Dead Inside (Maggie Jamieson Crime Thriller, #1)

by Noelle Holten

[zooloo1983]

o I closed the page and I messaged Noelle straight away and said OMFG!! Yes, she got one, well, in fact, she got quite a few! It is always so intense and slight nerve-wracking not only for the author but for the reader when it is a book you are reading of someone you have been getting to know. What if you don’t like the book? What if you don’t think that they have what it takes? To be honest I am more nervous about my review not doing it justice than I was reading the book!!!!!

Well, let me tell you something! She nailed it! And if you were not sure, she hammers it home over and over just to make a point that you know she nailed it!

Dead Inside is not always an easy ride or read, where we are facing domestic abuse in so much detail you find yourself scream loudly at the book. (Just don’t do this if you are reading outside you might get some funny looks!) Certain events in the story were so heartbreaking for some characters, and you wonder why people stay. So many different reasons are banded about in the book but there are no right or wrong reasons.

Although this is the Maggie Jamison series, this was by far the Lucy show! This woman stole the limelight and ran away with it. She captivated my heart, through her strength even at her lowest moments. Her kindness shone through and helped someone at the end make a relatively difficult decision to atone. You can understand her reasoning for a lot of things and you just want to wrap her up in cotton wool and never let anyone hurt her. There was one scene with Lucy that almost destroyed me. The emptiness she felt, I felt. My heart literally broke in a million pieces. This is the power that Noelle and her writing will have over you!!

Maggie, well I quite liked her, a secret stick of dynamite. We are only given hints to her past that haunts her and a case called the Raven. All in good time we know a little bit more, and I can tell she is a force to be reckoned with. She sees things slightly different to everyone else and times she can be blunt and not care and others she is sympathetic and caring, the balance seems just right.

And yes there are a whole host of names from the blogging world which made me smile. One I might not be able to look at the same way lol.

I do not want to say anything about the plot bar what is in the blurb. Even then I did not read it when I picked up the book, I went in completely dark I didn’t want anything to ruin my enjoyment of this book. I didn’t want to read anything that could potentially be a spoiler.

You really wouldn’t know that this was a debut book, I felt like Holten has already crafted her skill and her darkness and that she has been doing this for years. I was completely absorbed by her writing. I couldn’t be distracted when I was reading Dead Inside and I did not want to be. She knows how to make you care and how to make you hate with all the venom that you can in your heart. Because she definitely got all the emotions from me! I spent a lot of the time raging before my heart ached for some characters. There is no remorse for some people and it was palpable in scenes where they were oblivious to their actions and the pain being caused…in walked my anger to the room!

There are different threads running parallel throughout the book kept you on the edge of your seat. It didn’t get confusing, just when something was happening in one thread you would be teased by the chapter switching to a different character, a different scenario and would lead you to speeding through the book to find out what was going on. I felt like I had a satisfying ending to the Dead Inside, I don’t think I could ask for anything better….oh wait I can! Not to bloody end! I seriously didn’t want it to end! It really is like being on your favourite rollercoaster and never wanting the ride to end. You may know how it will end but it’s not without surprises throughout the journey. It is fast paced, especially with the short snappy chapter that keeps you just that little bit on edge as you wait for the next revelation, the next incident and the next time you might need to scream.

As wrong as this sounds, a book about domestic abuses and serial killers, but I bloody loved it! I loved it so much so, that I have pre-ordered the next book in the series Dead Wrong and I can’t wait to see Maggie Jamieson again and Dr Kate Moloney. The dynamic between these two was fab. I just hope we see Lucy again! Plus there might be another familiar name in the next book #justsaying. It is definitely in my top books for the year!!

Please do yourself a favour and buy this book! Put an afternoon aside and devour the words in front of you because you will not want to put the book down once you have started.