PSYCHO THRILLERS  | Daily Mail Online

SUMMER OF RECKONING

by Marion Brunet (Bitter Lemon Press £7.99, 270 pp)

This book will make you think twice about your next holiday in Provence.

Brunet won a prestigious French literary prize for her depiction of the dark, desperate lives of the locals whose everyday domestic routines don’t feature in the glossy French tourist brochures.

Celine is a beautiful, pregnant 16-year-old who is attacked by Manuel, her drunken, inadequate dad, when she refuses to name the father of her unborn child.

Her father’s violent, misdirected quest for justice ends in another tragedy for Celine’s family.

Brunet is a successful writer of young adult fiction and her writing is at its best when exploring the traps society sets for disadvantaged girls who are primed to rely too much on their looks.

The explicit language is sometimes a bit cringeworthy. And, despite the extremely confident storytelling, the lack of real psychological tension will disappoint experienced thriller enthusiasts. It reads like it’s aimed squarely at millennials.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen (Macmillan £14.99, 352 pp)

This writing duo are a force of nature in the psychological thriller market.

Their previous book, The Wife Between Us, was a worldwide hit and they approach this latest story with the same uncompromising intelligence and gusto.

But it’s not for wimps. Prepare to deal with big themes, such as alienation. Which doesn’t mean the story itself isn’t totally gripping. Shay Miller is an isolated ‘loser’ in a dead-end job, obsessed with data and statistics which she faithfully records in a book.

Suddenly, she’s taken up by the seemingly perfect Moore sisters after she has witnessed the suicide of another young woman. But why are they so interested in Shay? And why did the woman commit suicide?

The plot is ingenious, and the writing as clever and tantalising as ever.

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