Title: The Blossom Twins
Author: Carol Wyer
Series: Detective Natalie Ward, #5
Published: December 2019, Bookouture
Format: ARC E-copy, 386 pages
Source: Netgalley
Summary:
Their parents thought they were hiding…
One beautiful summer’s evening, thirteen-year-old twins Ivy and Erin Westmore snuggle down in a tent in their back garden, giggling and sharing secrets.
When their mother goes to wake the girls the next morning, their tent is empty.
The alarm is raised and Detective Natalie Ward
is put onto the case. When the twins’ bodies are discovered on nearby
marshland, covered with deep pink petals, an icy shiver travels down
Natalie’s spine. Everything about the girls’ deaths reminds her of a
horrifying case she worked on earlier in her career, which saw a killer
of the worst kind placed behind bars.
The next day, that feeling is heightened when she receives a chilling note saying ‘I’m back’.
Is this killer a copycat or did Natalie put the wrong person in prison
all those years ago? In a small town, where no stranger goes unnoticed,
what is Natalie missing?
Consumed by the case, determined to prevent more deaths, Natalie misses the fact that it is her attention the killer wants. And to get it, he has his sights set firmly on her precious daughter Leigh…
Gripping,
fast-paced and nail-bitingly tense, this book will keep you flying
through the pages long into the night. Perfect for fans of Angela
Marsons, Rachel Abbott and Karin Slaughter.
My thoughts: This
is the fifth book in Carol Wyer’s Detective Natalie Ward series, and
somehow each book seems to get better and better. Carol
Wyer sure knows how to write an addicting and thrilling series for sure – I was a huge fan of her DI Robyn Carter series and I am
loving this one just as much.
While I won’t say that you necessarily have to read this series in order, as each book contains a self-contained case that is solved within the book, I do strongly suggest reading it in order for the character development. And to me, that is where this series is so strong. There are so many threads that have been carried through from the start of the series that really play a factor in understanding Detective Natalie Ward and if you like that part of the series – the character development – then do yourself a favor and read the books as the author wrote them.
In this latest installment, you will feel the tension right from the get-go, it is so palpable and it lasts all the way through. Natalie’s marriage is all but over, she just needs to find the time to tell her children that she is going to be moving out. On the work-front, half her team is on vacation so her boss calls in for backup and that leads to an old foe coming to join her team, and the case that they land is eerily similar to one she worked on years ago.
What I love about this book is that we see Natalie trying ever so hard to balance work and life and sometimes it just doesn’t happen. And we see the stress get to her. She knows that she sometimes put work above all else, including her family and she feels the guilt and it doesn’t help that right now the issues with her husband are adding fuel to that fire. When the case takes a personal turn, things at home are only going to get worse and that is only going to make the guilt that Natalie carries increase.
While I was shocked when the killer was revealed, at the same time I wasn’t, if that makes sense. I think somehow, I intuitively knew that was who it was going to be. But I was devastated over that final victim and I cannot imagine how that is going to play out…it’s completely emotional and yet at the same time, it oddly works.
This book is intense and kept me glued to the pages. As soon as I had an inkling of who the killer was, I could not stop reading. And then when the worst happened, I thought for sure it would have a happy resolution, only to end in a nightmare. I cannot believe that Carol Wyer went there, but then again, sometimes a writer has to take that chance. I will be reading the next book ASAP to see how it is handled! This series just got real!!!
Books in this series:
- The Birthday
- Last Lullaby
- The Dare
- The Sleepover
- The Blossom Twins
- The Secret Admirer – due out April 2020
