No1 Thriller Read of 2020.
This story is epic, I read this book on a day I was hooked from the first chapter, a very special book to do that. It's the most exciting take I have read for a long time. I have read all Katerina's books and really enjoy them so I had high expectations of this book and it exceeded my expectations.

The story and Jasmine is told in the past and your never quite sure who is telling the now story. The deaths are fascinating, really they are how and why and not until the end do we find out who did it as any good book aims. I was so confused trying to work out who did it all the way through, it's why I could not put it down. I had to know.

Beautifully written with excitement and intrigue in buckets, character development is A plus, you get to feel like your in Jasmine's shoes willing her to seek and find. This is straight into number 1 in my 2020 reads. Fantastic Thriller, anyone who loves a who dunit will love this book.



#heatwave #NetGalley #bookreview
https://bonkersaboutbooks.home.blog/

The Heatwave by Katerina Diamond is another intriguing thriller from an author who never fails to miss her mark. This one drew me in immediately, and continued to keep me enthralled throughout.

Told in alternating timelines of 'then' and 'now' which, as a sidenote, I find most effective, we learn that Felicity has returned to her hometown sixteen years after the disappearance of a young woman. It seems that history is repeating itself, and once again a young woman has gone missing. Are the two cases connected? Felicity suspects that she might very well be the link to unravelling the mystery, and must revisit a past that has haunted her for so many intervening years.

This is a well-crafted mystery, and more than once I could feel a trickle of dread running down my spine, in both the past and present narratives. Well done Ms Diamond for a highly enjoyable read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for this ARC.

As ever, Ms Diamond writes tremendously well even with the dual timeline (not always my favourite) which she labels 'Then' and 'Now'.

The book open with Felicity travelling from her home in The Lake District to her childhood home of Sidmouth in Devon where she is made to face her past - following the disappearance of a teenage girl. A similar event happening sixteen years ago when Felicity was living with her parents.

The schooldays past is where we meet Felicity's school friend Jasmine and her parents and the mysterious Tim who is their lodger. Jasmine is more reserved whilst Felicity is out there and wanting attention from boys. Different characters but great friends. No stone is left unturned by the author in characterisation of these three, Flick, Jazz and Tim - superb.

A slow, meandering start to the book with Felicity trying to piece together the two events. Plenty of twists in this believable, classy psychological thriller with a brilliant ending which I did not foresee!

I am not sure about the title - mine would be "Sunshine and savagery in Sidmouth'?

Thanks to Net Galley and Avon Books for the chance to read and review.

Finally a thriller that actually delivers thrilling pages and a few big twists towards the end. I read this very quickly because it is one of those books that you really want to know how they end. I had a few suspicions and some proved to be right but the twists were many and some quite unpredictable.

Felicity lives in the Lake District with a lovely husband and two kids, she hears on the news that in the village where she lived with her parents a teenage girl goes missing. She decides to go back to investigate because a girl went missing there 16 years before and she thinks the cases could be linked. Strange as the person who she thought was the killer of the first girl died, or so she thought.
This is a complex story with plenty of dark secrets that will keep you awake.

It is a psychological thriller but it is also one of those books with two timelines one set 16 years earlier and the second one follows Felicity in the present trying to solve a mystery linked to the past. It is the second book I read by Katerina Diamond and I will certainly read more, it might not be great literature when all is considered but in the psychological thriller genre is definitely well above average.

This is not my first Katerina Diamond book. I've read all her books so far, but this book is a standalone. I was excited and a bit nervous reading this one,but Katerina did not disappoint.
The book flits between past and present, at first i got confused but after a few chapters, i was on track.
The story centres around the abduction of 2 girls in a seaside town 16 years apart. Throughout the whole book i had a hunch, and much to my surprise i was totally wrong!! Katerina delivers twists and turns in this book that in my opinion were completely unexpected.
Im a huge fan of Katerina's books, and my heart has always been with Miles and Grey, but The Heatwave really shows what a great author she is. After having such a successful series, Katerina has gone for a standalone which did not disappoint. I didnt find this book as dark aa her other books, but The Heatwave was still a brilliant piece of writing. 100% recommend if like me you are a Katerina fan.
Thanx to net galley for allowing me the chance to read in exchange for this review

Exciting book to read. Started with a bang which had me hooked from the off. It was well written. Great plot and I really enjoyed reading it,

Firstly a big thank you to Avon for approving my request to read on netgalley. I am a huge fan of Katerinas books so was excited to read her first standalone thriller!
It didnt dissapoint and this will be a roaring success.

