I’m a huge fan of this author as I always find her books to be very enjoyable, gripping thrillers and I Dare You was no exception.

Firstly the author does a really good job of setting the scene for this story with the small village mentality vividly described so I felt like I was actually there watching everything unfold. From the first time we visit the village the reader gets the feeling that there’s something strange about it and this leads to a general feeling of unease throughout the book. The villagers love to gossip and their almost desperate need to keep up appearances made it difficult for some people to fit in. I felt this added to some of the intrigue as you weren’t sure what people were actually like.

I actually felt very sorry for Billy Crawley who is picked on by the village children just because he is difficult. He reminded me a bit of Boo Radley from To Kill A Mockingbird, maybe because the children play a similar game with him. I found it interesting to learn more about him and found myself wondering what he was going to do to get his revenge which made me want to keep reading.

Overall I thought this was a gripping, entertaining read which I really enjoyed. I was drawn into the book from the first chapter and found it very hard to put down as I needed to know what had happened. The story is told from two different timelines and this is done very well, with the reader never getting confused between them. There are lots of twists that kept me guessing and the end was brilliant and completely blew me away as it wasn’t at all what I had guessed.

Huge thanks to Sabah from Avon for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Avon for my copy of this book via Netgalley.

What a fantastic ready.  had me on the edge of my seat the whole time, the puzzle came together in this book very well.  Had a great ending.  this is the first book I read by this author but it will not be the last.  Loved it!!!

A twisty plot, an emotive subject, and so many lies and secrets in this village, some of which are dark and dangerous. The disappearance of a village girl in 1989, motivates the village against the one reclusive person, who the children love to taunt. He is the character of urban myths and an easy scapegoat for the murder of the girl, even though the evidence is more circumstantial than factual. Thirty years ago forensic science was far less sophisticated, than now, and all this contributed to Billy’s conviction.

The suspense builds with every chapter, the clues are there, but there is never quite enough before you’re cleverly moved onto another point of view or timeline. The characters are complex but believable, and the plot is slow to give up its secrets but rewarding when it does.

A poignant, tense thriller that draws you into this noir tale, full of suspense and sinister secrets.

I received a copy of this book from Avon Books UK via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

What happens when an innocent man is released from prison after 30 years? That he will want revenge of course; but in a small village where everyones seem to know everything who could possibly had killed a little girl and kept it hidden for so many years? You’ll have to start reading “I Dare You” if you want to know all the answers!
This had been a twisted and deep story, to put you in perspective on how much damage a simple thought could do, even if you are trying to help, a “simple” bad seed could break anyone’s life. But let’s not anticipate the facts, the story is about Anna and Lizzie, their childhood changed after the disappearing of a little girl, they didn’t know each other in the past, but now they will join forces to discover the truth. Anna hasn’t returned to Mapledon for a long time but now her mother needs her, someone is trying to scare her and she is afraid of what they could discover. But Anna can not understand the strange fear that is making her mother to stay at home and being afraid of her own shadow, surely the strange body parts that are appearing at their door is a joke from some kids… or not?
Lizzie is a journalist that wants to report how Mapledon is doing after the release of Bill “Creepy” Cawley, but she has some secrets of her own too and a very personal reason to discover what happened so long ago. Now she just have to find the truth!
This is not only a psychological thriller, it is an insight of how much damage can a simple lie do to an entire community, all the lives that could affect and how much can change their path. I was surprised on how the story is told and how invested the reader become with the characters since the beginning, like being part of the story. Family and community seem to be together in this book, so anything that is being said will affect you much deeper than you ever thought.
There are some twists, some you could feel them before, some totally unexpected, but this doesn’t make the story less relevant or addictive. Because in the end, the “whom” didn’t matter more than the why and the what now? Because, in the end, these are people and the truth will change their lives forever.
So, “I Dare You” is the book if you need if you don’t want to sleep this Christmas or the perfect excuse to stay all days at home! Ready to dig in?

For the most part, this book was OK. It was suspenseful and kept me hanging on...until the end. I didn’t end up finishing the book because it was just dragging on and on and on...and I couldn’t bear it any longer. It was a great read until then! I wish the ending hadn’t be dragged out for so long!

