"She's out there and if she won't come willingly, I will take her and I will transform her, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly."

Detective Gina Harte and her team are back. This time they are investigating the kidnapping and murder of Amber Slater after her body was found in a local park with her lips glued shut. As they interview those who knew her they begin to suspect the killer might have used a dating app to target and track his victim. And when he snatches another young girl, the team finds themselves up against the clock in a race to find their culprit before he can silence her too forever.  

This series was one of my first new discoveries after joining NetGalley and Bookstagram and I always look forward to coming back to these books. It’s like catching up with an old friend, just with a side order of murder. And after a week of being unable to read due to illness, this book was just what I needed to get my mojo back.

One of my favourite things is when a thriller tells you the story from the killer’s point of view and once again the author has done this perfectly, crafting a disturbing, sinister and eerie antagonist who I would definitely want to avoid on the street. Reading as he hunted for his perfect woman and then stalked her, all while she was completely unaware that he was about to pounce, made the suspense soar. I liked that the author toyed with us and brought Gina and her team into the fray as potential victims. The tension couldn’t have been higher and I was on the edge of my seat hoping that she wouldn’t kill off a much-loved character. 

The author keeps the reader on their toes through an abundance of suspects, curve balls and red herrings that make it impossible to predict what will happen next and who is behind the kidnappings. The scenes from the adductor and his victim’s perspective ramped up the tension and Gina’s frustration and fear was palpable as she worried they wouldn’t identify the culprit in time to save his latest victim.

Captivating, addictive and sizzling with tension, this crime series shows no signs of slowing down. Carla knocks it out of the park with every book and I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us next.

The Broken Ones by Carla Kovach is the eighth book in the Detective Gina Harte series. It is easily read as as a standalone, but Gina is one of them women that you will really connect and empathise with if you read them chronologically, that is only my opinion. This cover is absolutely amazing, if I wasn't already Gina Harte obsessed this would make me want to red it as wella 
This book is written in third person which I really enjoy as you get the bigger picture and  get more overview. You can also get to know the characters better in my mind. 
We meet Amber, a university student who is getting ready to go out to meet a guy from a dating site. She could never imagine the outcome, even if she tried.
DI Gina Harte takes the call when Amber doesn't arrive back, as she is taking details she gets a notification of a body being found. It becomes apparant that Amber definitely won't get back home. Gina is on the investigation but is unable to discover anything that happened after Amber went to catch her bus. Noone can say a bad word against Amber, there are no witnesses, nothing. There ARE secrets though and when another student goes missing Gina realises she has a mammoth task. One in which she is up against a killer and she is on her own with noone willing to come forward to help. Will she manage to beat the clock in the race to stop more deaths?

I have a few Go-To authors and Carla Kovach has been on my list since before the first Gina Harte book. She writes an excellently plotted and highly entertaining story. Her characters are so real to me now. I always love returning back to see what Gina is up to, she feels like a friend! Right from book number one I have connected with her, she has had her ups and downs of which we witness a few in this instalment.  The setting for The Broken Ones is made even  more tense with the type of weather as well. 
A brilliant read, again from Carla Kovach and I am just so glad the series is going from strength to strength! I cannot wait for the next outing of Gina, I really do miss her inbetween books, Carla really can't write fast enough for me! 
Thanks so much to Bookouture and NetGalley for the copy of the book

This is the 8th book in the DI Gina Harte crime thriller series so don't tackle this until you've read the others. Gina is with the Cleevesford Police and this installment continues with the team that includes her sometime lover, DCI Chris Briggs. Gina has a complicated backstory that he is privy to but they can't seem to establish a real relationship for the usual reasons that include jumping to erroneous conclusions and miscommunication. 

This installment starts with the discovery of a murdered girl, Amber Slater, in a park lake. Amber's neighbor in the apartment complex where they live, Lauren Sandiford, had reported her missing when she hadn't returned from a dinner meeting she had set up on a dating site called AppyDater. As they begin the investigation, question witnesses, haul in suspects, and examine scant evidence, another girl who looks very similar to Amber is attacked in the car park at a local hospital. Although Madison escapes the attempted abduction, the police are concerned about the connection between the two women and feel they are hunting for a man who has a type of woman he wants. When one of their own team disappears without a trace, Gina and her team step up the pace knowing that they must find her before it's too late. NO SPOILERS.

