Gritty, strong female main characters that show you just what being a mother is about when it comes to protecting their children. The plot is one that I have found to be unique even though it involves a serial killer. I was captivated from the beginning of this story all the way to the ending and had quite a few spots where I held my breath. I received a copy of this via NetGalley.

This thriller was very fast paced and suspenseful. It was good in that the plot was original if not very unbelievable. Some of the dialogue and plot devices were amusing, even laughable. The decisions the mothers in the book made were outrageous; the climax was over the top and very unexpected.
That being said, I really enjoyed this book for what it was; a fun, page-turner. The misfortune here with this book is that there are so many other books of its genre of better quality that it, in my opinion, pales in comparison.
The strongest element of this book is the atmosphere. It takes place in winter and every time the characters were outdoors, I felt like I was outdoors in the snow, walking on the ice, or driving on snow-covered roads. When they were coming upon a creepy desolate shed, I felt chills.
Also, even though the characters made a lot of questionable decisions, I still cared about them and even liked them. I liked the strange bond that developed over the course of the few hours they shared together in their quest. Overall, an excellent read. Thank you NetGalley, Bookouture, and Richard Jay Parker.

His is definitely a gripping read that will keep your butt firmly planted in your seat! It’s fast paced and entertaining yet deeply disturbing!

You feel like you’re on a rollercoaster along with Maggie and Holly and you’ll bite your now at each twist and turn. The snow setting was perfect for the story, it really set its eeriness perfectly. I loved the story and the characters, love how well described the book is and how it will keep you wanting to the turn the pages.

The only thing I really disliked about it what the way the character sometimes spoke. They’d be like: “cut me down. Then I’ll tell you.” ..... “don’t ask again.” Like what they’re going through isn’t terrifying? Which made it seems less realistic then the rest of the story.

I can’t wait to get my hands on Hide and Seek and read more of this author’s incredible work.

I ended up really enjoying this book, although it took me a bit to get into. Despite the fact that this should have been action from minute one, it seemed to me to drag a bit. The first few chapters start off with a bang but then the story stagnated, although this slight lull was great for building the story. By the time the two women were partnering up, I didn't want to put the book down. The last half was action-packed and will keep you drawn in to the story. If you're one that's offended by language or violence, steer clear. The language is throughout although it's sprinkled throughout instead of heavily featured. The biggest one here is violence with a particularly gruesome scene. If you can handle it though, this is a good thriller, just hang in through those lulls and you will be rewarded with plenty of action and suspense.

I would like to thank the publisher, author, and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Maggie is a single mum to her 18-month-old daughter, Penny. When Holly breaks into their home and Maggie sees the surgical gloves Holly's wearing, she knows Holly is there to kill her to save her own daughter, Abigail. How? Because it wasn't all that long ago that Maggie was in Holly's shoes, breaking into the home of a stranger to kill to save Penny from the clutches of "The Babysitter".

For me, this title is a book of two halves. The first half is incredibly intense and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. With Maggie and Holly both armed, lying to each other through their teeth and calling each other's bluff, one of the women ends up being shot. But was it Maggie or Holly that came out on top and who, exactly is The Babysitter, pulling their strings from afar, trying to entice them to murder on his behalf?

In the second half of the book, despite being filled with distrust toward each other, and with one of the women injured, Maggie and Holly come to an understanding because they realise the nightmare will never really end until The Babysitter is taken out of the picture. Here the action slows down a little as the women move from location to location, playing The Babysitter's twisted game together in order to discover his identity and rescue Abigail before sunrise.

Personally I found the cold-storage showdown a little far-fetched and a lot unrealistic. Also, when the basis for why The Babysitter was doing what he did was revealed, I found it rather anticlimatic. That said, Keep Her Safe is still a gripping thriller I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

A disappointing book that did not live up to its promise

I’ve been having a bit of a bad run with thrillers. After listening to a disappointing one that opens with a stranger in the protagonist’s house, I had hoped that this one would be better. Unfortunately, I found the writing in this one quite lacking, and while it did improve for a while, it never really impressed me.

Since I am about to go on to say a lot of negative things, I will start with something positive. As you can see from the dates above, I did read this quite quickly. Even as I was questioning some of the things that happened or why characters were doing certain things, the writing was overall quite readable. There was a chunk in the middle (from about 20% through to 65%) that I read in one sitting. The tension was good, and I did admittedly want to see how everything panned out.