Fast paced and completly unpredictable.

Will have you hooked straight away.

Chilling yet steamy as set in a blistering heatwave. Atmospheric writing that captures these elements and transports you there.

Relatable characters and we all have skeletons in our closets dont we?

Highly recommend whether you are new to her books or a loyal fan.

This was a really dark gripping psychological thriller, with a twist at the end which I just didn't see coming.

In this book you follow a woman called felicity, who lived in a town where one hot summer a stranger arrived and a girl disappeared. 16 years later, another girl goes missing and she goes back to her home town to face the truth of what happend all those years ago.

This was a really well written pacey psychology thriller. I love Katerina Diamonds books and this one certainly didn't let me down.

This would be such a perfect read for the summer. I can defintely see this being a popular thriller this summer season. The setting, of the heatwave makes this a perfect pool side read.

If you love the trope of following someone coming back to their home town to solve a mystery a long time later, I bet you will love this book.

I did not see the ending coming. There was a massive twist. But there was some smaller twists throughout the book which I thought were really clever.

I loved that it was set in a British seaside town too, I could really picture the book in my head while reading.

Overall, I really enjoyed this dark psychological thriller. I really recommend you pick it up this summer!

TW: inappropriate adult minor relationships, suicide, violence and murder

I’ve read a couple of Katerina Diamond’s books before and really enjoyed them, even though they can be pretty dark (if you’ve read The Woman in the Water then you’ll probably know what I’m talking about 😅), so I was excited to find out she had written a stand alone book that wasn’t part of her detective series. And I wasn’t disappointed! This book is fab - flitting between the past and the present as a missing girl case draws parallels to something that happened in a coastal town when the main character was a teenager. The main character seems very dubious and unreliable at first, not giving much away apart from a sense of mystery, but as the book goes on, the pieces start to fall into place and all becomes clear. This book provides twists, turns, red herrings and keeps you guessing right up until the very end - a great summer read. The Heatwave is published on June 25th 2020 in the UK and is available for pre-order now.

Katerina Diamond is one of my favourite authors I was very surprised this book wasn't in the Grey and Miles series that I have grown to love so much. But in reality that didn't matter because this book was fantastic, full of twist and turns throughout. There were so many moments when I found my self saying out loud 'what, no way' and that was throughout.

The heatwave follows two characters Jasmine and Felicity. We are in teo different time zones Jasmine is telling us the past and Felicity is in the present. Felicity finds herself drawn to a news broadcast about a local teenager who has been kidnapped. The reason she is drawn to this story is because the very same thing happened 16 years earlier. Throughout the story we get to learn alot about Felicity and Jasmine, their friendship and why Felicity had left 16 years earlier. The two stories come together extremely well.

As always Diamonds writing is fantastic I love the way the chapter flip seamlessly from first to third person when description are being used. She does such a great job to convince us that our versions of the characters are correct. Ha how wrong I was. .

I absolutely lived this book for it so easy to get hooked on and I constantly found myself wanting more. Even when it ended I felt I want more to find out more information, even though everything had been explained and explored. I felt I wanted to just be a fly on the wall of the future.
Highly recommend if you want a summer read, but like me love a good psychological thriller this is the book for you.


Thank you Avon books UK and netgalley for allowing me to have an early copy of this book

I have to admit Katerina Diamond is one of my favourite authors, so I was jumping for joy to get the chance to review this book.

Felicity is dismayed to see on the news, a young girl going missing in her home town of Sidmouth in Devon. She hasn’t been home for 16 years and left when another girl had disappeared . She returns home to find out about the missing girl and see if there is any connections between the two girls.

The story is told from Felicity’s point of view and of her childhood friend Jasmine. Jasmine’s parents Frank and Lisa often go abroad to do charity work, they have offered their cabin in the garden to Tim a homeless man, but he unsettles Jasmine.

Loved how the stories merge together in a nail biting way that had me completely hooked!!

An author I couldn’t recommend enough!!

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

I really enjoyed the story, it gripped me from the start and kept me guessing throughout. Well structured plot with a twist.
Recommended to fans of mystery/ thrillers.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Avon Books UK and the author, Katerina Diamond, for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of The Heatwave in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I thought this book provided a good read.
The settings were rich in detail with compelling characters. The storyline was well written . I was hooked from the start. 3.5 stars.
Worth a read.