OK. Well, another crime thriller that evokes all the familiar tropes in this genre. There are certainly a lot of serial killers and crazy people in this area and the author dangles plenty of red herrings to keep the reader guessing. I did think the motive for this killer was a bit thin and I found the story less than compelling. All the details involved in a police procedural described each step of the investigation although it seems that this far into the series there should be murders that don't involve dead women and serial killers. I think after awhile even the best characters wear out and it's time to move on. Maybe it's just me, tired of female detective series that all seem interchangeable with only the setting being different. Yes, I've grown with these team members, but I didn't find the same suspense or a fresh, unique case in this one. I haven't decided if I'm done with Gina Harte, but I never found the level of tension and surprise with the reveal of the perpetrator. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this e-book ARC to read and review. Fans of Gina Harte will want to read this one and keep up with the series.

My thanks to Bookouture for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Broken Ones’ by Carla Kovach in exchange for an honest review. 

This is the eighth in her D.I. Gina Harte series of police procedurals set in the fictional Midlands town of Cleevesford. To date I have read all but one of the earlier books though background is always provided for readers new to the series.

Bookouture has provided quite a long summary that I won’t reproduce. Basically following the murder of a popular university student there are plenty of suspects as Gina and her team investigate. There are also some chilling chapters written from the murderer’s perspective. 

Once more Carla Kovach has written a solid, fast paced police procedural with some interesting twists and a few teasing red herrings along the way.

As always I enjoyed this very much and highly recommend both this novel and the overall series. Roll on Book 9!

Another police procedural with a tense and gritty storyline. I love police procedurals but I think with the amount that’s being published every day and how much of them I read, everything feels a bit repetitive, formulaic, and even forced. This has everything that a thriller and a police procedural should have, interesting plot, gripping mystery, twists, and a perfect balance of personal stories of the detectives running in the background (although you need to be aware of it a bit from the previous books otherwise it just disrupts the flow of the main story), but still for some reason, this just did not click with me and I had to push through to get to the end. But mostly I'm just going to put blame it on the fact that I'm an avid reader of this genre, it takes a bit more for me to swoon over it. I think a new reader or someone who does not often this genre is bound to love it. It gets a bit dramatic at the end and I could see how it was going to turn up, like I said, very formulaic, but I think this should look very good on a screen :)

Thanks to Netgalley, Bookouture publishers, and the author for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Book 8 in the fantastic Gina Harte series.

I was totally hooked and read it in two sittings. The plot was creepy and had plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing til the very end.

Loved it and can't wait for the next one.

Book 8 in the Gina Harte series is every bit as good as the previous 7 have been. It is full of suspense, great character development and an interesting, fast paced plot to catch a killer. There are plenty suspects but I found Gina and the team playing a catch up game, just a bit tedious although I enjoyed the insight into the mind of the killer. it's a quick, easy read which I would recommend. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

Thank you to Bookouture for my copy of this book via Netgalley and for letting me take part in this tour. I am a huge fan of Gina Harte so I was very excited to see what the next installment held. 

This case had so many dead ends and false starts. No one told the damn truth about anything so I was suspicious of almost everyone. I was tense for pretty much the whole book. This person lived in the shadows and in plain sight. He seems pretty normal on the surface. But like Gina says so do a lot of killers. If I was still a young girl living alone I think this book would have seriously creeped me out. The stalking and the tricks he played on these characters by the killer make me shiver. 

Carla did an excellent job of holding me in suspense. The story is well thought out and the fast pace was perfect. I felt like I was in that station and almost part of the team. I was as invested as they were in the case. 

This was a tense but thrilling ride and I can’t wait for the next book!

Thank you to Netgalley for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review. This book is not only a gritty thriller the the investigation is ran but a great team of police. The characters are likeable and its an easy read. I would recommend.

Amber Slater is a university student living in a small flat.  She works hard studying and enjoys the friendship of other student friends.  She recently joined a dating app and tonight is heading out to catch a bus and meet someone for dinner.  Just outside her door, she disappears.  She is found a couple days later face down in a lake in the park.  She had been stabbed in the chest. Who killed this bright, young girl?

DI Gina Harte and her friend, DC Paula Wyer, have worked together for some time.  When Amber is found, they are right on the case.  Many people are questioned and they are trying to discover clues. 

Madison is studying to be a nurse.  Her great-grandmother has some health issues so Madison spends as much time as she can helping to care for the woman whom she loves dearly.  Madison’s friends are all taken with the new dating app and one friend jokingly puts it on her phone.  When she gets a call that her grandmother has fallen and been taken to the emergency room, she hurries over to see her.  As she goes to get her car to take her home, she is attacked but manages to fight the man off.  She survives her injuries.

Now, Jhanvi Kapoor, another detective has gone missing and Gina, Paula, and the entire police department is searching for her.  Could she be another victim of this murderer?  

