JOANNE HAYNES HAS A SECRET.
THAT IS NOT HER REAL NAME.
And there’s more. Her flat isn’t hers. Her cats aren’t hers. Even her hair isn’t really hers.
Nor is she any of the other women she pretends to be. Not the bestselling romance novelist who gets her morning snack from the doughnut van on the seafront. Nor the pregnant woman in the dental surgery. Nor the chemo patient in the supermarket for whom the cashier feels ever so sorry. They’re all just alibis.
In fact, the only thing that’s real about Joanne is that nobody can know who she really is.
About the Author:
C.J. SKUSE is the author of the Young Adult novels PRETTY BAD THINGS, ROCKOHOLIC and DEAD ROMANTIC (Chicken House) and MONSTER and THE DEVIANTS (Mira Ink). She has recently written the adult crime novels SWEETPEA and its sequel for HQ/HarperCollins. C.J. was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England and has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels, lectures in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University.
My Review:
The Alibi Girl is the latest standalone thriller by CJ Skuse and if you liked Sweetpea and In Bloom you will enjoy this.
It’s a really difficult book to review without giving away any spoilers or secrets and there is so much I want to say but can’t because you won’t thank me for ruining the story. What I can say is that The Alibi Girl is a book of two halves and for me personally I loved the first half, but the second half lacked the humour and darkness associated with the author’s previous books.
The main character Joanne (or whatever name she chooses to call herself that day) is a deeply troubled and disturbed young woman. It’s clear from the beginning that Joanne has a murky past and some issues with reality, but it isn’t until I got further into her story that I began to realise what exactly was going on… I really can’t say much more without spoiling anything.
The Alibi Girl is quite dark in places and heartbreakingly sad in others and it’s hard not to feel sorry for both of the female characters in this story. I didn’t personally find this book as humorous or gripping as Sweetpea, but I adore the authors style of writing and look forward to reading her next book.
