The Catch

by T M Logan

[Leah]

What a fabulous read. Having woken up at 6am, I was wide awake and desperate to do a bit of reading, having spent all day Sunday in bed (nightshift will do that to you). I decided to start a new book, even though I've started two OTHER new books, but since I've struggled to get back to them, my logic was... I don't really want to read either of them, so I needed a brand new read for a brand new week!

I read the back of The Catch, had a read of the first few lines and I was hooked immediately. The whole concept of The Catch is so, so fascinating. Everyone wants their kids to be happy, to find love, to be stable, etc, etc. so when Ed's daughter Abbie announces she's engaged to her boyfriend Ryan, you'd think he'd be over the moon, right? Wrong. Because as soon as Ed meets Ryan, he gets a vibe from him that seems off. He has a gut feeling that Ryan is too perfect, too polished. And Ed sets out to prove that Ryan isn't as good as he seems...

What fascinated me most about The Catch was that it's fascinating to see that instead of just leaving everything be, instead of letting Abbie marry Ryan and enjoy her marital bliss, Ed goes with his gut because he's sure that everything with Ryan isn't as hunky dory as it seems and seeing him try and try and try again, to prove everyone wrong was pretty impressive, because he literally had his wife and his daughter Abbie calling him mad for assuming Ryan is awful. And a lot of this novel it does seem like maybe Ed is just worried about losing Abbie and that Ryan is harmless and I was never quite sure what was actually going on. Was Ryan dodgy? Was Ed going mad?

I loved the pacing of this novel. It kept me hooked pretty much all the way through. I actually liked Ed, I liked that he was willing to go with his gut when everyone else was telling him to just give it up. But I will say, the novel let itself down at the end. The last part disappointed me greatly. It felt like a damp squib of an ending. I can't really say why, because I'd have to spoil parts of the novel, but it isn't the ending I would have written. I'd have gone the other way with it.

This was still an amazing novel. Well paced, great characters, a decent plot, but for me the ending let it down, which was a shame. TM Logan is a brilliant writer, he really gets to the guts of his characters and he makes you care and he poses interesting questions. I just would have ended it differently. It left me feeling a bit sad, really.