Cwa-if you knew her by Emily Elgar.
Cassie had it all - the fairytale wedding, the stunning home, the perfect husband. But when she arrives on the intensive care ward at St Catherine's hospital in a coma, it soon becomes clear that she has a secret; a secret that changes everything.
Alice, the chief nurse on the ward begins to feel a connection with Cassie and can't help but wonder if things are not quite as they seem.Frank, another patient, can hear and see everything around him but cannot communicate. He understands that Cassie's life is in danger and only he holds the truth, which no one can know and he cannot tell . . .
A brilliant read. Different. Cassie I really felt for. I liked Frank. This is a new author to me. 5*.

An absolutely gripping and compulsive read. My heart raced as the story unfolded. Great characters and a twisty storyline left me breathless! Recommended!

This book must of fallen through the net as I've just realised I never reviewed after reading!!

A solid 3.5 star psychological thriller from the author.

It's sometimes enough reading from the perspective of 2 characters, never mind 3 like in this novel, but it wasn't as hard to get a hold of as I thought it may be.

I liked that it was set within the medical backdrop. Alice is a nurse (one of the most unprofessional may I add!) Frank is a coma patient - unable to see but able to hear everything going on and lastly, is new patient Cassie - our hit and run victim. I liked the idea of having Frank as this lead witness to the story of finding out who put Cassie where she is.

Threaded together with the present storyline are Cassie's flashbacks which slot in when needed and let the reader slowly piece things together.

Despite many characters and red herrings I did work it out, and despite a few little niggles (medical knowledge a little off at times and characters needing a little more depth, which left my ming wandering elsewhere at times) it was a good easy read.

Of course, this story deviated greatly from what could happen in reality, but it was reasonably well written and the story was good - I was willing Frank to wake up and sort things out, but of course things don't always end happily. They certainly didn't in this, and I guess in that way it was realistic.

This was a brilliant story full of twists and turns. It's narrated by three people Frank, Alice and Cassie and is centred at the Critical Care Ward 9B in St Catherine's Hospital. Frank is in a coma however he can hear everything that's going on around him. Alice is the Ward Manager and talks to Frank about her life, as he has few visitors.. Cassie is a new patient who was in a hit and run. Her story tells of her recent marriage and how she ended up in a coma. Someone is trying to kill Cassie. Frank sees them and tries to communicate to anyone who will listen, Alice has her suspicions and begins investigating Cassie's life herself. Read on!

I found this book a fantastic debut novel and totally mind blowing. I certainly will be looking forward to reading more books by Emily Elgar in the future. This story is told from three different perspectives and we learn about their lives throughout the book. It is based in a hospital high dependency unit and one of the characters is Aice, who is a nurse on the unit. Frank, is already a patient and has 'locked in' syndrome and Cassie, who is admitted after surviving a violent attack and is in a coma. I found my self totally connecting with these characters and the story line and after quite a few twists and turns certainly didn't guess the ending. A fantastic read!
Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

A good written debut book. Great story line that sucks you in
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

This book is written from the pov of three of the main characters. We have Alice who is a nurse on ward 9b, a high dependency unit in St Catherine's hospital. She yearns for a child of her own but sadly she hasn't yet been blessed so she pretty much concentrates all her efforts on her job and her patients. Frank is one of these patients, he is in a coma and has been pretty much written off by the majority. Alice however still believes he is still in there and we, as readers, soon know the truth of exactly how aware he really is. Then we have Cassie, a new addition to the ward after barely surviving a violent attack.
It is Cassie's story that is the main feature of the book. As things progress in the present from her admission to the ward, we also see her backstory told in flashback. The focus of which being, was it really an accident and, if not, who would deliberately try and hurt her? We also follow Frank as he desperately wants to communicate and learn a bit of his history and his relationship with his daughter. Finally we see into Alice's home life and her failed pregnancies and how she yearns to be a mum.
This was very much a character driven book. It helped me that I connected to and believed in the three main characters right from the start. The supporting cast were all equally well believable and the interaction between and the scenes they played out came across to be very credible. I thought that the use of a "coma patient" as a witness was very original and it worked very well as everyone believed Frank to be in a vegetative state so they didn't curb their words and behaviours around him. I really felt for him as he started to learn more of what was happening but was completely powerless to do anything with this knowledge.
Cassie's flashbacks were interesting and injected into the present day narrative at exactly the right times to progress the story nicely. There were enough dodgy characters in her backstory to keep me guessing for a while. I flitted between each and every one as I learned more about them. I do think however that maybe there were too many suspects and that the author kept some in play a little too long so that, when I got the the end and the truth came out, I wasn't overly fussed as to who and why. Probably says more about me than being a slur on the author if truth be told but I have to say it as I see it.
Pacing was on the whole good. Not as even as I would have preferred but hey, that reflects the way things go in life so I guess it's OK. Just sometimes I found that my attention wandered a bit and I found it a little harder to pick up again.
All in all, another pretty good debut book. Even with all my little niggles, I can't fault the overall quality of the writing and I will be very interested in see what the author serves up next time.

My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Emily Elgar for allowing me to read and review this book.

For a debut psych thriller, I give this a thumbs up for sure. The book is told from 3 different character's stories. First, you have Alice who is an ICU nurse and takes care of the other 2 patient's who tell their stories. Secondly, you have Frank who is one of Alice's patients who was admitted for a stroke related to his alcohol abuse. Frank is on a trach and vent, unable to speak but hears everything going on around him. The last of 3 characters is Cassie who is a patient of Alice's after a hit and run accident. Cassie is also pregnant but is comatose.