This is a very intense, edge of the seat book.  The descriptions are top-notch and I could feel the cold even here in sunny Florida.  The author gave us clues but even then I couldn't guess the bad person.  Well done and three cheers for “Mrs. O” and the treats she made for the detectives.  What a dear woman. 

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Wow, this series just keeps getting better with every book. A great story with many twists which kept me guessing till the end. I'm looking forward to the next book.

Yes I sometimes will read this author for the slow burn romance between Briggs and Gina Harte. This one though caught my eye and I love the cover.

What did I like! From the first book in this series I will gladly pick up this author’s work with DCI thrillers. A new genre that has me picking up books left and right with the DCI title. The horror of the murder and the way Harte finagled the investigation just sucks you in!

Would I recommend or buy? Yes, I’ve missed a couple but I will eventually buy these for my shelf! On my list of wish to have. I would recommend to anyone who loves DCI’s or thriller mystery reads! Definitely recommend the series! Five stars!

I received a complimentary copy to read and voluntarily left a review!

Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for allowing me to read this Arc.
I absolutely love all of Carla Kovach's books and this one didn't disappoint. 
You are always guaranteed a gripping read with loads of twists and turns. 
Definitely worth five stars.

Totally gripping. An addictive, unputdownable,  thrilling read. I was frantically turning the pages and yet bereft when it ended. A story and characters that will stay with me. Brilliant. Highly recommended.

The Broken Ones by Carla Kovach is the eighth book in the Gina Harte series. I picked up this series with The Liar's House (book 4) and I also thoroughly enjoyed books five through to seven.

The author has written a really clever and fascinating story that drew me in right from the very first page. Feisty and down-to-earth, Gina Harte is a brilliant Detective Inspector. The fabulous plotting and great pacing by Carla Kovach also contributed to my huge enjoyment of the story. I suspected many of the characters, yet as is often the case, I failed to identify the actual perpetrator.

If you love a good detective series and psychological thriller with plenty of twists and creepiness then The Broken Ones is for you. Very highly recommended. Rating: five stars.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Bookouture via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

Another thoroughly enjoyable thriller from Ms Kovach with a twisty and enthralling narrative and enough action to sink your teeth into.

This is one of my favourite series and I always enjoy revisiting DI Gina Harte and her team with every book. The eighth installment, THE BROKEN ONES is a gritty crime thriller that has you gripped from the very beginning as the team search for a twisted killer.

Opening with a Prologue set ten years ago, trying not to be heard by their mother he creeps into his sister's darkened bedroom to regale her with his plan. Finally they can be free of the grip in which their mother has them. But he is confused as to why her room is dark. Hailey loves the moonlight streaming in as she drifts off to sleep...so why are the curtains drawn? He tries to wake her, softly whispering her name. He sees the earphones in her ears. He gives her a gentle shake...and stops. She is cold to the touch. Then he spies empty blister packs on her bedside table beside a glass of water. His sister is dead. In an instant he knows "she" did this. Their evil mother. And she must pay.

Ten years later, it's Friday night and Amber is preparing to go out on a date with someone she met on a dating app. Her friend Lauren helps her choose an outfit - a pink jumpsuit coupled with leopard print stilettos. With a smile and an overnight bag, she smiles as she leaves the apartment block saying "Don't wait up!" As she makes her way to the bus stop, she sees someone she believes to be in need and stops to help...realising too late that she's the one in trouble.

Monday morning a call comes in from a young woman reporting her friend, that left to for a date on Friday night, missing. While it is not uncommon for Amber to stay out all weekend, it IS highly unusual that she has not text Lauren to let her know how her date went and when to expect her home. Although at first, Gina believes it just to be a woman staying out and having fun, when she receives a call mid-interview that a body has been found in a local park, she prays that it is not the missing young woman.

Gina arrives with her team at the cordoned area in the park and, after consulting with forensics, inspects the body laying in a nightdress at the edge of the lake. It is Amber. With a gaping stab wound to her abdomen and evidence that she had been restrained, it appears the poor woman also had her lips sealed shut with superglue. Now Gina and her team must question everyone who lives in the student apartment block that Amber resided in. But in searching Amber's flat, forensics find some clandestine spy cameras surreptitiously hidden where not even Amber would have noticed them. Who was watching Amber? And was she targeted for a reason?

But it seems Amber was well liked by her friends, tutors and colleagues at the local pub she worked at three nights a week. But as Gina and her team dig deeper, many secrets that people are hiding slowly start to surface. And in her sights is a chef at the restaurant that Amber was supposed to meet her date on Friday, who appears to be acting suspiciously. And her tutor, whose own alibi is shaky, seems to be hiding something. Is there more to Amber than meets the eye?

