I have to say that when I received an email with the blog tour pack for The Kindness of Strangers I was a bit surprised as I had no recollection of signing up for it. It was clearly something I did on the spur of the moment when busy. Looking at the cover of this book I wasn’t convinced it was for me as I only review crime fiction and this looked more like a romance. However I wouldn’t want to let anyone down so I started reading, and it just goes to show you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
The Kindness of Strangers introduces us to three main characters. There is Helen who has recently been widowed and is struggling to adjust to her new life. This is made even harder when she discovers her husband has been hiding a big secret. Martin is an army veteran suffering from PTSD and trying to put things right with his family. Then we meet Charley a young pregnant artist who is determined to do the best for her baby. All of them are brought together in a way by Audrey who volunteers in the local charity shop.
This story starts off as a nice gentle story of three struggling characters, all being helped in their own way by other people. Told in the first person, you get drawn into their lives and begin to really hope they all get the predicted nice happy ending. Until part 2 hits. Here the story switches to third person, and the pace cranks up incredibly. I am not going to say any more as I wouldn’t want to ruin it for anyone. Yet it completely blindsided me, and made it impossible to stop reading.
It was a truly shocking turnaround between part 1 and part 2 which made it all the more compelling. The characters are all cleverly written and once you finish you can look back at part 1 and realise the clues to some of the actions are there. However they are well hidden so as to make part 2 such a shock.
To an extent it was a departure from my usual type of read which normally starts with a crime and finishes with it being solved. This was very much character lead, with the crimes being secondary to an exploration of perceived kindness and human nature. However that was exactly what made it so superb. I’m really glad I signed up for this tour. I would thoroughly recommend this novel and can’t wait to read Julie Newman’s first novel Beware the Cuckoo.
Buy The Kindness of Strangers here https://amzn.to/2HzNkeA
Don’t forget to visit some of the other stops on the blog tour.
A crime readers blog 