Cross Her Heart| At a glance

Title: Cross Her Heart

Author: Sarah Pinborough

Publisher: William Morrow on September 4, 2018

Pages: 341

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Psychological Thriller

Goodreads Rating: 3.73 out of 5 Stars

I promise, I keep trying to branch out from my favorite genre of books, but the Book of the Month picks tend to always have such an intriguing thriller and/or mystery books that it is so very difficult for me to stay away from them!  So for September, I kept with my ‘norm’ and picked Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough to read.

Fun fact, Sarah Pinborough’s novel Behind Her Eyes was also a Book of the Month pick about two years ago.

The other options for September included two historical fictions, a modern murder mystery, and a JFK assassination conspiracy theory story. Personally, even though I went with Cross Her Heart, I’ll probably be picking up November Road, The Silence of the Girls, and The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock at some point in time.

Summary

Lisa lives for her daughter Ava, her job, and her best friend Marilyn, but when a handsome client shows an interest in her, Lisa starts daydreaming about sharing her life with him too. Maybe she’s ready now. Maybe she can trust again. Maybe it’s time to let her terrifying secret past go. Then her daughter rescues a boy from drowning and their pictures are all over the news for everyone to see. Lisa’s world explodes, and she finds everything she has built threatened. Not knowing whom she can trust, it’s up to her to face her past to save what she holds dear.

My Thoughts

To start, I have soooo many thoughts about this book. I constantly am going back and forth on whether I loved it, hated it, or am falling somewhere in between. Initially, I thought I would be giving a 5 star rating, but by the time I completed the book I was a bit overwhelmed. Even after going through my pros/cons list, I am still very on the fence on how enjoyable I found the book.

1. I thought, based on the summary and even until about halfway through the book, this was going to have domestic abuse as a major theme. I figured, Lisa would be trying to escape and hiding from an abusive ex-partner or family member, and while my assumptions weren’t totally off the mark, domestic abuse is a trivial aspect of the book as a whole.
2. There were quite a few times during this book that I felt 95% confident that I knew the outcome of this novel. Each time I thought I knew the answers, suddenly everything I knew to be true was simply swiped away.  Any story line that can keep me guessing and on my toes, is a positive for me.
3. My biggest compliant, which is similar to my compliant about ‘The Last Time I Lied‘ (which you can see my review here) is the author constantly hinting, quite heavily, that there is some major secret being had. I don’t need the author to keep telling me they have a secret. It gets repetitive, it’s frustrating, it gets annoying, and mostly it makes me just want to shake the narrator to get some answers.  Also, I have zero patience in general, so you can imagine I have no patience for soft hints.
4. I did enjoy the amount of emphasis social media has in the novel. In today’s society the likelihood of someone not having at least Facebook is low, and to live a life completely away from all forms of social media is an accomplishment in itself.
5. The ending gets crazy. The last couple of chapters are just constant curveballs, and probably too many curveballs, which you can see below. If you plan on reading this book, you might want to skip these but you can see from a glance there are at least SIX! major plot twists that show up all within the last few chapters of the book. It’s all extremely overwhelming.
   

   *Spoilers*

   1. Witness protection plays a huge part in the story line, which we do not find out about until halfway through the story.
   2. A 40 something year old women is catfishing a teenager via social media, all while impersonating another teenager and pretending to be said teenager’s mother. Like what?
   3. A murder from Lisa’s childhood comes back to bite Lisa in the butt after her picture is featured in a newspaper clipping. This is a huge aspect in the plot of the novel.
   4. There is a major child abuse plot that is present and huge factor in the story
   5. To top it off a sociopath’s agenda ends up being a major part of the story. Personally, it’s all too much for me, and ended up making the story less realistic to me.

Ultimately, if you enjoy a good thriller you will most likely enjoy reading Cross Her Hear. Overall, it is fairly well written and the author does captivate you in her writing style. I wish I would have picked a different book for my September read and would give this book a solid 3.5 for shear writing style. For me, there are just too many pieces to this story lines that come out towards the end. It makes the story too unrealistic for me and had me constantly muttering, ‘WTF’.  I would have much preferred to read The Women in the Window or something similar.  If you feel like checking it out get the book here.

Happy Reading!

What is Book of the Month?

For those who haven’t heard of Book of the Month club or BOTM, it is a subscription program, similar to audible or other box subscription services, where you get (you guessed it) a new book every month. Each month members are given 5 different books to choose from.  BOTM generally focusing on debut and emerging writers, and is known for having helped launch the careers of some of the most acclaimed authors in American literary history. In an attempt to read more books outside my favorite genres without having to siphon through all the duds, I decided to sign up for the monthly subscriptions. It costs me $14.99 per month, I choose 1 of the 5 books on the first of every month,  and it’s delivered straight to my door. You can skip any month or roll your credits over to the next month, at any time. Since I started getting BOTM back in February, I’ve really enjoyed some of the new authors I’ve been exposed to. I’ve enjoyed them so much, that I have decided to review each of the books I get every month, so be on the look out for reviews March – August, which are coming soon.  If you’re interested in joining BOTM, I’ve add my referral code to the bottom of this post, which if you use, you’ll be able to get your first month (book)  free!

Interested in joining Book of the Month? Get a free book when you join using my referral link.

https://www.mybotm.com/jqu8msx17g