Then another student, Madison, in a neighbouring block goes missing walking to the carpark at the local hospital. Her nan sat in her wheelchair in reception for an hour waiting for Madison to return, finally asking nurses to call the police. Gina and her team begin their search in the surrounding area immediately and thankfully find the girl gravely wounded but alive. Madison, it seems, had also been on the same dating app as Amber. Could this be their link? Is the killer finding his victims via Appydater then stalking them before abducting and killing them? Madison reported suspicious behaviour of someone watching her and following her, so she was naturally on her guard when the villian tried to take her. But her training in self defence prepared her well for the knee to the bollocks and the punch to the face before she lost consciousness in the bushes.

Then when one of their own fails to appear for their shift, it soon becomes clear that the killer has targeted her and it is a race against time and a killer who will stop at nothing to be reunited with the past.

THE BROKEN ONES is seriously creepy with a handful of equally creepy suspects to take your pick from. The setting is just as sinister in the cold snowy landscape of mid-winter Cleevesford, giving the town a distinctively...well, creepy feel. It feels as if it is constantly dark adding to the malevolent aspect as Gina and her team race to find their killer, just as their much loved colleague fights for her life locked and restrained in a darkened room.

The eighth book in the DI Gina Harte series, THE BROKEN ONES is just as compelling as the previous ones in the series although some aspects may seem a little repetitive. For instance, her to-ing and fro-ing where her DCI Chris Briggs is concerned. Just when you thought she was getting her sh*t together with him, she second guesses everything again. This is the one aspect of the series that has me tearing my hair out in frustration. Either do or don't - stop procrastinating and second guessing! I'm just glad her daughter Hannah didn't feature in this installment because that girl grates on me with the disrespect she shows her mother, dangling daughter Grace in front of Gina as emotional blackmail.

It is also refreshing not to find Gina constantly referring to her past with abusive husband Terry. This is rehashed with every book in detail that I find redundant since readers are more than familiar with the story now. As for newcomers to the series, just a reference to it would suffice whetting their appetite enough to go back and read previous books to uncover what really happened. Gina's experience with Terry changed her understandably but doesn't define her, so that secret should remain locked away in her past never to see the light of day again. After all, how long has it been? Hannah was a young child and she's now a grown woman with a child of her own. Over twenty years at least, I'd say. Time to move that story on.

With Gina's private life is still somewhat in turmoil, I think it's about time she sat herself down with Chris and stop avoiding him and putting it in the "too hard" basket. I missed the last book (it's still in my TBR pile) so I haven't yet caught up with what took place there but I can read between the lines. I just want to slap her sometimes. lol

As for the crime aspect, I had no idea whodunnit but I wasn't surprised when it was revealed. And yet, it was still a highly addictive read. Overall, THE BROKEN ONES is a riveting crime thriller with all the suspense and creepiness that is bound to keep readers enthralled and entertained.

I would like to thank #CarlaKovach, #NetGalley, #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheBrokenOnes in exchange for an honest review.

Great as a stand alone book, but glad to know there is a series!  This book kept me hooked from beginning to end, and made me want to keep reading until it was done.   
I liked the characters and the story kept me guessing.  Definitely recommend!

Another British crime novel for me.  They never get old because they are all so good.  This is my first Gina Harte novel by Carla Kovach, but it won’t be my last. This is the 8th book in the series and I had no trouble following along without being caught up in reading the series.

Gina Harte, or Guv as her team calls her, is hunting a murderer.  A young college age girl is found dead in the park.  The book focuses on catching her killer.  There are chapters from his victims, his point of view and Gina’s.  I like when you get to see the story unfold from many angles.

And can I mention there is no shortage of suspects.  At one point I even wondered if her team was all vetted and if they could be part of it.  Slowly all of the suspects end up being eliminated so you can figure out the villain.  

There is suspense and danger in this fast paced novel as Gina and her team rush to solve the case before more people are hurt.  The author does a good job in developing a believable crime and has a diverse group of characters.  And she is great at red herrings for even smaller plot points as you read the story.

I recommend this for anyone looking for a well thought out crime drama.

The Broken Ones Carla Kovach 
This is book 8 in the Gina Harte series although I think it would read great as a standalone. I have enjoyed every book I've read in this series so far, and loved this one too. I really like Gina as a character. 
The open chapters take you into the story with a bang, and keeps you hooked and guessing right to the end. I had several theories going, who killed Amber and why, then other women start to go missing. 
This is a series I will keep coming back to time and time again.