Excellent plot and writing. Loved how the storyline flowed. Really had me wanting to hurry up and get back to it when I had to put it down. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to review this book and to be an early reader via NetGalley! However, I will not be writing a review for this title at this time, as my reading preferences have since changed somewhat. In the event that I decide to review the book in the future, I will make sure to purchase a copy for myself or borrow it from a library. Once again, thank you so much for providing me with early access to this title. I truly appreciate it. Please feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions or concerns.

Great thrilling novel which kept me turning the pages, would highly recommend to others. Brilliant writing, plot and characters.

Loved that this book is a really fast read, managed to finish it in a 4 hour sitting (whilst waiting for my daughter to finish dance class lol) I loved watching everyones secrets unfold and wondering what everyone was hiding. The twists and turns kept me interested but I didn't find it as captivating as some thrillers I've read.

I was lucky enough to receive this book from netgalley I love this author she's one of my favourites and this story was no exception I loved it

Holly Newman returns to her home town after being away for 10 years. She has been through something terrible and needs somewhere to recover and get back on her feet. She finds herself a room in the home of the elderly Cora Barrett, who is more than happy to have someone new to talk to.
Cora’s neighbour David is considered odd by most people that he encounters. He still lives with his mother and spends all his spare time monitoring all activity on his street, recording the comings and goings of his neighbours. He and Holly strike up an unlikely friendship.
This book keeps you guessing until the very end, the twist I did not see coming it was fantastic. Really well written and fast paced.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC. Not the thriller I was hoping for. This book was okay. Quick, easy read.

I am a big fan of K.L Slater so it seemed natural to end my Bookouture week with one of my favourite authors, the Queen of the unforeseen twist.

Kim earned this title after blowing my mind with Blink back in February 2017. Since then, each of her books have had the same effect on me. I even had to invent a special Slater Book Hangover Cocktail!

The Visitor is no exception. The title had me in the dark. An invitation to a secret bookish party ready to make me shiver and feed my paranoid side. How could I refuse? Did I even think of refusing? Absolutely not!

Now I have lots of notes next to me and fabulous quotes to use but all I can say is BUY THE DAMN BOOK. I know, for a book reviewer, I could do better. But nothing I can say will be enough to express how much you need to meet Holly and David. And Cora and Emily. And … everyone. Because the players and the stakes at risks here are big. We are talking people with masks, guys with issues, mysteries. We are dealing with thrilling moments, scary nights, bad memories. We face consequences, evil plans, disturbing behavior.

I couldn’t stop reading, I couldn’t stop thinking. When you dive into a book written by Kim Slater, you know you’ll get the answers, but you never know what kind of answers, and you are at the mercy of twisted minds, winding roads, and windy journeys to the truth. I love her style. I can’t get enough of it. I drank The Visitor faster than everyone knocked back G&Ts at Christmas.

Holly is a mesmerizing character. I felt something was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. So I tried to keep my distances. Haha, of course, I failed, because the author makes sure to give you enough information to connect to the characters she offers you. Holly was a stranger, but in a good way. A foreigner coming back to her hometown and I just couldn’t hold back my excitement at knowing why!

David worried me. I imagined him with blurred features, as if he was always at the corner of my eye. I can’t say I approved of his methods, but like Holly, I wanted more than the surface, I wanted reasons why he had become the way he was portrayed in the novel.

Around those two were a series of wonderfully crafted secondary characters who made The Visitor an unsettling read. We all have secrets and many of us love to read about them. What’s more thrilling than discovering what the skeletons in others’ closets are wearing? Kim Slater had me wondering until THE VERY END. I spent 90% of my reading time with a creepy feeling of foreboding despite nice houses, work offices and normal daily basis stuff, and the 10 remaining percent had me looking like a fish out of its bowl. Big eyes and open mouthed. Oh and I forgot… SPEECHLESS. I was speechless. Again.

So I’ll say it. This psychological thriller is good. Brilliant. Awesome. It’s a book that tests you, plays with your nerves and your judgment of others. Read it, just read it. There’s nothing else I can say. You want twists? You’ll have them. You want a crazy plot that totally makes sense in the scheme of the universe and yet is so unnerving that you’ll want to keep the lights on and check that the curtains are closed? You’ll get it all.

The Visitor is a hell of a book! I am so glad to say goodbye to 2018 with a gift from a tremendously talented author.

This novel is about two different people with uniquely creepy personalities: David is a man who stays at home most of his days, observing people in his neighbourhood through his binoculars. One day he observed that a new woman has arrived in his neighbour Cora's house: a visitor who he later found out is Holly, a woman who is staying for some time to plan her life in the future. They strike a friendship, despite the unknown fact that both of them have secrets from their pasts.

Revolving around these two point of views, K.L. Slater expertly weaved both Holly and David's storylines, combining their thoughts and feelings, their actions, and their pasts with both a disconnected feel and also a sense like you know them but not completely. Chapter by chapter we began to know these two characters together with the other side characters in the story, until in the last few pages of the story everything finally unravels in a thrilling and exciting way.

