It is said you should never go back, and it seems in Samantha's case returning to Ilfracombe is only compounding mistakes made in the past. Having left Devon in her teens she is now back, married to Mo and with a little boy called Caleb. She is also now a successful crime novelist who takes her and her family's privacy very seriously. So when anonymous notes start arriving at her  new home reminding her of something which happened in her past she sees things begin to unravel before her eyes.

Unfortunately this book didn't work for me. Samantha wasn't a likeable character, and there wasn't anything about her which made me really care what happened to her or her family. The only sympathetic character was Samantha's mother, especially when she was with Caleb, but she wasn't treated any better than anyone else by her daughter even though she was on her side throughout.

It is obvious the author is very familiar with the Devon countryside and having spent time there myself it was a pleasure to read about places I remembered from holidays in my childhood. The descriptions made it easy to envisage everything that was going on and as the action reached its climax the location definitely made everything far more tense.

I was able to read an advanced copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an unbiased review and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a story with flashback scenes and a family base.

Thanks to netgalley for the chance to read this book.
Sam and her friends used to play a game called never have I ever which is a game of dares. The game goes wrong on Sams last day in Ilfracombe and she thinks she can leave it all behind. However when she returns to Ilfracombe 23 years after she left her past catches up with her.

I had to DNF this.
The tenses are all over the place, something typical of a first, self-published book, and I'm baffled this has slipped by an editor's desk. The main character Sam is repeatedly all over the place. Multiple times each chapter we had to read of her decision to not tell her husband the truth of what was going on, and while I was mildly curious about what was going on, it was clear we were never going to get there. She's pretty awful to her husband without a reason.

The inner dialog was unexciting, repetitive, and went in circles that weren't engaging. There is an inordinate amount of time spent telling the day to day of this women's life, it's incredibly repetitive and is more of a space filler than actually moving the story along. Perhaps if it was properly edited it would be worth revisiting.

3-4 stars. Some parts of this book is absolutely excellent and provides the wanted and needed twists, thrills, and chills I want in my thriller books, but in other parts it was extremely slow and hard to enjoy. I found myself putting it down in those parts and moving to other books, which made me feel it never got to that 5 star read I love. Overall, well written and a fun read, that does provide enough shocks and thrills to make it worth reading.
Will make sure I buzz it up!

This is a tricky one for me to rate.

On the one hand, I found it a very quick read that kept me turning pages because I wanted to find out what would happen. Although Sam isn't a very likeable character, she is an interesting character and that matters more.

On the other hand, I found the writing itself to be quite rushed and inconsistent. The tenses are all over the place – a story being told in present tense does NOT need to use past perfect to describe things that happened previously. It can just use past simple as a person would if genuinely narrating a story. ("I'm going to the shops. Yesterday I stayed at home." Not "I'm going to the shops. Yesterday I had stayed at home.") This was so irritating and distracting that I found myself skim-reading in places in an effort to ignore the clunky narrative style. And since Sam is supposedly an author (a very tired trope; why do authors constantly write their characters as authors?) she should know better!

Overall, I think the story had a lot of potential but it could have done with another round of editing – not just proofreading but solid copyediting or even structural work from an experienced editor.

I'm not sure ....I enjoyed it but I'd forget about it in a couple of days and the main character annoyed me for the way she was

A decent mystery thriller. Did Find the book a little slow at times, but an enjoyable story all the same

This sounded like a really good premise for a book, I was drawn to it from the blurb…. However, unfortunately I couldn’t finish it, I felt like it was going nowhere fast and I lost interest, it just didn't grab me.

20 years ago
4 girls played ‘Never have I Ever’
It started as fun
A laugh, a joke
It ended in death

Present day and Sam, one of the 4, returns to Ilfracombe, hoping the past is the past and no ghosts linger
Of course, its not and of course they do

She soon starts to receive cryptic ‘Never have I/you ever’ notes and her life starts to become another game, but this time a game of survival

I loved the setting in Devon, fab descriptions of Ilfracombe and the surrounding areas, especially pleasing was the part about ‘little Switzerland’, the reference to the 90’s throughout were great and any book that mentions ‘Teddy Ruxspin’ gets a plus point!
Interesting that Sam was an author and the references to her fans and people who read and also stalkers of authors were at times maybe a bit too throwaway in their brashness towards readers and what kind of people we are!!
The characters were in the main relatable although Sam ( as quite a few leading characters seem to ) had ‘ a rush of adrenaline’ sometimes twice in a page, overuse of a description loses its shock value sometimes and did for me in this case
The story itself is fast paced and exciting and the writing ( for me ) was clear and easy and the finale was well done and pretty scary
All in all a good read, enjoyable and passed all the red flags that make a good psychological edgy thriller
8/10
4 Stars

A pretty decent mystery thriller about how carefree childhood games could come back to haunt adulthood.

Sam the main character seems to be having a smooth life with her small family, until she moves back to her hometown and mysterious foreboding messages started coming on her doorstep.

I couldn't really relate to Sam's character as she came off more as a controlling bully especially in her relationship with her husband. Speaking of the husband, there wasn't much details about him, so I couldn't really place him effectively in the narrative. Also the first part of the novel was hampered by too much description which slowed down the pace.

