Reviews

Undertow by Elizabeth Heathcote

horsley123's review against another edition

4.0

There is a moral to this story – don’t go looking at other people’s emails and snooping into the past if you can’t face what you find. If you keep digging you will find something and it will poison the present. OK – preaching over!
A fairly recently married woman, Carmen, has her suspicions piqued by a chance comment by a boy at a bus stop who says that the woman who drowned a few years ago was probably murdered by her husband. Guess who Carmen is married to?
Weirdly up until this point Carmen did not seem to have been at all alarmed, or interested, by the fact that her husband’s previous lover had drowned. However she can’t leave it alone now and goes through old laptops, telephones strangers and remembers his violent tendencies.
I won’t spoil the story which is a fast paced thriller with a couple of twists which meant it was not quite as simplistic as I had originally feared. An enjoyable read for those that enjoyed ‘The Girl on the Train’, ‘I Let You Go’ and ‘The Kind Worth Killing’.
Copy supplied by Net Galley for review.

forgedopulence's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book absolutely sucked me in. Every time I thought I had finally caught up and figured it all out, another twist popped up. There's nothing particularly striking about this book, but it was a fast and very entertaining read. I could see it making a pretty successful Lifetime movie.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

namitakhanna's review against another edition

3.0

Carmen is newly married Tom who has three kids with ex-wife Laura. Before Tom met Carmen, he had an affair with another woman Zena while he was married to Laura. Carmen a free-lance journalist while going through Tom's old laptop discovers that Zena died under mysterious circumstances with suspicion falling on Tom. Due to lack of any evidence though Zena’s death was declared as accidental drowning. Through her investigative skills though Carmen discovers discrepancies in Tom’s explanation of that night. Was Tom capable of such a heinous crime with his kids around and if he did commit it was Carmen really safe with him?

I did like the concept of the book but the execution of the story didn’t actually work for me. I found the book very slow and didn’t really warm up to Carmen. I did not expect the ending so I would give it an extra ½ star for that. I am sure other people might enjoy the book but it was not for me.

Many thanks to Harlequin & NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.

This and more reviews at https://chloesbooksblog.wordpress.com/

melissaann68's review against another edition

3.0

I give this three stars because it had enough suspense to keep you reading and a good ending but it was missing the suspense actually leading to something. Wasn’t a waist of time by any means but wouldn’t read again.

chasityk's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

3.0

proudlocks's review against another edition

2.0

Was alright, hot as exciting as I expected - droned on for quite some time.

The ending wasn’t a shock.

mjlolo's review against another edition

slow-paced

2.5

theredqueen444's review against another edition

3.0

This book is a light mystery with a minimal amount of suspense. I enjoyed it, but adding another twist would have made it great. I pegged the villain about 25% in.

jesstheintellectual's review against another edition

4.0

It was a good book but almost seemed as if Heathcote had so many ideas that they were all spilling out of her into this soup. The plot was brilliant and I would recommend.

gareindeedreads's review against another edition

3.0

I would consider this one more of a fun, beach read. With the cover and the plot, I was expecting something darker and more similar to a "Girl on the Train" kind of vibe.

I loved how this began. A woman and her daughter walking their dog on the beach and they stumble across a body. Unfortunately, within 100 pages I had the ending guessed and really continued to work out a few of the details I was questioning. I did have a hard time pushing through this one.

While it was a genuinely good book, I was expecting something darker with more suspense. This was more of a psychological thriller than I had expected with the story being more about Carmen's journey for a year in her life and the death of Zena was just something that was kind of...there.

A lot of characters were introduced in this with no purpose other than to add to the red herrings and a lot of things happened that made me question where this was going. I believe we could've shaved about 50 pages off from this one.

I will say, while I struggled with this one and wasn't really into it, that doesn't mean it's not good. This was well-written and there were a couple of shocking things that were revealed in the ending. I did find the last 50-70 pages very enjoyable.

So when this is released, I wouldn't not recommend it, but if you want an easy and light thriller for the beach or a quick flight, this is the one for you!