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Book Review: Catch Me When I Fall by Nicci French
Book Review: Catch Me When I Fall by Nicci French
This is one of those books that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading it. The description in the first chapter of the heroine’s drink and drug fuelled night out was just incredible. I’ve never had a night out like that (thank goodness!) but I really could feel what it must be like.
It’s easy to look back and find holes in the plot, easy to see too that the characters are a bit too obvious: the crazy girl, the loyal husband, the even more loyal friend. It’s so compelling at the time you’re reading it that you don’t notice and if you do, you don’t mind.
It’s not always a comfortable read. Parts of it are really quite unsettling and not the sort of thing you want to read just before you go to sleep. Not because it’s frightening but because it makes you so uncomfortable.
It is brilliantly researched. The authors Nicci Gerrard and Sean French have certainly done their homework. I’ve always wondered what it must be like to co-author a book. Does one person have the ideas and the other write them out? I can’t imagine they write certain chapters independently. I find it hard enough myself to structure a novel. How much harder it must be to do it with someone else.
Back to the book. Would I recommend it to anyone else? I’m not sure that I would. I have to say I raced through it and it’s well written but the subject matter itself is just so disquieting. So I’d say if you like thrillers and don’t mind reading something that’s distressing in places, then you’ll enjoy it.
Bethany Askew is the author of eight novels: The Time Before, The World Within, Out of Step, Counting the Days, Poppy's Seed, Three Extraordinary Years The Two Saras and I Know You, Don't I? She has also written a short story, The Night of the Storm, and she writes poetry. Two more women’s fiction books have been accepted for publication in 2020 and 2021 respectively and she is currently working on a new novel. In her spare time she enjoys reading, music, theatre, walking, Pilates, dancing and voluntary work. Bethany is married and lives in Somerset.