However, the second half picks up and becomes more interesting, Although I did predict the ending, I enjoyed following how the puzzle's pieces would come together in the end.
3.5 *****

Thanks Netgalley, the publisher, and author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sam has left her teenage years behind. She's a well respected author, married with a baby and life is going OK. That is until she returns to her childhood home and her past starts to threaten her present. A note through her door - Never Have I Ever Been Punished For What I Have Done. She is thrown back into her past where she, along with her three close friends, played that game. Starting off small, the dares swiftly escalated until that fateful night, the night before Sam was due to leave with her parents, when... well, that'd be telling... Many years have past but someone hasn't forgotten. Sam thinks she knows who but, as her life starts to crumble before her, as more of her past starts to bite her, she realises that it is very much back in her preset and threatens to engulf her once again.
This is a strange book. A lot of the past is hinted at throughout the book. Sam's childhood with her three friends and what they all got up to and what fuelled their fires that they started (not literally). Switching back to the present and Sam, returning home, starts to try and get to the bottom of who is targeting her. And, I guess, more importantly, why? As she digs around in her past, pulling more and more people into her plight, the truth of what happened all those years ago starts to come clear. Well, I say clear, it's actually a bit on the cloudy side all the way through. Is she misremembering or is she hiding the truth - consciously or subconsciously?
I didn't really like Sam. Or her husband Mo. I can't imagine how they got together or why they are indeed still a couple! Their relationship didn't quite work for me but I guess it did for them, to some extent anyway! And then when Sam went digging up all the past, spinning her web around all sorts of extras, well, I really just wanted to slap her.
This wasn't a book that really kept my attention wholly as I was reading it. I do admit to keep putting it down to do other things that popped into my head that needed done so I guess maybe my attention wandering didn't really help me connect fully with what I was reading.
The ending did justify the journey however. When all was finally revealed, most of what I had previously read did start to make more sense and the majority of my reservations throughout were satisfied. I've never read this author before so I did have an element of blind trust that it would all come out in the wash and I was happy that my trust was rewarded. I do fear however that maybe others won't make that leap and fall by the wayside. if you are struggling I would encourage you to keep going if you can. Never know, you might be surprised at what you find.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book

Unfortunately had to give up on this book as it is so slow, so mundane and uninteresting about every single detail and observation that happens to the main character in her everyday life, and ultimately I found the book could not hold my attention.

Thank you for the opportunity to read Never Have I Ever in exchange for an honest opinion.

Sam is doing well in her career, she has a husband and a baby and life is going well. That is until she gets the note through her door that stops her heart in her chest. Never Have I Ever Been Punished For What I Have Done.

Sam is catapulted back to those teenage years spent with her best friends, teasing out each other's secrets by announcing things they had Never, ever done. Pushing each other's boundaries, growing closer and growing up. If only they'd stopped there.

I don't know why, but I do feel like I was reading this at the perfect time of year, with Halloween quickly approaching and everything. It was a good book, with thrills you don't expect and a plot twist at the end (that I didn't expect). I will admit that Sam frustrated me as a character, but more for the way she treated her husband through all of this. To some extent I can understand it, now knowing the ending, but there were times where I did want to shake her and go 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST ASK FOR HELP'. Maybe that's the point though. But overall it was a great book, not my favourite thriller, but it was well written and I did want to keep reading it, so that's a good sign.

Childhood games come back to haunt Sam when she moves back home. This is a book with a little of everything, mystery, marital troubles, paranoia. It was a little slow to start off, but about halfway through I was hooked. Pretty decent book, once it picks up.
I received this through Netgalley and submitting an honest review.

Unfortunately I had to give up on this book. I couldn't take to the main character and it just seemed repetitive and not much happening in the 40% I read. Sorry this wasn't for me.

An amazing book superbly written. Great story great characters great plot. Highly recommended look forward to reading more from this author in the future!!

An honest opinion on a dnf book.

Too much storytelling for me and I got lost many times, because pdf was really bad.

Maybe ill try it out again, when its released in our country.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc.

This psychological thriller is written form Samantha's point of view about a game played with school friends 23 years earlier that has come back to haunt her after moving back to her home town, Ilfracombe.
This was a very easy read, but I wish we had more of an insight to Samantha's husband, as she seems very over-powering and controlling which made it hard to believe she was the one being bullied and not the bully. The setting was perfect, as I live in North Devon it was nice to mentally walk around rather than actually
trying to imagine, and Lucy's descriptions were spot on too.
I did find this story very easy to get into and found the hours whizzing by without realising. Although Sam came across quite unhinged throughout so I wasn't surprised as to why she doesn't have friends, it was still gripping and wanting you to know more and the ends tied everything up nicely.
I would recommend to those who like a good suspense novel that is very easy to read.
3.5 stars rounded to 4

This book really touched me. I felt the main characters were multi-dimensional and really cared about their fate. Very well written and insightful.

I really liked the cover. It is very appealing designed. The writing style is pleasant and very fluently to read. The characters are very well described and look well thought out and consistently interesting. The tension is always present. The descriptions of surroundings, feelings and scenes were also very good. The story is told pleasant and it succeeds from the first pages to dive directly into the story. The storyline as a whole is very coherent and it seems very understandable and authentic. A very fascinating story that you won't like to stop reading.