Overall this psychological thriller is different from anything I've ever read before, even though you might think from the premise that it sounds like something that has already been written in various other novels before. Two strangers with dark pasts meeting, with the readers not knowing anything behind their motives? Sounds a little trope-y. But for some reason, all throughout the book I never had the feeling that the book was boring, something I've ever read before, or a typical thriller novel. There's just something about the way Slater writes her characters, and the way everything unraveled little by little, that didn't feel at all forced or staged. Everything flowed organically and naturally, and that ending was quite an unexpected one.

Characters presented in the book were not exactly life like, mainly because we don't really know that much about any of them to really fall in love or relate with them. The two main characters are quite relatable to a degree, but other than that most of the characters are definitely fictional and not very realistic. However it was still fun to guess what each character would do, and the relationship between the two main characters, their dialogues and their thoughts did feel very natural and well-written.

Overall I thought The Visitor is a great paperback read for a summery day. It's not as dark and scary as a lot of other thrillers, and the writing is nothing special. But it's intriguing and keeps you guessing until the end, everything reads perfectly and flows great, and all in all it was very fun. Would I buy a copy of it when it's published? Probably not. Maybe in a few years if it comes out in my local secondhand bookshop.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ebook for my Kindle.
I've read several of K. L. Slater's books, but this one was my least favorite.
Lies, murder, deceit, and mental illness with some predictability, but I didn't like the ended.
(Sometimes good people trust those they shouldn't and unfortunately, the consequences aren't very good.)

When Holly returns to her home town she's running from awful experiences and even worse "friends". She's broke but a little luck sees her staying with Cora, and elderly widow who's happy to have someone to regale with stories of her life. Next door is David, a strange but seemingly harmless loner. Holly thinks she's found a safe refuge from her past, somewhere her secrets are safe but soon she realises she's not the only one with something to hide.

There's maybe 4 or 5 authors that I HAVE to read, and most of those have been with me for twenty odd years or more but since reading my first K.L. Slater book a mere two years or so ago she's been planted firmly on my must read list. And The Visitor has do e nothing to shake my faith in her stories. They're always incredibly enjoyable to read, intelligent and compulsive. This is perfect beach/sunny garden reading.

Thanks to netgalley for the ARC of this book. I just love the way KL writes, jumping between the present and the past.
It was very well written, recommended!

This is another brilliant 5 star modern thriller by this author. There are so many twists and turns which all come together perfectly at the end.

The Visitor
Written by: K.L. Slater

Released on: 3/2/2018

Genre: Suspense

Reviewed by: Leanne*

Rating: 4 Nosey Neighbors

Recommended for: Surveillance enthusiasts, People questioning their past decisions

David likes to keep an eye on things in his neighborhood. From his bedroom window, he has a great vantage point of the surrounding houses. Nothing much changes from day to day and that is just fine with David. Routine and safety are very important to him, but when a beautiful stranger moves in with the elderly woman next door, his sense of stability feels disrupted. Told mostly from the perspectives of David, Holly (the beautiful stranger) and Cora (the elderly woman), The Visitor is a story about wanting something better, having good intentions, but learning what one is capable of when pushed too far. The fifth psychological thriller from Slater, The Visitor grabs readers and holds on until the final unexpected plot twist. Just in time for poolside reading! Buy it!

Slater is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors to read. All of her novels that I’ve read are suspenseful, well-written, and new me turning pages. This one was no different!

Holly is a visitor, staying in the home of an older woman she’s trying to build her life in a new town. She has secrets that nobody knows about, and the reason why she has come to town is down to her past. David has his own secrets and is a bit quirky, but he quickly takes to Holly, becoming a bit obsessed with her. As the story progresses, the pasts of both characters are revealed, giving the reader an interesting climactic ending.

Probably my favorite thing about this book is that it’s not the character you would expect who has the craziest tendencies. While both of the main characters in this novel are a bit quirky, the ending takes an unexpected direction and shows just who is the most damaged of all. I often felt sorry for both Holly and David, recognizing that they were nothing more than damaged people who were making the choices they thought were best.

I’m a big fan of Slater and definitely recommend this book.

Need to read more by this author! Creepy and chilling with a surprise ending, this is a definite page turner!

If you like the type of book that gives you shivers but you just can’t stop reading, then this is definitely the book for you. Dark, crawly and tense. Loved it!

Love, Love, Love this book. I was so addicted to these characters and their slowly unraveling stories that I hated to see the book end. That being said, it was a great ending! Definitely a great psychological thriller, highly recommend!

A book where everyone is watching each other! Holly returns to Nottingham after a terrible experience whilst living in Manchester and is taken in by the kindly Cora. Next door is David, who also has problems and he takes it on himself to keep a very close lookout for his neighbours. Told from different points of view. Although it definitely took its time to get going, the last section made up for it as it then turned into a decent page turner which kept me entertained as all the previous goings came to light. Phew, what a great last few chapters!

Having read some of this authors work before I was looking forward to reading this one. It did not disappoint. Full of twists the author had me constantly trying to figure out what was going on.

Many thanks to Bookouture and Netgalley for providing a copy.