What a roller-coaster ride! I was quickly gripped by this exhilarating thriller and found myself reading fervently, desperate for answers about what happened to ten-year-old Jonie Hayes, how the narrators were connected to it all, and what secrets the residents of Mapledon were hiding. 

The story is told in dual timelines and is narrated by two women - Anna and Lizzie. We soon learn that both women lived in Mapledon as children but left for very different reasons: Anna because of bad memories of her childhood friend’s murder and feeling stifled, and Lizzie because she was taken and put into care for unkown reasons. They both have unanswered questions about what happened thirty years ago and have been affected by the legacy of Billy ‘Creepy’ Crawley and the murder of Jonie. As they look deeper it is clear that nothing is as it seems and are forced to question everything they thought they knew as they unearth secrets they were never meant to find...

This was the second book I’ve read by this author and I was every bit as captivated as when I read The Missing Wife, cementing her place on my must-read authors list. The thing I liked about her writing in this book was how she told the flashbacks to 1989 in reverse chronological order up until the highly anticipated big reveal. This slowly revealed clues to the reader while increasing the tension and slowly revealed the roles everyone played in the tragic events. 

Anna and Lizzie were both unreliable protagonists by their own admission. They were children thirty years ago and it is their fuzzy recollection of events that leads them to finally search for the truth. Anna’s relationship with her mother Muriel is fraught and she’s hasn’t been back to Mapledon once since she left. It seems with every day more cracks appear in their relationship and Anna is increasingly sure her mother has lied and hidden the truth from her about what had happened that summer. I definitely had my feelings about Muriel’s character coloured by Anna and only ever saw her as a busybody that was lying to her daughter. I was sure she was entrenched in what happened and felt like screaming at her to just tell her daughter what she knew. Lizzie was a character I had a lot of empathy for but I was torn about how much of the truth I wanted her to discover, especially as it seemed she had the most she could lose by the revelations. All of the characters in this book are fractured and troubled and I often wondered if they would be torn apart even more by the truth rather than healed by it. 

I Dare You is a tense, twisty, jaw-dropping thriller about childhood friendships, small town politics, secrets and murder. I guessed some of the twists early on but so much was a mystery to me as we approached the end. The author cleverly wove the clues together until the full picture emerged and rendered me speechless. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves psychological thrillers and can’t wait to see what she writes next.

Thank you to Avon Books and NetGalley for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I Dare You centres around the childish prank of knock knock ginger, a game where you knock on someone’s door and run away without being seen or caught. The unlucky ‘victim’ of this game is Billy Cawley, forever an outsider in the small village of Mapledon. With his wife dead and a daughter who is equally ostracised for being strange, this is a tale of a tight knit community that doesn’t welcome strangers, about how malicious gossip can spread like wildfire thanks to the small minded inhabitants who ‘run’ the village and how the past can come back to haunt you. 
When Cawley’s daughter is taken into care, believed to be the victim of his abuse, the disappearance of Jonie, Anna’s best friend, is quickly blamed on Billy and it doesn’t take long for this man to be incarcerated for the crime. 
Fast forward thirty years later and Mapledon is still experiencing the after effects of such a heinous crime. Someone it would seem wants revenge and/or justice and this time it’s Muriel, Anna’s mother who is the target. Was the wrong man found guilty and if so, in the pursuit of truth  are there possibly some deeply buried secrets that the villagers are going to find unpalatable. Should they stay buried?????
With a narrative that switches between past and present, the story is told from the perspective of the key players at the time. The themes explored in this novel are many; abuse, injustice,the nature of friendship, the difficulty of being an outsider in a close knit community and how far people will go to keep the truth buried and protect their loved ones.
Well written and engaging from the start I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and definitely recommend. Whilst some of the twists are relatively easy to guess, the final one is a devastating blow that I didn’t expect.
I must say the characters on the whole aren’t likeable, although Tina deserves sympathy as the mother of Jonie as does Lizzie for reasons I can’t divulge for fear of spoiling the read. Distrust of each other is evident and Muriel is unwelcoming to say the least. She is a strong character though, even in her declining years. No wonder Anna has stayed away!! I would hate to live in a community like this where everyone knows your business and being different makes you stick out like a sore thumb. The author has captured this perfectly. How easy it is to tarnish someone’s character through idle and malicious gossip underpins the whole narrative, cleverly obscuring the truth.
I didn’t find this ‘an edge of your seat’ read but overall this is a great psychological thriller and I will definitely seek out other titles by this author.
Thanks as always to the author and publisher and Netgalley for allowing me to read in exchange for an honest review.

