In The Clearing by J.P. Pomare @HodderBooks @JPPomare

Book Description:

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO PROTECT YOUR FAMILY?

Amy has only ever known life in the Clearing. She knows what’s expected of her. She knows what to do to please her elders, and how to make sure the community remains happy and calm. That is, until a new young girl joins the group. She isn’t fitting in; she doesn’t want to stay. What happens next will turn life as Amy knows it on its head.
Freya has gone to great lengths to feel like a ‘normal person’. In fact, if you saw her go about her day with her young son, you’d think she was an everyday mum. That is, until a young girl goes missing and someone from her past, someone she hasn’t seen for a very long time, arrives in town.
As secrets of the past bubble up to the surface, this small town’s dark secrets will be exposed and lives will be destroyed.

My Thoughts:

This is a story that has chapters alternating between Freya and Amy.

Freya is a single mother who will go to any lengths to ensure her sons safety. She does appear to be slightly over protective but then when a child goes missing, you can’t really blame her for being that way.

Amy on the other hand is part of a community/cult. My heart went out to this girl in her early teens. Her childhood is nothing like how our childhoods will have been and I was willing for her to have some sort of normality.

This is one of those stories that the less you know about it, the better. The beginning was quite unexpected and I wondered just what the author had in store for me. It wasn’t to long before I found out, although when I thought I knew where it was taking me the author shook it up, sending me in a totally different direction.

In The Clearing is one dark and twisted story. Just as I thought I had figured things out, the author pulled the rug out from under my feet. Yes, the tag line declares it has an unbelievable twist, which for me is what draws me to these type of books in the first place. It certainly delivers on this count, in fact there were quite a few twists and turns making this a compelling page turner of a read.

My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and Secret Readers for an advanced readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in anyway.

In The Clearing is available to purchase from Amazon.