[Review] Snap - Belinda Bauer

Summary: On a stifling summer's day, eleven-year-old Jack and his two sisters sit in their broken-down car, waiting for their mother to come back and rescue them. Jack's in charge, she said. I won't be long.

But she doesn't come back. She never comes back. And life as the children know it is changed for ever.

Three years later, mum-to-be Catherine wakes to find a knife beside her bed, and a note that says: I could have killed you.

Meanwhile Jack is still in charge - of his sisters, of supporting them all, of making sure nobody knows they're alone in the house, and - quite suddenly - of finding out the truth about what happened to his mother.

But the truth can be a dangerous thing . . . (Pub Date: Jul 03, 2018)

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

This has been my first book by Bauer and despite many recommendations the beginning wasn't buying me much. And then it did.

I'd call it a 3.5 well-deservedly rounded up to 4.

When Jack's mother is abducted and killed, his life takes a big turn and now with two siblings depending on him, he needs to invade houses and make sure the system doesn't get them. Catherine While is spending the night without her husband and everything is going great when she finds out someone broke into her house and left a knife by her bed, proving he could have killed her.

I really liked how Belinda Bauer writes but it took me a while to get really into the story after the initial and shocking of Jack's mother disappearance. I think it's because that aside from little Merry, I never got really fond of any of the characters despite not hating them. With time I even warmed up to most, it just wasn't love.

Well, after one of the plot twists, I definitely wasn't looking for characters to love and really wanted to know what would happen, which I think is more important than being curious about what happened. Though, I was that too, of course.

Another high point is the drama. It was just enough to be there and make us despair together with the characters. And a last highlight, detective Reynolds with detective Marvel made for the best scenes, and for come comic relief.

In any case, this was a great combo going in the book. An author who has an involving writing and is able to create good plot twists and intriguing mysteries. It's surely the kind of book I'll be recommending to thriller lovers and even for those who aren't the usual readers of the genre.

Rating: 4 out of 5.