Pages: 390
Published: 19th October 2017
Genre: Paranormal Thriller
This is my review of Anything You Do Say by Gillian McAllister. A gripping and thought-provoking novel, it will be released on paperback this week, and it comes highly recommended! I was lucky enough to be able to read it on my Kindle, and it was definitely 99p well spent!
What Is It About?
Joanna Oliva is an avoider. She doesn’t have a clear focus or career plan, and her aspirations change constantly. But one evening, her life is suddenly turned upside down when she hears footsteps behind her on the way home, and believes she is being followed by the man who harassed her in a bar. Feeling the need to defend herself, Joanna shoves her pursuer down a flight of steps.
What happens next has severe and sustained consequences. But what did happen next? Did she choose to stay and call the police, or did she decide to run for it and leave the man for dead? The remainder of the book goes back and forth between both scenarios, revealing what happened depending on the decision she made.
Neither future proves too promising, as Joanna’s plight takes its toll on her relationship with husband Reuben, a deep and doting personality, and her best friend Lucy. In ‘Reveal’, she becomes an Outcast. In ‘Conceal’, she is overwhelmed by guilt.
But the central question the book poses is so simple, yet so effective. Fight or flight? Truth or lie? Right or wrong? As a reader you are bound to ask yourself what you would do in Joanna’s circumstances.
Gillian McAllister is emerging as a truly outstanding new author of psychological fiction. Her debut novel, Everything But The Truth, was a Sunday Times Bestseller, and the success of her work has earned her a new two-book contract. Happy days!
Prolific on social media and highly interactive with her readers, the lawyer’s writing is full of neat touches and clever similes. But her true expertise lies in creating strong, developed, and wholesome characters.
Everything But The Truth after reading a review by a fellow blogger, and immediately decided it was a book I just had to read. I was so gripped that I finished in double-quick time. Anything You Do Say is a very impressive follow-up.
Anything You Do Say has all the components of an excellent modern domestic thriller. The pacing does lag a little about the halfway mark, but even then there is so much to admire. The choice Joanna makes is central to the book, and there is always a great sense of intrigue as to just what will happen next, and what is the actual truth about what really happened on that fateful evening in Little Venice.
Gillian McAllister’s next novel cannot come too soon! Happy reading!
Stephen Reads Books 