhat physically sickening. These revelations from her past bring clarity to her present. I’d be paranoid too. But then I found myself siding with the husband and thinking maybe she really was crazy; even imagining it all. My emotions were all over the place while reading this book and that is definitely the signs of good writing!

  Having never picked up a C.L. Taylor book before, this book has definitely made me a fan. I’ll be scouting for the next release. Taylor has a way to draw you in, put you in emotional overload, and keeps you guessing until the last few pages. Just when you think you have it figured out you are wrong. Taylor definitely has the suspense factor down! If I had more thumbs I’d give her more, but for now it is a definite two thumbs up to “Before I Wake”. Five out of Five stars!

• This Crime Book
  http://www.thiscrimebook.com/2016/07/09/review-the-missing-by-c-l-taylor/
  Word count: 844

  QUOTE:
  This absolutely brilliant page-turner will drive you nuts (in the best way possible) as you journey with Claire to find her ‘little’ Billy.

  REVIEW: THE MISSING BY C. L. TAYLOR

  PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER 09/07/2016
  The Missing by C. L. Taylor
  Here comes a great psychological thriller where a family’s world has been turned upside-down when the youngest member of the family disappears one night. C. L. Taylor’s The Missing is the kind of book that makes you think you’ve got it all figured out whereby you’re 100% convinced that it’s so-and-so. (Sigh!) Wait. I’m getting side-tracked…before I go any further, let me tell you what it’s about.

  Synopsis:

  When fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire blames herself. She’s not the only one. There isn’t a single member of Billy’s family that doesn’t feel guilty.
  But the Wilkinsons are so used to keeping secrets from one another that it isn’t until six months later, when an appeal for information goes horribly wrong, that the terrifying truth begins to surface.
  Claire is sure of two things: Billy is still alive and her family had nothing to do with his disappearance.
  What I say:

  Having read Taylor’s The Accident and being completely bowled over by it, I knew I was in for a treat with The Missing. This book certainly got my attention from the first page to the very last – if you’re after a quick and exciting read, this one’s for you.

  This domestic psychological thriller is the type of book I love reading, where you begin to suspect each and every character you come in contact with simply because their actions don’t seem to match up with their level of guilt. Surely if one character’s acting too guilty, they had to have been the cause, right? Well, ha ha, you’ll have to find out for yourselves when you read it.

  We join the Wilkinsons, that’s Claire (Mum), Mark (Dad), Jake (son) and Kira (Jake’s girlfriend) before they’re about to do their second television appeal pleading with anyone to come forward with information about the whereabouts of their son, Billy. You can tell straightaway that this family are at their wits end and want some answers. However, the way each member of the family handles grief is different, remarkably different and a little destructive.

  Claire, the main character, is trying her best to search for her son, oftentimes choosing to follow her own leads. As far as she’s concerned, a mother’s instincts are always right and she just knows her Billy is alive. But then Claire’s health (and sanity) begin to take a turn for the worse – Taylor throws a spanner in the works at this point and we’re not really sure if Claire’s as reliable as she likes to believe she is.

  I found myself empathising with the anxiety-ridden Claire who’s struggling to keep it all together as she searches for her son. I was intrigued by her certainty of Billy’s livelihood as well as her inability to keep her family on the same page. Could there be something else going on in the Wilkinson household that she can’t quite see or, rather, chooses to ignore? Jake and Mark are constantly fighting with each other and it never ends well. It’s plain to see that both characters are hurting, but surely something like this would bring them closer together…unless there’s something more sinister going on?

  As Claire takes on the responsibility of investigator, mum, wife and friend, the cracks are beginning to show. After a period of time, the only thing she’s certain of is that she’s not certain of anything. Her family are keeping secrets from her and she can’t understand the reasons why. And whilst her health and marriage deteriorates, her quest for the truth, whether good or bad, takes top priority. Will she ever find Billy? Who’s really to blame? Could it be her fault?

  This absolutely brilliant page-turner will drive you nuts (in the best way possible) as you journey with Claire to find her ‘little’ Billy. Suspicions fly all over the place as unfair (or fair) accusations about the real reason why Billy went missing lie with different members of the family, not to mention a sleazy outsider.

