Delighted to join the blog tour for The Closer I Get by Paul Burston today! My thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for the invitation to join and to Karen Sullivan at Orenda Books for the brilliant review copy!

Author : Paul Burston
Title : The Closer I Get
Pages : 311
Publisher : Orenda Books
Publication date : July 11, 2019

| ABOUT THE BOOK |

Tom is a successful author, but he’s struggling to finish his novel. His main distraction is an online admirer, Evie, who simply won’t leave him alone.

Evie is smart, well read and unstable; she lives with her father and her social-media friendships are not only her escape, but everything she has.

When she’s hit with a restraining order, her world is turned upside down, and Tom is free to live his life again, to concentrate on writing.

But things aren’t really adding up. For Tom is distracted but also addicted to his online relationships, and when they take a darker, more menacing turn, he feels powerless to change things. Because maybe he needs Evie more than he’s letting on.

| MY THOUGHTS |

Well, now. If this doesn’t make you want to shut down all of your social media accounts and unplug your modern technology gadgets from now until eternity, I don’t know what will.

Tom Hunter is a successful author but he’s struggling to finish his latest novel. An online fan, Evie, just will not leave him alone. When Evie is hit with a restraining order, Tom is able to live again and enjoy his freedom. Or is he? Because there is a lot more to this story than you might think.

I must admit, I’ve been struggling with the psychological thriller genre a bit lately. But this one? Gosh, this one is SO dark and SO utterly brilliantly disturbing, it had me hooked! And of course, immensely relatable because I’m sure many of us have had to deal with “trolls” on social media. Paul Burston really manages to bring home the impact this kind of behaviour can have on someone who’s at the receiving end. To the point where I myself was beginning to feel completely paranoid, eying my social media followers, wondering who’s hiding behind those profile pictures.

I didn’t find either of these characters particularly likeable. I’m not entirely sure if I was meant to. As unstable as Evie is, I often felt like smacking her because I found her extremely irritating (sorry!). And as for Tom, despite being the victim in this case, he often came across as an arrogant douchebag (again, sorry!) and there was just something about him that meant I didn’t fully trust him.

You can’t have a psychological thriller and not have a few surprises along the way, now can you. Paul Burston did that extremely well and pulled the rug right from under my feet. I was never quite able to figure out the outcome of this story, couldn’t see how this would all end and tried to imagine a few different scenarios. None of which were happy and fluffy, mind you. The ultimate conclusion though is one I could never have predicted at all and it blew me away!

This story is massively unsettling. With an almost unbearable tension, complex characters, a remarkable psychological insight and an impending sense of doom, The Closer I Get is a highly addictive, thought-provoking and compelling page-turner. Creepy, extremely frightening and chilling, this is the kind of book you just can’t put down and one which makes you appreciate the psychological thriller genre all over again!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and deactivate my twitter account. 😅

The Closer I Get is available to buy in ebook format, with the paperback to follow on July 11th.

Affiliate link : Bookdepository
Other retailers : Amazon US | Amazon UK | Goldsboro (sprayed edges!) | Kobo | Waterstones | Wordery

| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |

Paul Burston is the author of five novels and the editor of two short story collections. His most recent novel The Black Path, was a WHSmith bestseller. His first novel, Shameless, was shortlisted for the State of Britain Award. His third novel, Lovers & Losers was shortlisted for a Stonewall Award. His fourth, The Gay Divorcee, was optioned for television.

He was a founding editor of Attitude magazine and has written for many publications includingGuardian, Independent, Time Out, The Times and Sunday Times. In March 2016, he was featured in the British Council’s #FiveFilms4Freedom Global List 2016, celebrating “33 visionary people who are promoting freedom, equality and LGBT rights around the world”.

He is the founder and host of London’s award-winning LGBT+ literary salon Polari and founder and chair of The Polari First Book Prize for new writing and the newly announced Polari Prize.