The theme of this book was “How far would you go for your child?” but I feel like the author had very little experience of parenthood, and mothers of young children in particular. Some of the dialogue between the two mothers felt strange; I think they were explaining things for the benefit of the reader that one mother would not need to explain to another. There was also a reference to Maggie being an “older mother” at age 34 (32 is hardly an unusual age to be giving birth anymore).

I had other issues with the writing as well, like the fact that the mastermind behind everything has an actual villain monologue… not only that, said monologue goes on for a chapter and a half. There are other ways to explain a character’s motivations, rather than just a huge info-dump. Speaking of the villain, I couldn’t quite work out why he decided to send the two women on a wild goose chase when the initial murder he’d intended didn’t work out. I don’t know why he would have decided to reveal himself (eventually) and then the way everything wrapped up seemed a bit too easy.

I have to agree with the other reviews of this that say that the almost constant action scenes were at the expense of character development. Apart from “I’d do anything for my child”, there was really nothing else I knew about either of the main characters for most of the book. Some information was dropped in the last third which I think was meant to make me sympathise more with them, but I just didn’t have enough interest by that stage. When a bombshell was dropped about one of them, it had very little effect on me.

This was my first read by this author and while I can see his books are very popular, I don’t think I will be revisiting.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publishers for a free copy of this book in exchange for a review.

The story line was absolutely ridiculous and got worse as it went along. Not sure how anyone could even come up with that plot. The book just dragged on and the ending was even worse. Just really bad read.

I did not find this story believable at all. It did not seem real that all this could happen in one book and one area. It was not convincing.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy..

Holy crap!! I couldn't put the book down!! Amazing storyline!!

I keep thinking that Maggie shot Holly in the hallway by the door but she got wounded of her stomach. I had no idea that babysitter kidnapped babies on both mothers!!! Babysitter aka Pauly who did instructions to Holly via text on the road trying to find her daughter Abigail. Imagine that!! It was crazy but terrifying!

I would love to read more the author soon..

I'll tell you this.. The book had me from Page 1 !! The MO of the unsub was really unique. He's not getting his hands dirty, he is making mothers hurt each other ! And really, there is hardly any limit for a mother set out to protect her child, is there ? And if the plot wasn't freaky enough, this plot played havoc on my motherly sentiments as well.

The plot begins with Maggie, a single mother, sensing some disturbance in her house in the middle of the night and waking up to a definite noise from within her house. Her first instinct is to reach her daughter Penny sleeping in another room. In Penny's room, she sees that someone is entering her kid's room through the window. The intruder has a knife in her hand and they have a tussle when Maggie tries to escape with her kid. She locks herself in the bathroom, while trying to comfort her kid.

My comments : At this point, I felt Maggie was one ballsy woman. She showed incredible mental as well as physical strength. And she handled the situation like a pro. Which actually was baffling..

The next few chapters enlighten us as to why she's acting like a pro.. It's because she was expecting this attack ! Maggie was a victim of the same MO a few days before, when her child was kidnapped and the kidnapper ordered Maggie to break into a house and kill the mother. Did Maggie do as she was ordered ? Was she able to avoid murder ? You'll have to read it :)

Moving over, the intruder is also a woman named Holly, who's child is being held by the man calling himself 'The Babysitter'.
Really ? Creepy much ? Her orders are to kill Maggie. Maggie is also very smart and tries to work her way out of this mess. 'The Babysitter' is ruthlessly inhumane and he's watching the scene unfold through a drone. Maggie and Holly form an awkward coalition to finish this game once and for all, because both know it will never truly end till 'The Babysitter' is removed from the picture.

'The Babysitter' senses the coalition and sets out with a new plan. He keeps moving them around till they reach the place he wants them to see. It got stretched out in the middle and the cat and mouse game went on for a little too long for my liking. In the end, we get to understand the Babysitter's agenda and his warped thinking about family. Turns out his actions had dual purpose.

The characters were well written, Holly being the naive young mother and Maggie the older and mentally stronger mother.The nail biting feeling at the start of the book slowed down towards the end, and that's the only reason I am giving this book 4 stars !
The plot had an overload of detours in the middle which got mildly confusing, which also resulted in slowing down the pace. But otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Bookoutre for generously providing me the ARC in exchange of my honest review.

