Delighted to host a stop on the blog blitz for K.L. Slater’s new psychological thriller The Visitor! My thanks to Bookouture for the review copy!
Author : K.L. Slater
Title : The Visitor
Pages : 252
Publisher : Bookouture
Publication date : March 2, 2018
Holly returns to her home town after some time away – she has been through something terrible and now she needs a safe haven in which to recover, and to plan the rest of her life. She finds a room in a quiet and leafy suburban street, in the home of Cora Barrett.
David lives next door to Cora Barrett and he sees everything that happens on Baker Crescent. David stays at home, and he watches: he likes to feel safe and he doesn’t like to leave the house. He wants to keep his friends and neighbours safe too. So he observes them, and he records every tiny detail of their lives, just in case the information is ever needed.
Both lonely and vulnerable, Holly and David gradually begin to strike up a friendship. But Holly can’t shake the feeling that someone from her past might have tracked her down. And David is always watching… But uncovering the secret that could save his new friend and neighbour could be the one thing that destroys him.
If you do a really good job, it’s amazing how people around you will start believing in the person who isn’t really you.
Intriguing, huh? I’m sure we’re all familiar with wearing a mask from time to time, pretending to be someone we’re not or pretending to feel absolutely fabulous when we’re actually feeling incredibly low. But who is not who they are portraying themselves to be in this story? And why?
I really like K.L. Slater’s books so I was pretty darn excited when the opportunity to read this one popped up. It’s fair to say, I think that The Visitor is slightly different from the author’s previous works but that is absolutely not a bad thing. This is a slow-burner, more about the characters, their actions and motivations, than any twists and turns that leave your head spinning but it’s intensely gripping nonetheless.
The chapters alternate between Holly and David. Holly has just returned to her hometown after ten years away. She needs a place to stay, somewhere where she feels safe and can figure out how to get her life back on track. David lives next door and is very set in his ways. He likes his routine and watching his neighbours to make sure they’re safe from harm. Admittedly, slightly on the creepy side. But who’s watching who?
It’s obvious early on that all these characters have secrets but the reveals are slow to come, especially where Holly’s past is concerned. Yet I quite happily followed the trail of breadcrumbs up the proverbial garden path, utterly unable to figure things out. The Visitor isn’t fast-paced or action-packed or the nail-biting sort of story you might expect from this genre. But it is brilliantly written and I found that despite the slower pace, it was still incredibly compelling, engrossing and a thoroughly entertaining psychological thriller. I can’t wait to read more by K.L. Slater!
The Visitor was published on March 2nd.
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Kobo | Goodreads
Kim is the bestselling author of psychological crime thrillers ‘Safe With Me,’ ‘Blink,’ ‘Liar’, ‘The Mistake’ and ‘The Visitor.’
For many years, Kim sent her work out to literary agents and collected a stack of rejection slips. At the age of 40 she went back to Nottingham Trent University and now has an MA in Creative Writing.
Before graduating in 2012, she received five offers of representation from London literary agents and a book deal which was, as Kim says, ‘a fairytale … at the end of a very long road!’
Kim is a full-time writer and lives in Nottingham with her husband, Mac.
She also writes award-winning YA fiction for Macmillan Children’s Books, writing as Kim Slater.
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Novel Deelights 
Ooh sounds good. I like the sound of David’s character, plenty of intrigue there.
Amanda
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Yay! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed this one as well! Fab review
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Fantastic Review!😍📚💜
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