Synopsis
The letters drop onto every doormat…
Lena just moved to Mandalay Close. She needed a new start, since her boyfriend cheated her out of the happy-ever-after she’d believed they were always going to share.
But on the day Lena moves in, letters begin to arrive for all her new neighbours. Letters that promise to expose everyone’s deepest, darkest secrets. Every house has received one – except for Lena’s.
Someone clearly wants to implicate her, to ruin her new life and turn everyone against her. She’s made an enemy, but who, and why? Everyone seems so nice, so trustworthy. So normal.
As more bad things happen and her life rapidly spins out of control, Lena finds herself unable to believe this is happening to her. After all, she’s not a bad person. Though she does have secrets of her own, secrets that she’s not willing to share with anyone…
My Review
I first discovered Joanne and her books when I had the good fortune to be invited to review her previous book called ‘Keep Your Friends Close’. Since then I have been waiting for her next book to be released. Well ladies and gents the wait is over because Joanne’s second book is called ‘Don’t Let Her In’ and it was released on 18th April 2024. I couldn’t wait to dive in and so without further ado, I grabbed a cup of tea, grabbed my Kindle and settled down for what proved to be an interesting afternoon of reading. Overall, I really enjoyed reading ‘Don’t Let Her In’ but more about that in a bit.
This was one of those books that grabbed me from the start and didn’t let me go until after I read the very last word on the very last page. I started reading and found it nigh on impossible to put the book to one side. My Kindle wasn’t exactly glued to my hand but it might as well have been because it travelled everywhere with me. I couldn’t bear to miss a single second of the story. I can’t say that I especially warmed to any of the characters but that could be because I have read a lot of crime fiction and as a result I believe nobody and suspect everybody. The more of the book that I read, the more I wanted to read and the quicker the pages seemed to turn. All too quickly I reached the end of ‘Don’t Let Her In’. I found ‘Don’t Let Her In’ to be a gripping, tense and at times rather dramatic read, which certainly kept me guessing and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.
‘Don’t Let Her In’ is extremely well written and then some. Joanne certainly knows how to grab the reader’s attention and draw them into what proves to be one heck of a story and then some. For me, this was a slow burn type of book which suited the story that Joanne was telling. Joanne describes her characters so vividly and realistically that they seem just as real as you and I although I have to say that I would keep them all at arm’s length as there was something distinctly ‘off’ with each of them. I loved the way in which Joanne perfectly captures the air of suspicion that exists in small communities when a newcomer moves in and how such communities can be a bit claustrophobic. I love the way in which the author makes the reader feel as though they are part of the story and at the heart of the action.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Don’t Let Her In’ and I would recommend it to other readers. I will certainly be reading more of Joanne’s work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.
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