#KeepHerSafe by Richard Parker
#NetGalley
11 January 2018

What lengths a mother will go to to save her own child! Will she kill another baby’s mother in an effort she will get her own baby back? This is exactly how this book begins and I can’t wait for the ending so it will probably be a long night again! I had so high hopes for this book and unfortunately found myself completely cheated. This book had so much potential but seemed to get bugged down in details that ended up never to become important in the big scheme of life. These two mothers are first being set against each other to save a child but end up working together with very few clues. The whole book takes place in the span of about 12 hours so the action is nonstop just with too clues why they are doing certain things and the ending leaves a lot to be desired. Unfortunately I will not be recommending this book to anyone but I think the author has a lot of potential and will probably end up writing great things. Thanks to #NetGalley for letting me read this book for free in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Thanks a million Netgalley and Bookouture for allowing me to read this book. True to form from Richard Parker I was kept on the edge of my seat right to the last page. Twists and turns throughout. Brilliant!!

I would like to thank Bookouture and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘Keep Her Safe’ by Richard Parker in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
Maggie lives in Whitsun, New England, with her eighteen-month-old daughter Penny. When she awakes in the middle of the night she sees a woman climbing through the nursery window. The woman, Holly, has had her daughter Abigail taken hostage by the ‘Babysitter’ and to get her back she‘s been told to break into Maggie’s house and kill her.
This novel captured the cruelty that a psychopath can wreak on a mother and her child and as a mother myself I empathised with Maggie and Holly who would go to any lengths to keep their daughters safe from harm. From page one I was gripped as the tension increased and although quite disturbing I had to keep reading to find out what would happen next.
‘Keep Her Safe’ is a bloodthirsty and fast-moving thriller with lots of action culminating in a gruesome spine-chilling conclusion which is definitely worth reading.

A Brilliant, fast paced thriller that draws you in to an awful story that you'll be hard pushed to forget. As a mother my heart was in my mouth every few chapters, as a human being i wanted to use that gun on all the bad guys and even that wouldn't be enough!
I loved this book and devoured it in hours my only tiny criticism is that the ending was a little too abrupt in my opinion and maybe needed a little more. This would turn a 4 and half star in to an all singing, all dancing 5*.
Despite that, it still comes highly recommended and I really enjoyed it and i look forward to reading more from Richard Parker in the future.

"Keep her safe" is a novel told over ONE tension-packed, adrenaline-filled winter night.
It is the story of two women, both single mothers, who are desperate. Why? Someone known to them only as "The Babysitter" has abducted their baby daughters in order to coerce them into killing.

"Babysitter had concocted a way of using their maternal instincts against them".

Meet Maggie. She is thirty-something with a baby daughter, Penny. She hears an intruder in the house and knows instantly what is going on. Someone is here to murder her! She knows this because she too was put into that very same position. She was forced to kill in order to get Penny back...

Meet Holly. A younger mother, in her twenties. The "Babysitter" is holding her baby daughter, Abigail, hostage. In order to be reunited with her, she has been instructed to break into Maggie's home and kill her.

When things go awry, and circumstances spiral out of control, Holly is shot and injured. Despite this, and the women's mutual distrust, they form a sort of wary alliance. For Maggie knows how desperate and distraught Holly is. She has been there...

"Holly wouldn't endanger a child, and both mothers knew it."

The women speculate that the "Babysitter" must be the infamous 'East County Slayer'. The victims were all single mothers. Perhaps he didn't kill them at all? Perhaps he got other single mothers to do his work for him?

In contact with the "Babysitter" by cell phone, they realize he is watching them. With no one in evidence, they realize he is using a drone to track their every move.

"Maternal instincts can be so powerful".

The women, with baby Penny, go on the road in a snowstorm, trying to ascertain Abigail's safety and find out WHO IS the Babysitter - and why has he chosen them? The clock is ticking... they only have until sunrise...

This is a thriller that is absolutely packed with tension. The relentless apprehension and suspense actually tired me out. There is no reprieve, from first page until last. This is my first Richard Parker novel and I didn't know what to expect going in. I found that this novel has reinforced my belief that I enjoy a more slow-burn when it comes to thrillers.