Disclaimer: As I am doing this on a more regular basis. I received a copy of this book free of charge for an honest review to be made public.


This, is a tale of two stories. Separated by thirty years. Child and adult. Running alongside each other. The style that it was written in, gave you very short chapters, with each differing by the said thirty years. It may have been better, for some length to have been adopted, giving slightly more detail. Unfortunately, it seemed to be more skittish than having an air of continuity.


However, that being said. It was an enjoyable read. With the plot and the characters within, being shaped well. 


On the basis of the above -


Rating: 3.8 / 5.0


Status: Comleted

(Also posted on my GR account!)

3.5 stars rounded up!

I Dare You presented layers and layers of twist and served a solid story.

It told a story about Anna and Lizzie who went back to their village and confronting the demon that ruined both of their past. However, the said demon might be closer to them than what they initially thought of.

What I like: short. chapters. Nuff said lol. I have an attention span of a goldfish, so these sort chapters worked very well for me. The twists, the characters, all blended quite well.

What I don't like: almost nothing? Except that there's nothing really out of ordinary from the book.

I Dare You is a decent mystery with unlikable characters. The story flowed well and the storyline was interesting.

I love this genre, but this book didn't have as much suspense as I'd hoped/expected. It was just okay.The dialogue was a bit awkward at times. I also just didn't get as invested in the characters as I'd hoped. That made it feel more like I was listening to a story instead of being a part of it. I liked the different time periods, but some plot points didn't seem very realistic or well thought out. The pace was too slow for me to really stay engaged and enjoy this one.

Great mystery with loads of twists and turns. The story has great character development and a great story. I really enjoyed it and recommend it for anyone

1989 – Ten-year-old’s Jonie and Bella enjoyed playing the game ‘Knock, Knock, Ginger’ (we called it knock-a-door-run). The girls dare each other to knock on the doors of the residents of Mapledon. One house neither of the girls wanted to knock on was Billy ‘Creepy’ Cawley’s bungalow, however, if you have been dared to do it, you must!

July 1989, Jonie Hayes went missing. Despite no physical evidence and no body ever being found, Billy ‘Creepy’ Cawley was convicted of her murder and sentenced to thirty years in prison after her friend testified that she had seen Jonie getting into Billy’s pick-up truck.

July 2019 – Billy has just been released from prison and he’s looking for revenge. Anna (Bella) hasn’t been back to Mapledon in over twenty-years but when her mother calls distressed that someone has nailed a dolls head to her front door, Anna returns to the place she swore she would never step foot in again.

Freelance Journalist Lizzie heads to Mapledon to cover the story of Billy’s release, but she may be there under false pretences.

What started as an innocent game thirty-years-ago has everyone on tenterhooks waiting for what will happen next.

I Dare You is a psychological thriller that truly plays with your mind. The book is told in the third person and from the points of view of Anna, Lizzie, and the events in 1989. The book is filled with twists and turns and a few red-herrings too.

The chapters are short which seems to heighten the tension and kept me on edge. I especially loved the chapters set in 1989 as they helped to bring the story together. I also found myself trying to figure out what Lizzie’s connection to Mapledon and the murder case was.

This is the first book I have read by Sam Carrington and I can tell you that the writing is superb. The way that she describes a scene has you perfectly able to visualise what is happening and she painted the village of Mapledon as this weird, strange town where secrets were behind every door.

The conclusion was satisfying and I was left feeling that all my questions had been answered. It might not have been a big climactic ending but it fitted the story perfectly.

