I have the pleasure of welcoming Anne Buist, and Legend Press TWG today! Over at TWG HQ, I have been given the honour of kicking off Anne’s blog tour for her latest novel, Dangerous To Know, which is published today (15th/01/17)! Huge congratulations, and I hope you enjoy the tour!
Natalie King is back: back from a stay on the psych ward. Her reluctance to live a quiet life has contributed to a severe depressive episode, and now it’s time for a retreat to the country, and a low-key research job at a provincial university nearby.
But Natalie and trouble have a strange mutual fascination. Her charismatic new boss Frank is friendly, even attractive. But it turns out his pregnant wife is an old enemy of Natalie’s. And when Frank’s tragic personal history is revealed – then reprised in the most shocking way – Natalie finds herself drawn deep into a mystery. And even deeper into danger.
What does TWG think?
I had a little bit of a school boy error with this novel, as I didn’t realise there had been a book before it also containing the forensic psychiatrist, Natalie King, until after I had read the book. Would I say that it can be read as a standalone? Yes, if you’re prepared to spend the first 30% trying to work out what you have missed. However, I did manage to read the novel fine, but it might be a good idea to get the first Natalie King book read beforehand just in case (buy here).
Before I received the e-mail from Legend Press, I had seen the cover of ‘Dangerous To Know’ make its way across several social media channels, piquing my interest almost straight away. The cover is striking and most certainly unique, yet it still is quite secretive in terms of storyline clues like some other covers. As I mentioned above, I found the first 30% a bit of a slog to read as I couldn’t seem to work out what was going on. Not only that, I found Natalie King’s personality quite tricky to gauge. I know she’s poorly and she’s doing everything she can (well, almost) to keep her life calm, but it felt as though we were bouncing here, there and everywhere with her and the storyline. I did get a little bit frustrated I’ll admit.
However, I found that the storyline started to get more of a rhythm from the halfway point. There had been a slight shift within the storyline, the characters became a bit more gritty and things started to get more interesting. I felt as though I was reading a completely different book from the one I had originally started, and it was from that moment when I knew that the book wasn’t going to leave my hands until I found out what had happened.
When Frank became more involved with the storyline I had already marked his cards. Something just wasn’t sitting right with him and his past and weirdly enough, I didn’t feel too edgy about it although I probably should have. Natalie was meant to be living a life of peace and serenity, taking on a research job as to not overstretch herself, but instead she had involved herself in a spikey situation that she shouldn’t have done. Whilst I can see WHY she involved herself (her job), I couldn’t quite understand why she was spending a lot of time asking questions about the situation, even asking strangers. It was constant!
I’m no Detective, but I tried so hard to piece things together as I went through the storyline, feeling quite proud of myself when I had managed to narrow it done to one person in particular. And, judging by the fact my conclusion wasn’t correct, I am rather glad that I am no detective otherwise I would have been fired by now haha.
Overall, I didn’t find the storyline as chilling as I would have expected, which surprised me. Don’t get me wrong, the storyline is full of enough question marks to keep you interested and puzzled, but I couldn’t find that goose bump feeling. What I did feel though was physically sick when I ‘saw’ the completed puzzle. It felt as though I was looking at completely different characters to the ones I had been reading about for however long! ‘Severely sick and twisted’ sums this book up for me, and weirdly enough, not in a negative way. Yes, the finished puzzle piece was horrific to read and vile, but Anne Buist has obviously done what she set out to do as I had absolutely no idea that that was going to be the ‘image’ of the completed puzzle.
‘Dangerous To Know’ is a rollercoaster ride of ‘who dunnit’, with enough red herrings to keep the sea birds happy. Despite the storyline taking me a while to sink my teeth into it, ‘Dangerous To Know’ completely caught me off guard, creating a new meaning to the word ‘twisted’. Busy, gritty, sick, twisted and eventful, Anne Buist’s novel is incredibly memorable in its own right and I am looking forward to go back and read her first book!
Huge thanks to Legend Press.
Buy now from Amazon UK
Buy now from Amazon US