  I enjoyed every moment of this book – every character stood off the page for me. Taylor’s mastered the art of stringing you along and then doing a big reveal that’s jaw-droppingly unexpected – it’s a great read.

  Thanks to the wonderful people at @CrimeFix who are ‘the criminal mind of @AvonBooksUK‘ for sending me my copy of The Missing – I’m so grateful!

• Carol Naylor Blog
  http://carolnaylor.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-missing-by-cltaylor.html
  Word count: 1067

  QUOTE:
  Be prepared to be shaken out of your comfort zone. Fractured families, a spectrum of emotions; fear, anger, guilt and loss. This is serious stuff and this is what Cally Taylor excels at. The plot is chilling and the truth devastating and the characters are believable throughout.

  Thursday, 29 September 2016
  The Missing by C.L.Taylor.
  The Missing by C.L.Taylor.

  "He looks so broken, so contrite, so deeply ashamed that my heart twists in my chest. One of my sons is missing and the other is falling apart in front of my eyes. I have never felt so powerless or so impotent in my life."

  Be prepared to be shaken out of your comfort zone. Fractured families, a spectrum of emotions; fear, anger, guilt and loss. This is serious stuff and this is what Cally Taylor excels at. The plot is chilling and the truth devastating and the characters are believable throughout. No matter how well we think we know our family and friends that can change with discoveries of mind-numbing secrets that could explode in our faces, leaving us scarred for life. Ask Claire Wilkinson.

  Claire Wilkinson is the main character, narrating most of the account. Taylor informs us: "I wanted to explore what would happen when Claire, a control freak by nature, realized she no longer knew the son she'd nurtured for so many years. I wanted to see how she'd react when her family began to fall apart." It sounds cruel especially when we understand what she has suffered and once the secrets unravel, we see the family disintegrate before her eyes. Taylor presents a parent's worst nightmare-the disappearance of a child with all the guilt that causes a vulnerable family to fall apart, to make gripping reading.

  We have a two-time frame, going back a year interspersed with the present. The beginning has a contemporary style using Whatsapp conversation or text talk between two anonymous characters going back to the 5th February 2015. Jackdaw44 and ICE9. The former sets a maudlin tone: "Would you rather drown in a river or burn in a fire?" I know what my answer would be. Neither. To be asked if you would cry at his funeral seems rather morbid doesn't it? An intriguing start. This text talk continues throughout to show disillusioned people, grossly unhappy with their lives. It's up to you to work out the connection with the main plot.

  It is now the 5th August 2015 and we are made aware of the second tv appeal for the Wilkinsons, Claire and husband, Mark. The golden boy, Jake, 19 still lives at home with his parents and girlfriend Kira who moved into the family home 18 months ago to escape from her own fractured family: an alcoholic mother who was physically and verbally abusive and living with the memory of a father who committed suicide. This appeal is more low-key after Billy's disappearance six months earlier. It takes place in a small conference room in the basement of the town hall with just half a dozen journalists and photographers present. D.S.Forbes has advised Claire to make the appeal because the public tend to respond more favourably to a mother's loss.

  We soon learn that her youngest son, Billy, 15, skived school and was proving to be rebellious and challenging at home as well as at school. He was a master of graffiti leaving his trademark DStroy wherever he went. He craved infamy.
  "His disappearance has left a hole in our family that nothing can fill."
  Claire is hopeful at the start of the novel that Billy will return and that everything can go back to being normal. Too much wishful thinking. However, the appeal did not turn out well and there were negative comments in the press, disturbing and alarming: "They seem like a perfectly normal family but you have to wonder whether someone knows more about Billy's disappearance than they're letting on."

  For Claire, the stress and guilt prove too much and she suffers frequent blackouts, waking up in strange places creating confusion and anxiety. Taylor's interest in abnormal psychology is explored here. She calls them fugues or dissociative amnesia, dark and foggy thoughts. She finds herself in Weston Super Mare during one of these blackouts, a lost and frightened soul. As she says: "There's a black void where my memory should be."

