Life can get so complicated in just a moment. In Sarah Pinborough’s Cross Her Heart, main character Lisa’s life is going along just fine when everything changes. Her daughter, Ava, is turning sixteen when the novel opens. We can tell that she loves her job, and her best friend, Marilyn. But we all know that’s going to change, and the reason we know that’s going to change is that there wouldn’t be much of a story to tell if it didn’t.
The novel is told from the points of view of Lisa, Ava, and Marilyn in alternating chapters. Enter a client who makes Lisa’s heart beat a little faster and a heroic story from her daughter, and suddenly everything Lisa has built is in jeopardy. It’s in jeopardy, because there’s a terrifying secret past that Lisa’s kept hidden, and having her daughter’s face everywhere after saving the boy has brought more attention than she’d bargained for. Sarah Pinborough does a great job of weaving the backstory in with the main plot line, and revealing what Lisa has kept hidden for so long.
About Cross Her Heart
• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (September 4, 2018)
“Sarah Pinborough is about to become your new obsession.”—Harlan Coben
Lisa is living a lie and everyone is about to find out.
Lisa lives for her daughter Ava, her job and her best friend Marilyn.
But when a handsome client shows an interest in her, Lisa starts daydreaming about sharing her life with him, too. Maybe she’s ready now. Maybe she can trust again. Maybe it’s time to let her terrifying secret past go.
But when her daughter rescues a boy from drowning and their pictures are all over the news for everyone to see, Lisa’s world explodes.
As she finds everything she has built threatened, and not knowing who she can trust, it’s up to Lisa to face her past in order to save what she holds dear.
But someone has been pulling all their strings. And that someone is determined that both Lisa and Ava must suffer.
Because long ago Lisa broke a promise. And some promises aren’t meant to be broken.
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About Sarah Pinborough
Sunday Times No.1 bestseller SARAH PINBOROUGH is the critically acclaimed and award-winning, adult and YA author. Her previous novel, Behind Her Eyes, has sold in 25 territories, been shortlisted for the Crime and Thriller Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and was a Sunday Times No.1 bestseller in hardback and paperback. She is also a screenwriter who has written for the BBC and has several original television projects in development.
Find out more about Sarah at her website, and connect with her on Twitter and Instagram.
Thanks for being on the tour!
I read this, too. I don’t give it high ratings, although I’ve read many good reviews of this book.
Why do so many reviews give books high ratings because of their last couple/few chapters?
Just about all of CROSS HER HEART is figuring out secrets. Normally that’s OK in a mystery/thriller, but most of the secrets in this book are kept from the reader. I prefer to learn what is going on AS a main character does, not AFTER.
Sarah Pinborough does have Marion, one of the characters in CROSS HER HEART, solve mysteries at pretty much the same time as the reader. But the main character, Lisa/Charlotte, is a mystery to the reader until the last several pages.
Three quarters of CROSS HER HEART is frustrating, not thrilling . But that last quarter is not frustrating and is thrilling. That’s not good enough for a high rating.