Finders, Keepers by Sabine Durrant | @SabineDurrant @HodderBooks @JennyPlatt90 | #blogtour

Delighted to welcome you all to my stop on the blog tour for Finders Keepers by Sabine Durrant. My thanks to Jenny at Hodder for the opportunity to join and for the review copy!

Author : Sabine Durrant
Title : Finders, Keepers
Pages : 310
Publisher : Hodder & Stoughton
Publication date : July 9, 2020

| ABOUT THE BOOK |

Ailsa Tilson moves with her husband and children to Trinity Fields in search of the new. 
New project – a house to renovate. New people – no links to the past. New friends – especially her next-door neighbour, the lonely Verity, who needs her help. 

Verity has lived in Trinity Fields all her life. She’s always resisted change. Her home and belongings are a shield, a defence to keep the outside world at bay. But something about the Tilsons piques her interest.

Just as her ivy creeps through the shared garden fence, so Verity will work her way into the Tilson family. 

And once they realise how formidable she can be, it might well be too late. 

| MY THOUGHTS |

An action-packed thriller, this is not. Finders, Keepers is a delicious slow-burner that remains utterly enthralling throughout. It has a bit of a cat-and-mouse feel to it, although I couldn’t at all decide who the cat was or who the mouse.

Verity, fifty-two years old, has lived in the same house since birth. Verity doesn’t like change and has little social contact, unless you count the weekly pub quiz and her faithful dog. But Verity is happy with her life, her job and her home. The Tilson family moving in next door really shouldn’t have an impact on her life at all. But somehow, it does and Verity strikes up a rather unlikely friendship with Ailsa Tilson.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out quite quickly that Verity is as eccentric as they come. I didn’t particularly find her likeable, nor could I decide if she was a reliable narrator or not. What is clear though, is that she has a few secrets she’d quite like to keep hidden. But then, that might also be possible next door where the Tilson family could maybe not entirely be as they seem. I say “could” because what the reader thinks they know about this family is all based on Verity’s point-of-view. And how much of what she tells us can we actually believe?

This is very much a character-driven story, in that way that Sabine Durrant does so incredibly well. There is such depth to her characters and the reader is allowed plenty of time to try and figure them out. My perceptions and loyalties shifted throughout, until I thought I knew what was going on. Because there is a mystery to solve and a responsible party to reveal but you will have to discover all of that for yourself. The storyline switches between the past and the beginnings of the friendship between Verity and Alicia, and the present where the consequences start to unravel. To me, this is one of those books where you don’t fully realise the extent of how masterfully the plot has been constructed until you reach the part where all the pieces of the puzzle start to come together.

Finders, Keepers is a captivating, intriguing and chilling tale of obsession and manipulation that will most definitely appeal to fans of Sabine Durrant and the slow-burner psychological thriller genre.

Finders, Keepers is available to buy!

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