Unfortunately I have decided to DNF this one, it wasn't for me.
I will continue to check for future books from this author as I like to give author's a second chance and I won't be put off from DNF this one for my future reads.

4.5 rounded up, this was a great ride. There were plenty of times I thought I figured it out, and then a wrench was thrown into my theory. A few tough subjects including PTSd, addiction, and sexual assault.

This is a well written who dunnit with a good amount of attention paid to background for the characters.


Thank you to netgalley and crooked lane for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5/5.0 Stars

BELIEVE ME NOW – by S.M. Govett

‘Natalie Campbell loses time. She’ll wake up in different places with no memory of how she got there. The blackouts are a symptom of her PTSD, which began after she was sexually assaulted by her boss, who was found not guilty. But she found ways to cope by setting up routines and relying on her supportive husband, Ryan. Then one day, her husband is accused of committing the same crime that ruined her life.’

My Heart! That was pretty good, with an ending I did and did not expect!

Highly Recommend!

Thank you, Crooked Lane Books (The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.), for providing me with an eBook ARC of BELIEVE ME NOW at the request of an honest review.

This is a tense, emotionally layered thriller that had me hooked from early on, even if the initial setup took a little time to build. Once it hit its stride, I found it hard to put down.

What worked best for me was the dual perspective. Natalie’s chapters pull you into the fog of trauma and memory loss, making it genuinely difficult to know what’s real and who to trust. Her vulnerability, paired with moments of clarity, creates a constant push-pull of sympathy and suspicion. On the other side, DI Helen Stratton brings a more grounded, procedural voice to the story, but with just enough personal baggage to make her chapters feel just as emotionally charged. Together, their narratives complement each other in a way that keeps the tension steady and the stakes high.

The twist didn’t completely blindside me, but it was still satisfying. The way the story layered secrets and slowly unraveled truths felt intentional and well-executed. It leaned into psychological suspense over shock value, which I appreciated.

While it started a bit slowly and had a few familiar beats for seasoned thriller readers, Believe Me Now stands out for its emotional depth and compelling structure. A strong debut, and one I’d definitely recommend to fans of character-driven thrillers.

Believe Me Now follows two women: Natalie Campbell and Helen Stratton. Natalie lives with severe PTSD after being sexually assaulted by her boss. Helen is a police investigator trying to uncover what happened to her sister Alice, who disappeared as a teenager.


Natalie begins experiencing episodes of lost time. She relies heavily on her husband, Ryan, and daily routines she has in place for herself. Although her life isn’t perfect, it feels manageable until Ryan is accused of raping a coworker. Not long after, Natalie starts receiving threatening letters at home. Although the letters are anonymous, she recognizes the style and believes they are from her former boss’s wife, the same woman who once blamed Natalie for ruining her life.


Meanwhile, Helen is trying to navigate a complicated work environment. Her boss is someone she recently ended an affair with, which her coworkers probably all know about. To add further complications, she is assigned a new, eager-to-please partner who can’t wait to prove himself.


Believe Me Now is perfectly placed in the mystery and thriller genres and delivers on both. The plot is filled with twists and turns, and I was eager to see how Natalie and Helen’s stories would eventually connect. Even with multiple threads and voices in play, I never felt confused. Govett gives each woman a distinct voice, making it easy to follow both perspectives.


I found it to be a quick read, mostly because I was so invested in the outcome. I think it deserves a second read to fully catch all the subtle clues and hints woven throughout the story.


What stood out most to me was how well the female characters were written and how thoughtfully the author portrayed the challenges women face, especially in relation to the men around them. Helen constantly has to fight to be taken seriously. Natalie, in contrast, is babied by her husband. Both women are much stronger than the men in their lives give them credit for.


The male characters are also compelling in their differences. Ryan is meant to be seen as a supportive husband, at least through Natalie’s eyes, but I disliked him from the beginning. On the other hand, Helen’s new partner was likable right away, even if she was slow to trust him. Helen’s boss immediately rubbed me the wrong way. I’m tempted to reread the book and look more closely at the parallels between Ryan and Helen’s boss, as they seem to represent a quiet form of control disguised as caring.


Overall, Believe Me Now is a solid and engaging read that balances emotional depth with high-stakes suspense. I‘d recommend it to anyone looking for a mystery that keeps your heart racing and pages turning.


Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is stunning and the two voices in this book build a beautiful story that will keep readers captivated right up till the very end. I loved getting lost in this world and am so excited that readers can soon get their hands on it.
Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this title.

It starts with a scream in the dark and ends with a silence that chills to the bone. Every page drips with dread, pulling you deeper into a maze of deception. The final twist doesn’t just shock—it redefines everything that came before.

I tried to get into this one in the physical format and the audio and I just could not. The story seemed great but it just did not work for me I had to DNF.

This was even heavier than I expected and I have to admit, the cop and victim narrative didn't work for me. I should have skipped it for that but it did seem interesting and it was. It just wasn't for me.

S.M. Govett delivers a dark, multilayered psychological thriller in Believe Me Now—a novel that is as gripping as it is unsettling. From the very beginning, the story plunges into a world of uncertainty and manipulation, where nothing can be taken at face value.

