Today it's my turn on the BlogTour Call Me Star Girl by Louise Beech. It's a dark psychological thriller that wants you to question the facts until the very last moment.
About the Author
Louise Beech is an exceptional literary talent, whose debut novel How To Be Brave was a Guardian Readers’ Choice for 2015. The follow-up, The Mountain in My Shoe was shortlisted for Not the Booker Prize. Both of her previous books Maria in the Moon and The Lion Tamer Who Lost were widely reviewed, critically acclaimed and number-one bestsellers on Kindle. The Lion Tamer Who Lost was shortlisted for the RNA Most Popular Romantic Novel Award in 2019. Her short fiction has won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting for the Bridport Prize twice. Louise lives with her husband on the outskirts of Hull, and loves her job as a Front of House Usher at Hull Truck Theatre, where her first play was performed in 2012.
Follow @LouiseWriter @Orendabooks on Twitter,
Visit louisebeech.co.uk
Buy Call Me Star Girl
About the book
Tonight is the night for secrets…
Pregnant Victoria Valbon was brutally murdered in an alley three weeks ago – and her killer hasn’t been caught.
Tonight is Stella McKeever’s final radio show. The theme is secrets. You tell her yours, and she’ll share some of hers. Stella might tell you about Tom, a boyfriend who likes to play games, about the mother who abandoned her, now back after twelve years. She might tell you about the perfume bottle with the star-shaped stopper, or about her father …
What Stella really wants to know is more about the mysterious man calling the station … who says he knows who killed Victoria, and has proof. Tonight is the night for secrets, and Stella wants to know everything…
With echoes of the chilling Play Misty for Me, Call Me Star Girl is a taut, emotive and all-consuming psychological thriller that plays on our deepest fears, providing a stark reminder that stirring up dark secrets from the past can be deadly…
This is the kind of read that messes with your head, and probably not in a good way either.
The scene is set, or so we are led to believe, with the radio presenter Stella playing cat and mouse games with an alleged witness to a devastating crime. He says he knows who did it, he says he saw everything? What did he see and what is Stella so worried about? Or perhaps this is the killer playing a terrible game with his next victim.
I think one of the most screwed up characters is Tom, and because of it he certainly fits the description of a ruthless killer. The games he wants to play with Stella go way beyond simple fun or being a little bit risqué. They suggest a psychopathology. On the other side of his disturbing ideas is the girlfriend so desperate to please that she is willing to try anything he suggests. Anything to make sure he doesn't leave her.
Her insecurities all lead back to being neglected and abandoned by a mother who loves herself and self-gratification, more than she cares for her own child.
It's a dark psychological thriller that wants you to question the facts until the very last moment. Did she do it, did he do it or is it all just a mind game? Beech plays with boundaries in this noirish piece of crime fiction. She invites the reader to think beyond what may be perceived as comfortable and to consider the factors of guilt, and how childhood trauma can determine personality and choices in adulthood. Is saving a child from a specific torment or possible abuse worth them being scarred by neglect and disinterest?
Buy Call Me Star Girl at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Orenda Books; pub date 18 April 2019. Buy at Amazon com.
Read my review of The Lion Tamer Who Lost and Maria in the Moon by Louise Beech.
No comments:
Post a Comment