Loved it.

Great story, full of twists and turns, great performance. I would definitely recommend this book.

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Dark, Disturbing and very Twisty

I was hooked from the first sentences. “Chances are by the time you read this I’ll be dead. Three interesting things about me. Well, I’m twenty-nine years old, I’m phobic about buttons. Oh yes, and I’m dying.”

Jessica Gold meets a handsome stranger, Dominic Lacey, in a department store café on Christmas Eve and goes home with him. He then keeps her prisoner, subjecting her to his twisted, depraved games and giving her a gift every day for the 12 days of Christmas.

As the story progresses we learn more about the characters. Jessica is, in the words of her brothers, ‘weird’, but as the story progresses we learn that there’s more to her than meets the eye. She is in a long term relationship with Shaun but the relationship is not a happy one. Dominic is evil, manipulative and completely without remorse or mercy, and I admit he scared me to death! But we do learn about his childhood and start to understand how he became the man he is. Then there is the female detective, Kim, who is ambitious and wants to progress in her career and knows that to do this she has to be twice as good as her male colleague. Her husband gives her an ultimatum – her job or him and the kids. It would be great to see Kim in more books to see how her character progresses.

The plot is clever and complex, and the storyline is quite horrific but I didn’t want to stop reading to find out if Jessica would manage to escape. But then just as I thought I knew how the story would end there is Part 2….. and WOW everything is turned on it’s head and everything I thought I knew was suddenly wrong. There is twist after twist. I did guess one or two of them, but this didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book. Despite its very dark subject matter there are some wickedly funny one-liners which had me laughing out loud.

And then there’s the ending. WTF???

If you like your Christmas fiction dark then this is the book for you!

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2 people found this helpful

Great weird story!

Really enjoyed this as weird as it was, but I couldn’t stop listening! I had to know what was going to happen next😱😰fab narrator 💯and I will look out for more from this author!😊👍🏽 I would say this is not for the faint hearted, its sick and creepy but there’s something really good about it🤔😂thanks audible you are the best!♥️💯xxx

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An excellent read

The twists and turns are excellent in this. I was really surprised at different points in the story. Some fascinating development of the characters. Would definitely recommend.
Loving Audible!

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1 person found this helpful

Spot on narration

Brilliant author. She’s new to me, I stumbled across a physical book in our village library and was hooked.

The narration suited the story. I have over 400 books in my audible library. Some of them high I’ve abandoned because of the narration but this wasn’t one of them.

Other authors I like are Charlie Gallagher, John Marrs ( except the Marriage Lie which gave me the creeps !) I used to listen to Halen Coben and such. I’ve never seen any of the Netflix or films any of the books have been made into.

I’d also been going through a period of meweeeeehhhh don’t like that book don’t fancy that book and this has reigned my audible tastebuds.

I also like Sarah Morgan, Cathy Bramley and BBC Archers.

Ok. So there’s my opinion. :)

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Would have been a great book....

...except for the narrator's voice. Emily Gregory's voice would be brilliant in a sleep app or a classic english drama - but not for a thriller! It is very hard to find this book gripping when the voice is soooo soothing. So it brought a 5 star thriller to a (generous) 3 star (in my opinion). I would definitely chose another of Tammy Cohen's books but with a different narrator.

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Pretty painful

This was a fairly dull murder mystery with a bizarre but slow plot. The christmas gimmick seemed unnecessary and I never really sympathised with any of the characters. The narration was fine.

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Love the narrator but the ending was disappointing

At first I really enjoyed this book couldn't stop listening , but the ending was too rushed and was left having to figure out what happened next which I don't like, I only downloaded it as I love Emma Gregory she brings stories to life and is a fantastic narrator! It was a good story and worth a listen lots of twists and turns but was just left feeling disappointed with the ending

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