I highly recommend this novel to those who love action-packed, seriously tense, and oftentimes violent fiction. For me, though I devoured it quickly (how could you not?), I found it was more than a bit 'full on' for my own personal taste.

I received a digital copy of this novel from Bookouture via NetGalley - for free - at my request, and I provided this review voluntarily. 3.5 stars rounded up for NetGalley

How far would you go to protect your child? This is the question poised in this book. Maggie, a cancer sufferer, awakes one night to hear an intruder in her baby's nursery. The intruder, Holly, claims she has been sent to kill Maggie in exchange for the return of her own baby. Maggie has been subject to the same demand prior to Holly's visit.

A man calling himself the Babysitter is targeting single female parents kidnapping their children and guaranteeing their return after the woman kill a target of the babysitter's choosing only to find they are next on the list.

The plot takes a lot of twists and turns and makes an enjoyable read. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and warmed to both characters being placed in an impossible position.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

See a full review at https://novelparents.com/2018/01/26/review-keep-her-safe/

Wow.  This book was intense right from the beginning.  There was no lead-in to the action-- the action started on page 1.  I read the first couple chapters right before going to bed one night, and I couldn't fall asleep for hours because the image of seeing someone crawl into my kids' bedroom windows was haunting.  I felt like the action dragged a little bit right before they left Maggie's house, but the story line quickly picked up again and created new tentacles that kept me guessing throughout the book.

If you love horror movies, you will LOVE this book.  I've never been a huge fan of Stephen King because his books aren't that scary.  This book would keep you up and make you question every creak and rustle you hear in your hours.  It also opens up a fantastic hypothetical question:  What would YOU do if your child was kidnapped and the only way you get them to return safely to you was to kill someone else?  Overall, it was a thrilling, fast read.  I'm taking away a star just because I personally don't like descriptive, excessive gore.  4 / 5 stars.

Thank you to the author, Richard Parker, the publisher, and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in advance in exchange for my honest review.

I've have finished this book within a day of reading it.

Holly and Maggie has surprised me at ever turn and there lot of surprises through out this book

When Maggie discovers an intruder in her home late one night, she knows she has to do everything she can to protect her daughter, Penny. Maggie knows why the intruder is there because four nights ago Maggie was in the intruder’s position. Someone who calls themselves Babysitter is threatening single mothers and giving them until dawn to comply with their instructions or face never seeing their child again.

Facing the question of what lengths a mother would go to in order to protect their child pretty much opens the playing field, and as a result Keep Her Safe is an action packed book. It’s practically one action scene followed by another, with little respite in between. So why could I put it down?

Part of the reason was that because there was so much action there wasn’t a great deal of time spent on character development. After finishing the book I feel that while I know a few facts about Maggie and the intruder I don’t know them. There was never a point where I expended any emotional energy connecting to either of the women and so I found myself quite detached from the outcome.

Somewhat James Pattersonesque in that the chapters were very short and oftentimes ended on a mini-cliffhanger, I had expected to be faced with working out which of the two main characters I sided with, especially as there were chapters focusing on each point of view. However I would have been equally fine with either or both women dying and found that entirely unexpected. I found it difficult to distinguish between the characters’ voices because they all seemed to sound the same.

It felt to me that this book was made up of three sections and I had different thoughts during each:
* Home Alone (or am I?) - This first section was brilliant. You don’t know what’s happening and you’re being fed various pieces of information/disinformation. You don’t know who’s telling the truth and it’s a fun adrenaline powered ride.
* Hit the Road, Jack, A.K.A., Are we there yet? - Our cat and mouse game is on and I quickly found myself getting bored. While lots was happening, at the same time it felt like nothing was happening. It was during this time that I started hoping one or both of the women would get killed.
* What the hell did I just read? - This one speaks for itself, but this is the part of the book where I wondered if perhaps the author had actually planned on writing two books and at the last minute smooshed the second half of one onto the first half of the other. It really felt like the first half didn’t gel with the second. Had the first half ended differently or the climax had belonged to a book with a different lead up I think either would have worked better. It was during this section that we learn that Babysitter is a fan of the madman monologue.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley (thank you so much to NetGalley and Bookouture for the opportunity) in exchange for honest feedback.