Strangers by C.L. Taylor
Genre: Psychological thriller, suspense
Read: 28th July 2020
Published: 2nd April 2020
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Ursula thinks she killed the love of her life.
Gareth's been receiving strange postcards.
And Alice is being stalked.
None of them are used to relying on others - but when the three strangers' lives unexpectedly collide, there's only one thing for it: they have to stick together. Otherwise, one of them will die.
Three strangers, two secrets, one terrifying evening.
MY REVIEW:
I've only read one other book by C.L. Taylor and that was a bit of a miss for me. However, I don't like to write an author off completely until I've read at least two or three of their books as not every book is going to be liked by every reader. So I went in with no real expectations of STRANGERS...and yet, I was pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed it.
The story begins at the end with Alice, Ursula and Gareth standing over a dead body giving the reader no real clue as to how they got there. Closely followed by the clever use of Twitter relating to the mysterious disappearances of men around the River Avon in Bristol. Back pedal to a week earlier where we proceed to learn the individual stories of the three characters. All three are suffering a type of loss and are complete strangers to each other, hence the title.
Alice is a single mum and has recently started dating again after the collapse of her marriage. Ursula is lonely, grieving for her fiance whom she believes she is to blame for his death and has a habit of taking things that don't belong to her to ease her pain. Gareth is a security officer of the shopping centre where Alice works and is grieving the loss of his mother, who has dementia, as he knew her. All three are linked to the Mead shopping centre. Alice works there, Ursula frequents there as a shoplifter and Gareth works security there.
With the encouragement of her daughter, Alice has taken the plunge and has swiped right to meet Michael in a local pub. He is late and she is about to give up when he staggers in, drunk and abusive. After a drink not feeling safe, Alice attempts to escape but Michael corners her as she steps out of the ladies and becomes abusive. She flees as a stranger comes to her rescue...and her fate is sealed.
Ursula has been living with her best friend Charlotte since university but after one too many light fingered moments, she is forced to move out. Desperate and with nowhere to go, she finds a room to rent sharing the house with the landlord who appears to have serious OCD issues. He informs her she has free reign of most of the house but the basement is out of bounds and the radio that sits in the kitchen playing remains on that station and at that volume. No re-tuning and no adjusting the volume. That is non-negotiable. When Ursula ponders the items in the bathroom the next morning, she swipes his nailbrush and slips it into her pocket. Surprisingly, she receives a terse text from him later in the day demanding she return it and refrain from using his personal belongings in the future. A trip to Alice's store to lift a random item of clothing should make her feel better about that.
But her landlord Ed is not the only one she crosses paths with. One of the addresses on her courier round has her feeling suspicious and fearing for the woman and child seemingly imprisoned inside. Should she call the police? Or help them escape?
Gareth lives alone with his mother, who is in the middle stages of dementia, grieving the loss of the woman she once was. He has carers come in every day to see to her needs while he is at work. Gareth is a security officer at the Mead shopping centre where Alice works and Ursula "shops". From his vantage point in the control room, he sees the stranger chasing after Alice and he sees the tall Amazonian woman shopping in her store. But that's not all he sees. One day an elderly man wanders into view and from where he sits, Gareth is sure it is his father who disappeared some twenty years ago, believed to be dead. Of course, that isn't helped when he sees a recent postcard addressed to his aged mother from his father. Could his father really be alive after all these years? And if so, why get in touch now? When he sees the man on the camera, despite knowing the control room must be manned at all times, he leaves his post to confront the man. But when he gets there, he has vanished. Gareth returns to his post to find another of the security officers smirking knowingly and blackmails him for his silence.
And then there are the mysterious disappearances of men from Bristol, last seen alongside the River Avon. How are these connected to these three people? And then Liam, the colleague who blackmailed Gareth, fails to appear for his shift and no one has seen him.
But Gareth's nightmare is about become worse when he returns home on the Friday to find his mother has disappeared. He checks his CCTV he recently installed to try and capture who was sending his mother postcards from his dead father, and he sees his mother leave the house with her best handbag and her best coat. Where was she going? Who was she going to meet?
When the police come knocking on Gareth's door, he thinks they are there for his mother...but they are there to arrest him for questioning into Liam's disappearance.
The main theme I felt in STRANGERS is loneliness. Each character has a semblance of loneliness and you can feel it in each of them with their need to connect with someone or something palpable. As each of their stories unfold, you can start to see connections to them all. But how does that final piece come together with the rest of the story?
I liked each of the characters in their own way although the one I felt least connected to was Alice. I really felt for Ursula - her loneliness was palpable and her story heartbreaking. And I felt Gareth's pain in having a parent with dementia and watching the person you know and love slowly disappear. Although my dad is not as advanced as Gareth's mum is, it is still devastating to witness and I could feel that heartbreak.
The Twitter conversations were a clever addition, giving the tale another twist as the reader ponders how the disappearances are connected to the rest of the story.
I wouldn't say STRANGERS was predictable, although at times it was, on the whole it was a guessing game thrill ride that keeps you intrigued from start to finish. Though the reader may suspect certain characters from time to time, nothing is made clear until the final curtain.
STRANGERS is cleverly written and compelling from the beginning, with a final twist at the very end you won't see coming.
I thoroughly recommend.
I would like to thank #CLTaylor, #NetGalley and #AvonBooksUK for an ARC of #Strangers in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Cally 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 before leaving to write full time in 2014.
She started writing short stories in 2005 and was published widely in literary and women’s magazines. She also won several short story competitions. In 2009 and 2011 her romantic comedy novels (as Cally Taylor) were published by Orion and translated into fourteen languages. HEAVEN CAN WAIT was a bestseller in Hungary and China and HOME FOR CHRISTMAS was made into a feature film by JumpStart Productions. Whilst on maternity leave with her son Cally had an idea for a psychological thriller and turned to crime.
Cally is the author of seven psychological thrillers and two Young Adult thrillers. They are all standalone novels and can be read in any order. She is the six times Sunday Times bestselling author of seven gripping stand-alone psychological thrillers: THE ACCIDENT, THE LIE, THE MISSING, THE ESCAPE, THE FEAR, SLEEP and STRANGERS.
Her books have sold in excess of a million copies and hit the number one spots on Amazon Kindle, Audible, Kobo, iBooks and Google Play. They have been translated into over 25 languages, selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, and optioned for television.
Cally lives in Bristol with her partner and young son.
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