  Despondent. Impotent. Claire singlehandedly goes off searching for her son, frequenting dangerous places with drop-outs:"I can't just sit at home doing nothing. I've started to see him everywhere I go." Images of a body slumped on the bonnet of her car, a thumping sound as it hits the car, a loud crack and then being showered with glass. Claire hallucinates as she sees his lifeless body believing that she might have killed him. D.S.Forbes drops a bombshell one day; Jason Davies has confessed to abducting Billy and murdering him. He confessed this to his cellmate. It is now left for the police to investigate and discover the truth. A devastating setback naturally.

  Claire agrees to see a psychotherapist to deal with her fugues. She admits to Sonia that her worst fear is that someone she knows hurt Billy. Her main suspect is her husband Mark and finding out some of his dark secrets seems to justify her suspicions. Would Mark hurt even kill Billy, his own son? Finding a family photo album hidden in the garage with Mark's face blacked out disturbed her. Who would do this? Who hated Mark? Had Billy done this? We discover more disturbing revelations from Jake culminating in a disturbing text that Claire discovers accidentally:"I know you were sleeping with Billy. I know you were responsible for his disappearance. And so do the police." The text is sent, but who is the recipient and will Claire discover what happened to her son? Is Billy alive or has he been murdered?

  "No-one does broken families and friendships like Cally Taylor and "The Missing" is no exception." Sarah Hilary.

  REVIEW it by Carol Naylor.

  Publisher: Avon-a division of Harper Collins. ISBN:13: 978-0-00-811805-1.

  Copyright 2016. Permission must be obtained from the author before any of this article review is reproduced.

• Book Addict Shaun
  http://www.bookaddictshaun.co.uk/2016/04/review-missing-by-cl-taylor.html
  Word count: 696

  Review: The Missing by C.L. Taylor
  SUNDAY, 10 APRIL 2016

  Title: The Missing
  Author: C.L. Taylor
  Publisher: Avon
  Publication Date: 7th April 2016
  Pages: 400
  Source: Review Copy
  Rating: 4/5
  Purchase: Amazon
  You love your family. They make you feel safe. You trust them.

  But should you…?

  When fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire, blames herself. She's not the only one. There isn't a single member of Billy's family that doesn't feel guilty. But the Wilkinson’s are so used to keeping secrets from one another that it isn't until six months later, after an appeal for information goes horribly wrong, that the truth begins to surface.

  Claire is sure of two things – that Billy is still alive and that her friends and family had nothing to do with his disappearance.

  A mother's instinct is never wrong. Or is it?

  Sometimes those closest to us are the ones with the most to hide…

  C.L. Taylor's The Accident was one of the very first books I read after starting the blog and it's almost a year since I reviewed her second novel, The Lie, after receiving a copy of the book in an incredibly inventive way (take a look here if you missed it first time round). I was very excited about reading The Missing because of how much I have enjoyed Cally's previous two books and I began the book with an expectation that it would carry on the standard of those two novels.

  I have read a number of novels these past two years blogging which centre around missing children, but The Missing doesn't focus on another missing infant but instead on fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson. Still a child, but old enough that the story can explore themes and subjects that don't feel repetitive. Billy Wilkinson went missing in the middle of the night, and his whole family carry their own guilt about what could possibly have led to his disappearance, including his mother Claire who blames herself. But, of two things she is sure and they are that Billy is still alive, and that her friends and family had nothing to do with his disappearance. Are either of those assumptions - her 'mother's instinct' - correct? Well, Cally Taylor takes the reader on a quite a journey to find out.

  In a lot of missing person cases suspicion eventually falls onto the family members themselves and that's pretty much how I went into this story from the off. I began reading and immediately tried to distance myself from some of the characters because I didn't know whether or not to trust them, especially as we learn more about their actions leading up to Billy's disappearance, and even more so with some of their behaviour in the present day. Whilst Cally creates a very believable picture of a family struggling to cope with the disappearance of someone they love, there's still that undercurrent of mystery and suspense the whole way through the novel and so that's why I continued to be wary of each and every character.