I love Katerina Diamonds books and have read all the of them. Her last one was by far the best in my opinion. However this one I just could not get into. I think it is because its different to her previous ones as its written in the past and present. I just didn't like the characters very much and part of the appeal for me is the relationship between Imogen and her team in the other books and also the fact they are based in my home town. Great author but this one was just not for me.

Overall I found this book an enjoyable story. It started a little slow but the pace picked up, I also enjoyed the description of the seaside town. Some of the characters action were unbelievable even being teenagers.

One summer… One stranger… One killer…

Sixteen years ago, Felicity fled her home town after a girl went missing and rocked the community.

Now, she finds herself drawn back by the news of another disappearance.

She knows she must return and finally face the truth about what happened all those years ago.

I requested this book on NetGalley as I love the authors Detective Imogen Grey series, and was interested to read this stand alone novel. Sadly, I was left a little disappointed.

I’m not going to go into the plot or characters too much, as for some this will be a ‘blow you away’ thriller. But as this is my favourite genre, and therefore one I have well read, I didn’t think it held the usual wow factor.

The greatest “twist” was obvious from so early on that I almost thought I could be wrong, that there would be another and that the twist would be twisted. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case and therefore the big reveal held no suspense or surprise for me.

That aside, this was a well written and easy to read book. If thrillers aren’t usually your thing this one might hold you in it’s grip. If you haven’t read anything by this author before, you won’t have expectations like me and will most likely enjoy this one. If you are a fan, perhaps give this one a miss and wait for the next instalment from Grey and Mills to get your fix.

Tense and gripping, I loved the dual narrative of this book. It was very atmospheric, quite a slow build, but then worked up to a brilliant conclusion where everything slotted devastatingly into place.

Four stars

It's hard to connect with the main character because the people close to her seem not to like her very much, it's clear she's harboring secrets, she drinks a ton and thus isn't even a reliable witness when it comes to her own lived experiences, and she seems generally...shady. Despite these factors, there is an insidious thread of questions that I really want answers to here. I wouldn't say that this novel exists in "I could NOT put this down" territory, but I did remain engaged, interested, invested, and pretty surprised (never a guarantee in works of this genre).

Structurally, this novel really works. We start in the very recent past, and then alternate between the distant past and the present. The distant past comes through a third-person narrator, and the present comes through the main character's perspective, which is a nice added touch. For me the balance and timing related to this set up really worked.

I finished this novel not just with the sense that the author created a series of pretty solid twists, but also with a lot of questions about how I'd approach some of these situations. This is entertaining, but it's also thought-provoking, and I'm looking forward to reading more from this author.

Can we talk about the cover of this book is so misleading? One would think this would be a nice murder mystery involving the beach somehow. And the book's title is also not really relevant to the story, other than the fact that the author mentioned the word heatwave in the book a couple of times and kept informing us that it was hot. Alas, that is not the case. Just be warned, as I kind of though it would play in their somewhere.

The story wasn't bad, just a little slow and not really exciting. The "bad guy" was a tad predictable, but I didn't guess the "why" at all. This story is purely plot driven, and the characters were not very developed. I did not feel a connection to any of them and due to lack of characterization, they seemed really flat. The sentence structure was a little too easy and juvenile for me. I am not a flowery type of sentence structure person, but I need a little more structure than the simple sentences this book offered.

Other than those flaws, it was a solid 3 stars. Very easy to read, and I finished in a couple of days. I think this would be a good book for people starting out in the mystery genre, as it's not really a thriller.

*Review copy provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

I’ve read a couple of Katerina Diamond’s books before and really enjoyed them, even though they can be pretty dark (if you’ve read The Woman in the Water then you’ll probably know what I’m talking about 😅), so I was excited to find out she had written a stand alone book that wasn’t part of her detective series. And I wasn’t disappointed! This book is fab - flitting between the past and the present as a missing girl case draws parallels to something that happened in a coastal town when the main character was a teenager, t The main character seems very dubious and unreliable at first, not giving much away apart from a sense of mystery, but as the book goes on, the pieces start to fall into place and all becomes clear. This book provides twists, turns, red herrings and keeps you guessing right up until the very end - a great summer read.