Leah Mills lives a life of a fugitive – kept on the run by one terrible day from her past. It is a lonely life, without a social life or friends until – longing for a connection – she meets Julian. For the first time she dares to believe she can live a normal life.

Then, on the fourteenth anniversary of that day, she receives a card. Someone knows the truth about what happened. Someone who won’t stop until they’ve destroyed the life Leah has created.

But is Leah all she seems? Or does she deserve everything she gets?

Everyone has secrets. But some are deadly.

Arriving home later than normal, Leah panics when she can’t find the keys to her flat. It doesn’t matter that they are found at work, her whole evening has been thrown out of whack and she has been thrown of kilter. It doesn’t take much because Leah’s life is very structured. She likes her routine. It is the only way she knows how to live, at least if you can call her life living. Most wouldn’t. She has no friends, barely sees the little family she has, and lives in a small flat with nothing but the basics…and her laptop.

The laptop is her escape, connecting her – however slightly – to the outside world and to Julian, who she meets online. After years of hiding away, Leah wonders if Julian could be the one to help her find her way back to something near normality. At first, it seems like this might be the case. He is kind and caring and willing to give her the space she needs. Slowly, she takes her first steps back to what might be called normalcy, travelling on the tube, going to dinner. Then the card arrives, wishing her a happy anniversary for a date she would rather forget and everything starts to go wrong.

By the time the card arrives, I was ready. I had been promised secrets, deadly ones, and I didn’t want to be kept waiting anymore. Kathryn Croft had been building the tension from page one and been doing a really good job of it too. I had so many questions and each page just seemed to bring more. Just what was going on with Leah? And what had she done, because it felt like she had definitely done something and that something was bad. With chapters moving between the past (teenage Leah) and the present (grown-up, scared Leah), the story slowly emerges and it’s a good one.

This is a great thriller with lots of twists and turns. Leah is well written, as is the book, though I would have liked a little more meat on the bones with Julian and some of the other secondary characters. There is plenty of suspicion that floats around all of them though, which makes up for anything lacking here. I really didn’t catch on to just who was good and who wasn’t until very near the end.

There was also one final twist in the tale which I liked and went a long way to explaining Leah’s behaviour. I don’t normally like this twist after the twist but here it worked well and I was glad it was there. It made perfect sense and left me liking the book a lot. I would definitely recommend it and will definitely be reading more Kathryn Croft in the future.

Emma