  Every single time I read a book like this, I look back on it after the event and marvel at how the author spun such a tale. I enjoy reading about an author's writing process for a novel and so I would love to know how Cally planned and eventually wrote this story. When the red herrings and twists came about in her mind, and of course whether the final resolution would always have been the same. Whilst reading I came up with a couple of scenarios in my head of what might have happened to Billy and despite the fact that the ending probably was the best one that could have been written for the story, I do still think there's a number of different ways things could have played out. C.L. Taylor goes from strength to strength with The Missing and I have no hesitation in recommending this novel.

• Madeline Dyer Blog
  http://madelinedyer.co.uk/review-the-missing-by-c-l-taylor/
  Word count: 373

  Review: THE MISSING by C.L. Taylor

  Posted in Reviews
  June 17, 2016
  The MissingThe Missing by C.L. Taylor
  My rating: 5 of 5 stars

  About The Missing (description from goodreads)

  You love your family. They make you feel safe. You trust them. Or do you…?

  When fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire Wilkinson, blames herself. She’s not the only one. There isn’t a single member of Billy’s family that doesn’t feel guilty. But the Wilkinson’s are so used to keeping secrets from one another that it isn’t until six months later, after an appeal for information goes horribly wrong, that the truth begins to surface.

  Claire is sure of two things – that Billy is still alive and that her friends and family had nothing to do with his disappearance.

  A mother’s instinct is never wrong. Or is it?

  My review:

  This was the first C.L. Taylor book I read and wow! THE MISSING is amazing. It has everything I want in a psychological thriller: strong characters, a fast pace, a tightly woven plot, and tonnes of secrets.

  As a protagonist, Claire is great. She ticks all the boxes–and I love that she has flaws. She’s realistic. The supporting characters were equally good. And Kira, I loved her.

  Now let’s talk about the twists. They were fabulous. They made sense, they were foreshadowed to an extent, and I did NOT see any of them coming.

  I read this novel super quickly too, in less than 24 hours. If you’re looking for a psychological thriller that keeps ‘the family’ at its heart–and works to show the true dysfunction–then yes, read this book. Read it now.

  Shortly after reading this, I was delighted to find that I already had a copy of Taylor’s THE LIE and will definitely get hold of THE ACCIDENT too. That just shows how good THE MISSING is. C.L. Taylor is now on my list of ‘authors I’ll read anything from’.

• Compelling Reads
  http://compellingreads.co.uk/blog-tour-missing-c-l-taylor/
  Word count: 516

  QUOTE:
  With brilliant writing from CL Taylor again you can’t help but be gripped from the very beginning of this book, the twists and turns means you never lose interest and are thoroughly invested in learning the truth that lurks somewhere within the family.

  BLOG TOUR – The Missing – C L Taylor
  by Amy | Apr 28, 2016 | Blog Tour's, Book reviews, Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
  We’ve been waiting for this book from the moment we finished the last CL Taylor book and were jumping up & down with excitement when we finally landed a copy to review (thanks to our friends at Netgalley & Avon).
  This is CL Taylor’s third psychological thriller and this time we’re thrown into the heart of a family 6 months after their youngest son has gone missing. On the day of the 6 month media appeal it’s clear how much the family are struggling with the situation, their remaining son is drunk, the father Mark has taken to fixing the lawn mower in his best suit and the mum Claire is trying to keep it together, desperate in the belief that they will find their son Billy.
  When the media appeal goes wrong thanks to drunk entry of their oldest son it begins a downward spiral for Claire. Event seem to trigger amnesic episodes where she wakes in a strange place unable to remember how she got there or why she is there, but it all seems connected to finding Billy. In her search she makes surprising discoveries about her family and they threaten to snap the threads holding them together.
  Can Claire unravel the threads to learn the truth of what happened to her son & can she trust those closest to her?
  Each character is dealing with the situation in their own way and the novel also has sub plots shedding light on the minor characters as well, i particularly liked the story about Mark’s step brother and their relationship which gave light on why Mark acted the way he did now. Liz the neighbour was also a bit of fun which broke up what could have been an all dark plot.
  With brilliant writing from CL Taylor again you can’t help but be gripped from the very beginning of this book, the twists and turns means you never lose interest and are thoroughly invested in learning the truth that lurks somewhere within the family.
  I held my breath reading my book it was that tense! Fans of Broadchurch will love this book, it has the same suspense and twists that mean you spend every page trying to work out what’s going to happen next and whether you can trust any of the characters.
  I thought that I’d worked out the truth and was feeling quietly confident that I knew what was coming early on in the book but was blindsided by the outcome!
  Another great novel from CL Taylor who is definitely destined to be one of the best authors of psychological thrillers

• Raven Crime Reads
  https://ravencrimereads.wordpress.com/2014/04/30/c-l-taylor-the-accident/
  Word count: 850

  QUOTE:
  perfect for fans of the psychological thriller.