This is a book that kept me hooked to the pages and rushing through it, so much so that I finished it in two days. I wanted to find out the truth and I wanted to find out who Billy was going to start his revenge with.

I Dare You by Sam Carrington is a psychological thriller.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Avon Books, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My Synopsis:   (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)

The year is 1989.  Billy Cawley has never fit in with the people in the small village of Mapledon.  When his wife died, it got worse.  He became the town crazy, and all the kids tormented him.  Eventually, social services stepped in and took his daughter Eliza.   Then a little girl went missing.  He was the only suspect, and he has spent the last 30 years in jail.

The year is 2019.  Mapledon hasn't changed much.  Events of 30 years ago seem to have simmered beneath the village, discussed quietly, if at all.  But now people are on edge.  Billy Cawley is out of jail.  The gossip that had died down is now alive and well.  There seems to be a lot of anxiety, and a touch of guilt in the air.  There is definitely a lot of fear.  Fear that Billy will come back for revenge.

At the request of her mother Muriel, Anna returns to her hometown of Mapledon.   Muriel is being hounded by someone, and she is very frightened.  Anna thinks she is keeping secrets.  Anna is searching for her own answers.

Lizzie is a journalist.  She, too, is returning to Mapledon, the town she lived in as a child.  She is looking for the truth.  She doesn't remember much from her time there, but she hopes things will come back to her.

A village filled with those who will do anything to protect it.  Anything to protect their children.  So much gossip, so many lies.  The truth is somewhere in the middle.

 My Opinions:  

I loved how the story went back and forth between the time of the event in 1989, and thirty years later to 2019.  In this way the story unfolded nicely, and added to the mystery....slowly providing the clues as to what really happened.  The characters also developed during those time frames,  and you grew to love them or hate them as the story progressed.  Sometimes your opinions changed, and changed again.

I had guessed a few of the twists, but certainly not all of them, but this did not detract from the story.  It just kept me going to see what else I had right...or wrong.   Then there were the last couple of sentences.....I absolutely loved those last couple of sentences!

The overall theme of the book seems to be how far you will go to protect your children, and yourselves.  Will the manipulation, the lies, the secrets bring you peace? Will the truth, when told, let you move on?  What is justice?  (To be honest, I'm not sure justice was served by the end of the book, but who knows what happens next....)  Loved it!

Sam Carrington's talents just keep growing.  She wrote an amazing book, her best yet.  I highly recommend it, and can't wait for her next one.

I received an advanced reader copy of I Dare You from Avon Books UK via NetGalley, in return for my honest opinion.

I Dare You by Sam Carrington is a story about buried secrets and recovering lost memories. Thirty years ago, the kids of Mapledon would play a game where they would torment the village outcast, Billy Crawley. One day while playing this game, a girl disappears. Although her body was never found, Billy was convicted of murder. The town of Mapledon never got over this terrible crime.

Anna left the village long ago, but her mother calls her distraught over something left on her porch. Anna wants to make a very short trip to Mapledon but her mother and the villagers are sure that Billy will come back for revenge, now that he has been paroled. Will the lies from thirty years ago be revealed? Will Billy finally be free from his past or will Mapledon destroy him again?

This was was a quick read filled with many unlikable characters and a shocking end. I Dare You is available tomorrow, December 12, 2019.

(Please note this book does have some violence among children and sexual abuse.)

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I really wanted to like this because the premise was so good. However, the start was so clunky and offputting that I couldn't get through it. I stopped reading after a couple of pages because it did not grab my attention.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of I Dare You in exchange for my honest opinion.

Lizzie is married with a little girl. She receives a letter stating her birth father has completed this 30 year sentence for murder and returns home. Her memories are foggy of her childhood and she wants answers.

Anna left Mapleton as soon as she could. Ever since her friend, Jonie disappeared things were never the same. Muriel, Anna's mom calls scared since Billy has been released from prison. Anna is forced to return home to face her childhood memories she's been avoiding for years. 

Lizzie and Anna both find out way more than originally expected.  Sometimes finding out the truth may hurt more at first but it is also what allows your mind to finally heal. 

