#BookReview: THE STRANGER INSIDE by Lisa Unger @lisaunger @HQstories @joe_thomas25

Publication: 3rd October 2019 – HQ

You committed the perfect crime. But someone knows the truth.

You followed the trial obsessively.

You know he’s guilty and can’t believe he got away with it.

But someone is determined to see justice done.

Rain Winter left journalism behind to focus on her baby daughter. But when a man acquitted for murder is killed, in the same way as his suspected victims, Rain sees a pattern emerging between a series of cold cases.

Meticulous and untraceable, this killer strikes in the dead of night, making sure that the guilty are suitably punished for their crimes.

As Rain’s investigation deepens, she must face up to dark secrets in her own past and the realisation that the killer may be closer than she thinks…

From bestselling author Lisa Unger comes a dark and addictive psychological suspense which will keep you breathless until the last page.

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I am always excited when Lisa Unger publishes a new novel. Her stories are compelling, suspenseful, and gripping and I always find myself engrossed in the plot and intrigued by the characters.

In her new novel, The Stranger Inside, we have an excellent journalist who left her job to be a stay-at-home mum. However, Rain Winter is much more than that. She is haunted by a trauma in her past that left her scarred and full of guilt. The event that changed her life when she was twelve years old and involved her two best friends has still consequences in her life. After Steve Markham, a man accused of murdering his wife and walked out free is found killed, Rain decides to start her own investigation. Because Steve Markham is not the only guilty man who was found killed in the same circumstances as their victims…

What I love about Lisa Unger’s novel is that the tension never ever leaves the pages. There is a sense of dread as I turn each page that something bad is about to happen that makes it difficult to put her book down. Also, she knows how to create awesome and well-developed characters. They are multi-layered, dark, always full of surprises. I liked the protagonist of The Stranger Inside. From the outside, Rain Winter is a typical mother, a relatable woman who left her job to take care of her young daughter and now spends her days cooking, going to the park to join a group of mothers, and waiting for her husband in the evening. Inside, Rain is looking for revenge and closure. She is a survivor who hides her fear and anger for her past and we also see her struggle as her desire to go back to work compete with her love for her daughter. Rain is not the only protagonist of the story. I don’t want to say much about this character because I don’t want to give too much away, but just let me tell you that the complexity and different layers of this other character gave me goosebumps as I read.

Self-paced, claustrophobic, and thought-provoking, The Stranger Inside is another must-read from one of my favourite authors and I highly recommend it!

If you want to read an extract from The Stranger Inside, click HERE!