The thriller of the story is trying to figure out who hit Cassie and caused her to end up in the hospital. Don't forget that Frank (patient) can hear everything around him. Without giving away any spoilers, the one who does hurt Cassie is not the one I thought it would be, and that's what I expect from a psych thriller. While this isn't as deep as some psych thrillers, as a nurse myself, I loved how Alice tries to figure out on her own the person who caused Cassie's hospitalization. I had a hard time putting this book down. I would definitely recommend this book to others.

What a talented writer, this was a page turner and certainly one of the top thrillers I have read in quite some time. I could not put this one down.

This is an easy mystery/suspense novel. A light read..
Three main characters :
1) Alice, an ICU high dependency unit nurse and her two patients
2) Frank, with a tracheotomy and ventilator suffering from "locked in syndrome", post stroke and alcoholism
3) Cassie, a young wife with a head injury and coma, post a hit and run accident
The story revolves around the lives of all the three, Alice with her husband David and her inability to sustain her pregnancies. Frank and his relationship to daughter Lucy, which is described in bits and pieces as past memory. Cassie and her husband Jack, mother-in-law, Charlotte and the ebb and flow of family politics and life in a farm. Alice has a different relationship with both her patients. She believes that Frank's brain is active but his body is locked, so she shares her life secrets with him, he is her sounding board. She also feels a strange connection to Cassie and goes about finding out more about her past life, especially when she finds out that Cassie is pregnant.
Points of mystery are
Who visits Cassie at night, her family or friend Nicky or stepfather Marcus or neighbour Jonny, is Cassie in danger from that person, whose child is Cassie carrying, was Cassie running away or searching for her dog, why is Jack so tensed, is it work or something else, will Cassie ever get up to tell the truth. How does Frank help when he cannot move or talk, what has Frank heard in the darkness of the night. The answers to these doubts are in hidden in the pages of the book. That's what makes this book an entertaining read.
Emily Elgar writes well in her debut novel, but a little depth to her characters would be nice. She writes the story of every character in the past and the present. She makes Cassie sound like a complex woman but does not describe her complexities or her feelings for her parents or her future family. Everything is told to us in a couple of lines. There are lot of small things left to imagination and presumption. But in saying this, I would also add that these are just minor details, does not detract much from the suspense. On the whole a good read, worth spending the afternoon with this book.

I am not usually fond of stories that are told from two different points of view, let alone three. In this instance, it worked well. It also made a change for me to read a story that was based on a hospital, with the main characters being a Nurse (Alice), Frank (locked in syndrome) and Cassie (hit and run victim). It is clever how the story comes together. Very enjoyable!

My review has been posted on Amazon and Goodreads.

A debut Psychological thriller that is told by various characters.
Alice who is a Nurse, Frank who is a patient with locked in syndrome and Cassie who is the victim of a hit and run.

Unfortunately I found the book to have a very slow build up to a rather poor ending for a Psychological thriller. The book is mostly set in medical surroundings with in Alice , probably the most unprofessional nurse, constantly breaking patient confidentiality. The story moves along wellish but despite the few Red Herrings thrown in, it wasnt a hard to work out who the culprit was.
Didnt enjoy this im afraid.

Was a very gripping read. one id recommend. Not many characters in the book it was kept simle and i enjoyed that. great turns and twists very good read

If You Knew Her was a delicious thriller of a book which managed to both keep me guessing and touch me in equal measure.

Told through a variety of viewpoints it fed the stories of the character to me in such a way that my view of them was clear. Firstly Frank hauntingly locked into a body that won't communicate yet hears everything. Then Alice, locked into a body that won't give her the one thing she so desperately craves, and finally Cassie, the one who joins the two of them together - there's a touching echoing sadness that unites them all in the same way. Some of the scenes are so achingly poignant that I couldn't help but be moved by them - always wishing that there would be a happy ending for each of them. This of course was helped by the almost poetical style of writing that Elgar used to convey the longing and hurt they suffered - there really were some beautiful turns of phrases that wouldn't have been out of place in a tear-jerker.

I didn't so much care about where the story was taking me, I was just all too happy to go along for the ride. I found it just so wonderfully structured that I was always wanting to read just one more chapter.

I totally, thoroughly enjoyed it. Great.

Excellent book. Brilliant storyline and characters. I would highly recommend this book.

This novel reminded me of some of Tess Gerrisen's novels, in the sense that it was a medical/crime/thriller. It is most definitely not a police procedural, as the police rarely feature. I think this helped this book stand out at a time when the genre is hugely popular.

The novel revolves around 3 central characters
Anne- the slightly obsessed workaholic nurse that runs ward 9B.
Cassie - the main character & victim of the attack, who is in a coma on ward 9B.
and Frank - A fellow patient on ward 9B, who is suffering from locked-in syndrome (brought on from alcohol abuse).

There is so many themes within this novel, that make it gripping reading. Themes of betrayal, shame of the past, obsession and emotional pain. Some of the medical facts are slightly off, but given its complex nature and intensity, I was happy to glance over them. I have myself in my career cared for someone with locked-in syndrome and it is a very accurate portrayal of the condition. I found the whole whodunit? angle was really ramped up by there being so many potential suspects. I couldn't & didn't guess the ending, which is unusual for me. The ending is cracking & I sincerely hope the author has another already in the pipeline?
A fantastic debut novel 5*
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