  C. L. Taylor- The Accident
  callySue Jackson has the perfect family but when her teenage daughter Charlotte deliberately steps in front of a bus and ends up in a coma she is forced to face a very dark reality. Retracing her daughter’s steps she finds a horrifying entry in Charlotte’s diary and is forced to head deep into Charlotte’s private world. In her hunt for evidence, Sue begins to mistrust everyone close to her daughter and she’s forced to look further, into the depths of her own past. Sue will do anything to protect her daughter. But what if she is the reason that Charlotte is in danger?

  In very much in a similar vein to Claire Kendal’s The Book of You or Elizabeth Haynes Into The Darkest Corner, author Cally Taylor in a new guise, launches her crime writing career with this dark psychological thriller. In this increasingly overcrowded sub-genre of crime writing, with many books treading a similar path, how did The Accident fare?

  The book opens with a seemingly settled, middle aged married woman, waiting at the bedside of her comatose teenage daughter, who has been involved in an accident, and is currently hovering between life and death. The story hinges on what has driven Sue’s daughter, Charlotte, to the brink of suicide, and charts the former life of Sue and her former unbalanced mental state, precipitated by a destructive and bullying relationship some years previously. Taylor implements a dual narrative structure with a twenty year lapse between the two, using Sue’s diaries charting the course of this damaging relationship with the manipulative James, in the 1990s, and in a symbiotic circle, using the reading of Charlotte’s diary in the present time, to provide some insight into her daughter’s attempted suicide. As the story unfolds, we observe the level of distrust and suspicion inherent in Sue’s current marriage to Brian (a member of parliament who has strayed on occasion), the effects of Charlotte’s secret life revealed by her diary, and the possible reappearance of the evil James in Sue’s life, reawakening Sue’s previously fragile mental state.

  Structure wise, the tried and tested method of diary entries from the past interspersed into the current narrative, was certainly the strongest aspect of the narrative, charting Sue’s relationship with James, but quickly signposting the erratic and destructive aspects of James’ character. As any woman who has suffered in an abusive relationship knows, what initially seem to be relatively harmless indicators can quickly escalate into a claustrophobic and fearful situation, and Taylor captures well the denigration of Sue’s mental state within the confines of this relationship. and her efforts to escape from it. Less successful for me was the current storyline, and I cared little for the secrets harboured in her daughter’s life, and Sue’s faintly ridiculous attempts to be ‘down with the kids’ in an effort to uncover the reasons for her daughter’s accident. I found this a little clunky, and a bit far fetched to be honest but, as the whole book gravitated quickly between both narratives, my annoyance was quickly quashed by the balance between the return to the diary entries. The characterisation throughout was relatively successful, and I felt that the author had invested much effort into Sue herself and her mental anguish, but did find the surrounding protagonists a little less well-formed, conforming to a status of mere bit players in the overall plot, with only really James being more vital, interesting and downright sinister, within the plot.

  I will put my hands up, and admit to being a little jaded by this genre of crime, following the plethora of releases, so similar in style and narrative structure. However, I think the comparisons to Gone Girl, Before I Go To Sleep and The Silent Wife, are justified as this is very much in a similar vein to these, and will be enjoyed by readers of this genre. You will be hooked instantaneously, and the pace that Taylor affords to the narrative will keep you reading despite the minor flaws in the present day storyline, and the slightly less depth inherent in the overall characterisation. An entertaining enough read, and perfect for fans of the psychological thriller.

