The Face at the Window by Ruby Speechley – Blog Tour

Thank you to Sarah Hardy from @BOTBSPublicity for organising this tour and to Ruby Speechley, Hera Books and NetGalley for a copy of this novel in exchange for a honest and unbiased review.

Synopsis

They’re in your house.

They want your life.

And now, they have your baby.

To the world, I’m @HappyWife. Online, people only see my picture-perfect home, my handsome husband, Nick, and my beautiful baby, Thomas.

They don’t see the real Gemma Adams. They don’t see my past, the dark secrets I’m hiding in my marriage. They don’t see the fear I live in every single day.

But I know someone is watching me. And now, they’ve taken Thomas.

I just don’t know why.

But I’m going to stop at nothing to get my baby back.

Even if it destroys everything I’ve got to find him.

A compelling thriller, packed with suspense – fans of K.L. Slater and Lisa Jewell won’t be able to put it down.

My Thoughts

The Face at the Window is an emotional roller coaster of a thriller and makes for really uncomfortable reading. I always think if a story makes you squirm and flinch when reading, then it’s a story that needs telling and people need to hear – even if it isn’t pleasant. This novel did exactly that and as much as I enjoyed reading it, for me it raised a lot of other thoughts and feelings too.

The main theme for me is manipulation and abuse and the devastating and rippling impact this can have. To the outside world Gemma and Nick have a perfect life but things are rarely as they seem and there is so much more going on. Ruby Speechley does a fantastic job of creating a vile villain who makes your skin crawl and is so very frighteningly real (because these people do exist). My heart completely went out to Scarlett too.

Multiple narrators provide an interesting perspective on the events before and after Thomas’s disappearance. Events past and present are explored and throughout the book they build a more detailed picture of the various characters. The more that is revealed, the more things are explained and can be understood and the way I felt about different characters changed as this happened.

Short chapters and changes in narration made this a really pacey novel to read. I flew through it and couldn’t put it down. A brilliant thriller that addresses many themes and real-life issues and serves as a cautionary tale to not be too taken in by social media.

Author Bio – Ruby Speechley

Ruby Speechley is the author of four psychological thrillers published by Hera Books. She loves writing about domestic situations with plenty of twists and secrets.

She was born in Portugal but has lived in the UK since she was three months old. She now lives in Cheshire with her husband and two of her three children and two dogs. She has an older son and grandson.

You can contact her on Twitter: @rubyspeechley