30161226Sometimes the past comes back to haunt you.

Louise Leighton’s life has fallen apart, all because of one fateful night. Her husband is an adulterer, her sister is his mistress, and soon, Louise will lose everything she owns. But she never imagined she would lose her daughter.

Eighteen-year-old Brooke Leighton is missing. It’s up to Louise and the Metropolitan Police to find her. Has Brooke run away? Or has she been taken against her will? And can Louise aid the investigation without mentioning the night where all of her troubles began?

If she mentions that night, she will incriminate her daughter for heinous crimes. But if she doesn’t, she may never find Brooke; and if she has been abducted, the person who took her may come for Louise, too.

Sometimes the past comes back to kill you.

Source Format Pages Publisher Publication Date
Amazon ebook 340 JJP May 13th, 2016

I’m sorry… ‘Sometimes the past comes back to haunt you‘??? Nah… the past ALWAYS comes back to haunt you… and sometimes it may kill. Mostly though past comes to be a major pain in the hole.

Before I go into rambling about the book, let me just leave this here: W-O-W!

I liked My Girl by Jack Jordan, but Anything for Her was MILES better for me and I rated My Girl 4 stars. Goes without saying that I’m going to slap a ‘grim, what the hell are these people like‘ 5 stars on this one!

From sentence one… ONE… this novel starts with a massive bang. And the bang? Well, it doesn’t die out, it doesn’t leave you with a faint echo of awesomeness, it simply is and continues to be impactful and present and it’s ‘loudness’ will start to grate on your ears and reverberate your core… basically… it’s the longest crash you’ll ever read and witness. The. Longest. Because that one night in the past, a year ago, has snowballed, gathered momentum and everything goes Express style to Turdville!

Louise had never wanted her husband to die. Not until he ripped their family apart. Testicular cancer? Rabies? A fatal fall from a windy clifftop? Lightning strike to his adulterous crotch? She hadn’t decided. All she knew was, once a husband told her wife that he had been having an affair with her younger sister, it was more than acceptable, if not entirely necessary, for his wife to imagine his gruesome death over and over  for her own pleasure.

Louise, Michael and their two kids, Brooke (18) and Dominic (10) were well off, everything was hunky dory. Love and sunshine and rainbows, mostly. But when Michael confesses that he has been ‘servicing’ Louise’s sister for the past 10 month, because of THAT NIGHT, that’s exactly the moment THAT NIGHT from the past finds a way in the door to deliver judgement! With emotions running high, Jordan starts to tease you with snippets, teeny tiny snippets, of something bigger, darker and deadlier than Michael’s ding-dong in Denise and his other looming trouble (for you to find out as you’re reading, courtesy of yours truly).

As Louise packs a bag to go ‘be in peace’ and leaves her kids behind her, she has no idea that her drinking session in the country house will have a bigger effect on her life than a simple hangover….

She began to cry where she lay, the rain soaking through her clothes and dripping from her skin and hair. Her sobs were almost silenced  by the orchestra of the wind, the thrashing trees, and the noisy rush of the rain.

I deserve this, she thought. I deserve everything I get.

But…

I don’t want to talk about the plot any more… I think even the blurb gives away a bit too much… but that’s just imho. Be warned and be assured that in this book there are surprises, there are horrible happenings and one big dysfunctional family. Michael, you dirty dog, I am looking at you! Weak male specimen! And Louise, really? And Denise, really-really? I’m telling you… a whole pile of shit decisions!

Without a shadow of a doubt, this book was thrilling to the max. It was the most twisted, darkest thing I’ve read in a while and it was delivered brilliantly. I read it in one sitting long into the night (hence my bloodshot eyes today at work) but I just could not put it down. Everything- from me feeling disdain towards most of the characters, feeling hooked, feeling disbelief and hollering out in glee for this brilliantly evil plot- was just a perfect mix!

The writing was fantastic. I loved how Jordan managed to make me feel every emotion, every setting, every scene. I most felt for Dominic, the 10 year old boy who was born into these horrible circumstances to parents that were seemingly unable to make the right decisions and came across directly put- selfish as f*ck. Louise, Michael and Brooke being in their own kinds of trouble gave them NO right to forget that there is a little confused boy in the mix of it all… But the feelings of suspense and foreboding were so greatly written I nearly felt horrified at times. And being so utterly overwhelmed by the emotions, my heart rate went up and that was a valid reason for me to skip my evening walk because my state of high alert felt like exercise enough.

Now, I was soooo afraid of finding out about THAT NIGHT because Jordan really teases with it… often and effectively… and I was just there- oh, Lord Jesus, save me from this agony, what happened that night?– Ha! Just kidding, LJ wouldn’t give me the time of day, and anyway,  I didn’t really want or need saving. Jordan’s teasing was just so much suspense. Suspense is good, but at the back of my head I was afraid of the ‘big reveal’ to be something predictable. And that I was going to be pricked by the twist as if with a needle and be deflated like a spit-filled balloon.

Never have I ever been more happy (I actually feel awful saying this considering what happened in the book, but you other psychos get my gist) to discover that the twistedness and the darkness and the awfulness and the disgust and the genius of pulling the plot together did not let me down. Jack Jordan, I salute you- THIS is how you create a harrowing read!

The ending was another aspect I was afraid to get to. How does Jordan end a book that’s been delivering in terms of a strong start, a strong middle and the overall continuous wonderful horribleness?

I, for one, wasn’t disappointed. I doubt anyone could really be disappointed by this ending. The finale prior to reaching that 100% reading progress mark on my Kindle, was 3 parts bittersweet, 3 parts ‘truth shall set you free‘, 3 parts painful and deadly and 1 part baffled little boy who will forever think he was abandoned.

5*- Loved this book for for the reading experience it gave me! Recommended for thriller fans!