Thursday 27 July 2017

Books Read: Give Me the Child by Mel McGrath

An unexpected visitor.

Dr Cat Lupo aches for another child, despite the psychosis which marked her first pregnancy. So when Ruby Winter, a small girl in need of help, arrives in the middle of the night, it seems like fate.

A devastating secret.

But as the events behind Ruby’s arrival emerge – her mother’s death, her connection to Cat – Cat questions whether her decision to help Ruby has put her own daughter at risk.

Do we get the children we deserve?

Cat’s research tells her there’s no such thing as evil. Her history tells her she’s paranoid. But her instincts tell her different. And as the police fight to control a sudden spate of riots raging across the capital, Cat faces a race against time of her own…

Amazon links: Kindle or Hardcover

You know it's never going to be good news when you get a knock on your door in the middle of the night so little does our main protagonist Cat know that this will be the first in a series of events that will have her questioning everything.  Does she really know the man she married?  What other secrets hasn't her husband Tom told her and is her daughter Freya safe?

Give Me the Child was a gripping read right from the first page, from the moment of Ruby's arrival you could sense that nothing would ever be the same again for all concerned.  As a specialist working in the field of disturbed and dangerous children Cat is used to spotting triggers and with this girl who is brought into her own home there are plenty of red flags that make her worry about the safety of those around her.

Cat was certainly no reliable narrator as she had her own fair share of dark secrets and issues that had others questioning whether her own psychosis/paranoia was returning which made it all the more harder for her to get others to believe her.  After all who could honestly believe that an eleven year old child could be dangerous and put lives at risk.

As for Tom he seemed liked the the perfect loving husband and father at first, a bit of a fantasist thinking he was soon going to invent and launch the next big game, but the more the story progressed the more you soon discovered that nothing was as straight forward with him.  He too had his own deeply hidden secrets and would do anything to prevent the truth from being revealed.

Give Me the Child fits perfectly into the domestic noir category as it's a tension filled family drama with plenty of twists and turns along the way that will have you racing to the end trying to see how it all plays out.  I've never read anything by Mel McGrath before but I'm now a fan and will be keeping an eye out with interest as to what she has in store for us readers next.

I'd like to thank HQ Stories for inviting me to be part of the blog tour and my review copy of Give Me the Child which I received via NetGalley.

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