  CL Taylor lives in Bristol with her partner and young son. Born in Worcester, she studied for a degree in Psychology at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle then moved to London to work in medical publishing. After two years she moved to Brighton where she worked as a graphic designer, web developer and instructional designer over the course of 13 years. She currently works as a Distance Learning Design and Development manager for a London university. She credits Roald Dahl’s ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ for her love of a dark, twisted tale. www.cltaylorauthor.com Follow on Twitter @callytaylor

  (With thanks to Avon for the ARC)

• Novelicious.com
  http://www.novelicious.com/2014/05/review-the-accident-by-c-l-taylor.html
  Word count: 423

  QUOTE:
  say C. L. Taylor is an up and coming thriller writer to watch out for in the future

  Thursday, 15 May 2014

  Review – The Accident by C. L. Taylor
  Reviewed by Susan Lobban

  The Accident by C. L. TaylorWhen Charlotte Jackson is knocked over by a bus it is no accident. Her mother Sue has read her diary and knows she wanted to end her life, but why? While Charlotte is in a coma, Sue delves deeper into her daughter’s private life and she begins to mistrust everyone close to Charlotte as her search for the truth intensifies. By dredging up Charlotte’s secrets, she must face her own past, which she thought was buried long ago.

  Psychological thrillers are hot just now and this book certainly has all you would expect: indeterminate gender author name, turn of events that are not what it seems, flashbacks to murky past, main character neurosis. The premise of The Accident was excellent and had me hooked from the start. The fact that the chapters alternated Sue’s past with her present kept me reading, as both were equally intriguing. When one chapter ended on a cliffhanger, I would race on to find out what happened next. All in all, I was loath to put the book down.

  However, Sue’s character did annoy me a little, as she would be given snippets of information from certain people, but instead of immediately asking the right questions, she would drag it out until later. The storyline was not predictable and kept me guessing, but I felt that Sue could have got the answers she needed a lot earlier. I wanted to scream: “Come on, Sue, why are you not asking that?” She really could have had the whole thing figured out had she had pressed the right person early on, but then I suppose it would have been a short book. There were also obvious red herrings thrown in, which I spotted straight away, but then, I do read a lot of thrillers.

  If you are looking to dip your toe into the thriller genre pool for the first time then this book is excellent for you. However, if you are a thriller aficionado then you may be left wanting in parts. I would say C. L. Taylor is an up and coming thriller writer to watch out for in the future and I look forward to seeing what’s next.
  7/10

• All About a Mummy
  http://www.allaboutamummy.co.uk/blog/book-review-the-accident-by-cltaylor
  Word count: 399

  Book Review: The Accident by C.L.Taylor
  30/4/2016 7 Comments

  This week's book review is The Accident by C.L.Taylor which I picked up for my kindle app at the bargain price of 99p a few weeks ago.
  The Accident by C.L.Taylor book review
  The Accident by C.L.Taylor (Avon) Kindle screenshot
  After walking out in front of a bus Sue's 15yr old daughter Charlotte is in a coma. The doctors don't know why she hasn't woken up yet but Sue does. She has read Charlotte's diary and she knows she had a secret, a secret so bad it was killing her... Now Sue needs to find out what her daughter was keeping from her and how it links to her own past.
  The structure of this story was engaging, flipping between the present day hunt for Charlotte's secret and Sue's bleak past. It was well paced, building the tension as the story was pieced together leading to the dramatic climax. The back story of Sue's PTSD and previous breakdown was a great set up for why she had to investigate alone even if it was a little far fetched at times. I struggle slightly with plots which involve very dramatic, planned revenue strategies as often I feel they are unrealistic, often to the point of absurd. However, we clearly aren't dealing with a normal person in this book and I could just about, at a stretch, believe that this scenario could be plausible.

  So how about the ending. Thrillers live or die by their endings in my opinion. I found the action good but ultimately the ending a little flat after the tension built earlier. I had the feeling of 'Oh, is that it' which is always a bit of a disappointment. I think I actually would have liked a messier ending, which makes me an awful person obviously, but I just think in real life it probably wouldn't have worked out the way it did. But fiction isn't real life so it doesn't have to follow the rules.

  Overall 4/5. I've downloaded C.L Taylor's next book, The Lie. I'm looking forward to more twists and turns. You can by The Accident on Amazon using the link below:

  Linking up to #readwithme, #twinklytuesday and #bloggerclubuk
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