I did enjoy this book. Anna kind of got on my nerves but maybe that was the authors point. Other than that, I did enjoy the storyline and it kept me interested until the end.

I always love getting my hands on a new novel from Sam Carrington. I know that I'm assured of great story, great characters and a whole lot of mystery and tension. I Dare You, the author's latest psychological thriller, did not disappoint.

Set across two time periods, this is the story of two women, Anna and Lizzie, who are both drawn back to the town of Mapledon for very different reasons. For one of them is it a town they ran away from, only returning after being pulled back by family. For the other they are drawn there for reasons only they can understand and which the author takes great pains to hide from the reader, right until the perfect time for that oh so crucial reveal. No matter what their reasons though, the whole story circles around the disappearance of a young girl, Jonie, some thirty years earlier.

This story has a strange kind of atmosphere attached to it. It is clear from the beginning that there is far more to the story than meets the eye, more to to Anna's reluctance to return than just a difficult relationship with her mother or a fear of the small-town mentality that pervades both Mapledon and the story. This book has a kind of claustrophobic feel to it, despite swathes of it taking place out in the actual community. Everything from the fact that the residents all know each other, and each other's business, the way in which one act sends shockwaves throughout the whole tight-knit community, feels authentic, as are the problems inherent in that kind of situation. The closed ranks, the prejudice, the suspicion ... Even the setting, the sense of place, feels very real and puts you in the heart of everything.

Half of the chapters in this book take us back to that ill fated summer and counting back from the day everything changed to the months before in which the seeds of doubt are planted and what comes to pass begins it slow and inevitable progression. Those chapters in the past are told from a number of points of view, including Anna, but do start to help readers build a picture of what really happened leading to Jonie's disappearance.
 
Present day chapters are full of tension and doubt, making you suspicious of the motives of practically every character you meet, and you can feel how tragedy has shaped the future of the town. There are some strong clues throughout the book, ones which will probably enable the eagle eyed to spot some of the more obvious connections between past and present, but prepare to still be shocked by the closing revelations. That is one of the author's real skills - taking what you think you know, and turning it on its head.

Authentically creepy, full of mystery, misdirection and suspense, fans of the author's and of psychological thrillers are going to love it.

The story of I Dare You switches between present day and 1989 when ten-year-old Jonie Hayes went out to play and never came home. She was never seen again. 

A newcomer to the area, Billy Cawley, nicknamed Creepy Cawley, was immediately suspected and later sent to prison for 30 years for the crime. 

In 1989 Jonie had struck up a friendship with Bella but it was quite a controlling friendship and not one that Bella enjoyed, especially when Jonie often dared Anna to play ‘Knock,Knock,Ginger’ on Billy’s door. It was partly Bella's evidence that sent Billy to prison.

In present day, Bella, now called Anna, returns to Mapledon for the first time in 20 years  as her mother has called in a distressed state. Someone is sending Anna's mother creepy messages and Billy is under suspicion again.

I found the two time-frames frustrating as, while I don’t mind a story that goes back and forth, this one went backwards in time each time we moved to the 1989 time-frame. At this point you need to read the story while taking into account that the characters are not privy by then to the things that you have already read. The chapters are only short so there was a lot of moving backwards in time. Secrets are peeled back, layer after layer, but I found it all a bit dragged out, and together with the moving back in time, it didn’t grip me. 

I also had to suspend belief as there seemed to be a number of characters, now in their 30s, that had no recollection of things they did and events around them when they were children. Maybe some of this could be dismissed as people subconsciously burying unpleasant memories but at times I felt like these people had no memories at all from when they were young which I find hard to believe.

I did finally get to the end but felt that it was a plot twist that is frequently used elsewhere so didn’t surprise me.

With thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book stems between two different years. It is about a young girl who went missing and the town outcast was put in jail for it. 30 years later he has been released and he's out for revenge cause someone wasn't truthful.

While this book had a great mystery plot, I wasn't feeling a connection to the characters. I kept putting the book down thinking it was me but it wasn't.
Maybe there was to much mystery involved that I couldn't get a real feel of who the characters was or they just didn't have much of a personality.