The Warning

by Kathryn Croft

[Leah]

The Warning is a book I dived into immediately, as soon as I read the tag-line and was approved by BookOuture, on Netgalley, I started reading. I like when books fall like that – where you request something and know you absolutely have to start it immediately and I finished this book in one evening, something that’s a bit of a rarity since I started a new job a week ago – starting a new job is draining, folks. I actually have never read one of Kathryn Croft’s books, but the synopsis just hooked me immediately and I actually really loved the book.

This is an absolutely cracking psychological thriller and what sets it apart from most psychological thrillers is that Zoe is actually a reliable narrator – hurrah! She isn’t going mad or acting different, this is just a mother trying to get over the death of her son three years ago and who, rightly, questions everything she thought she knew when she starts to get text messages insinuating Ethan’s death wasn’t quite as accidental as Zoe and everyone else was led to believe. It’s a really clever premise, and I liked that Jake, Zoe’s husband, was on Zoe’s side throughout when she started to delve back into what happened on the day Ethan and Josh died. He was not a great husband otherwise, but he was rock solid in being on Zoe’s side as she went down the rabbit hole of her son’s last days and hours.It was so refreshing.

There is a lot going on in this novel – it’s not just about Zoe’s search for the truth, but there’s Josh’s mum Roberta as well, who just seems very Stepford-wife-y and her husband most definitely rules their roost with an iron fist and it actually made me so sad for her, because she seemed like a decent person, more or less. Then there’s Zoe’s surviving son, Harley, off to medical school soon and very, very introverted. Then there is the obligatory narrator in italics who is almost like the puppet master – you can tell this person is manipulative but it isn’t clear at all who it actually is. I will say, the reveal wasn’t one of those moments where your jaw drops, unfortunately, I had an idea who I thought it might have been and was utterly wrong, so utterly wrong, but it was everything that came out after that reveal that was the shock, in my opinion.

The Warning was a truly magnificent read. I was glued to it from start to finish, barely able to put it down and desperate for Zoe to put to rest what happened to Ethan (and Josh) all those years ago. Kathryn Croft is a fantastic writer and I will definitely be going back and reading her previous novels because she is such a brilliant writer, she honestly kept me awake long enough to finish this book in one go and this week, that is a bloody rarity. Thank you, Kathryn, The Warning was the exact book I needed to kick my reading mojo back into gear.