Told through dual narrators, the structure adds depth and intrigue, allowing the truth to unfold in a carefully controlled manner. As the layers of the story are slowly peeled back, tension mounts and the stakes rise, drawing readers deeper into a web of secrets, suspicion, and betrayal.

Twisted in the best sense of the word, Believe Me Now is a page-turner that constantly challenges the reader’s assumptions. Govett keeps you guessing until the very end, crafting a suspenseful narrative that’s both clever and compelling. An unmissable read for fans of psychological suspense.

I can now see why this book has a 4⭐️ rating. We have Natalie who is a perfect is reliable narrator. Her husband is accused of a horrible crime and because of her past she has a hard time believing him.

This book was fast paced and didn’t stop until the very end. It packs a lot into its 300 pages and leaves you with your head spinning head.

I was pulled into the story and didn’t know who I wanted to believe and who has really innocent and spoiler I was wrong…


Genre: Thriller
APK: Ebook
Pages: 312
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Series or Standalone: Stand-alone

This was such a great, suspenseful thriller! I couldn't put this book down.
Believe Me Now by S. M. Govett was a great story that I enjoyed reading.
I liked the premise of this book I found it interesting from the start.

What a fun twisty turny psychological thriller. A dual point of view with Natalie and DI Stratton. Who fo you believe? The author does an excellent job of misdirection.

Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane books for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

A fast-paced mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat and questioning everyone. I really liked the authors writing style for this book.

Natalie is still dealing with trauma 10 years later after accused her former boss of S/A and he was found not guilty. She still struggles with PTSD and blackouts.

Now her husband has been accused of S/A she’s sure he couldn't be guilty why would he do that after what happened to her, their is no way a women would lie about that but she isn’t sure.

The next day things get worse for them
DI Stratton a detective on the case of who is haunted by the disappearance of her sister when she was growing up and still looking for her.

Did her husband really do it or was it one of the many other suspects and the suspense is high throughout the fast-paced thriller novel full of tension and twist.

This is told through the eyes of DI Helen Stratton and Natalie, the woman she's investigating. It's a twisty one, chiefly because Natalie has blackouts as a result of PTSD from an assault. How reliable is she as a narrator? And can you believe her-can she believe herself-when it comes to the fact that a woman who accused her husband has been found murdered? She's quite sympathetic but you like Helen, might feel prickles of uncertainty. It's well constructed and well told. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me with an eARC of Believe Me Now in exchange for my honest review!

This crime thriller rivets me with a whole ton of twists and turns as I get caught up in the main characters' stories and plunge deep into a deeply misogynistic world that leaves us wondering what and who we can turn to in order to give women the safety and respect that they absolutely need. I'll admit that I was actually close to skipping over this book, even though I'd had my eye on it for a while, so thank god I finally dived into it. Yes, the beginning does build up a little more gradually than I'd expected it to, but it's not slow, to be clear. It just makes the choice to take a bit of time to set up the pieces for the rest of the narrative. Then it lets the tension roll forward into a tale that keeps causing me to wonder exactly what's happening. There are so many points where I'm leaning towards this theory, where I'm leaning towards that theory, where I have to adjust my perspective depending on the surprising pieces of information I absorb.

It helps that this does a smooth job of switching us back and forth between the two central POVs of Natalie and Stratton. For Natalie, you can't help but empathize with her so damn fast as she wrestles with her past trauma and her blackouts that skew her sense of reality into an increasingly uncertain level. Her side of the story taps into a visceral territory that can really escalate the suspense and wrap me up in her psychological space. For Stratton, that visceral layer isn't quite as present, but it remains engrossing to follow her side of the book as she investigates these grim crimes from a hardened perspective and uncovers a growing amount of evidence that could lead her closer to the truth. Through her eyes, we process the narrative with more distance, and it effectively contrasts with the palpable emotions of Natalie's POV.

Once we reach the third act, goddamn, this tale unleashes a satisfying payoff and steers us towards a conclusion that I hadn't predicted. It's interesting, because right before the fully revelation of an important aspect, I thought to myself, "Oh shit, is this what's occurring?" And then yep, that's what we've been building up to. Once that transpires, it helps the pieces click together. Everything makes sense at that point. The only element that holds me back from giving this the full five stars is that it comes so close to adopting a strong ACAB position, but then it loses its nerve and takes a couple steps back from that right at the very end. It's frustrating, because the progression of the story made me more and more invested in the apparent stake it was putting down in an ACAB stance. I was warming up to this in spite of the narrative initially giving off a pro-cop air. But oh dear, when the tale heads all the way to the end of the road, it makes the choice to avoid fully committing to being ACAB, which is frustrating. It would have been so damn appropriate to vehemently embrace such an attitude due to how much that would have thematically and politically meshed with the story.

I was seriously considering giving Believe Me Now the full five stars before that choice arrived, but oh well, it's still a worthwhile journey that I'm officially rating 4.5 out of 5 stars, which I'm rounding down to 4 stars. I'm definitely looking out for more of S.M. Govett's writing.

BELIEVE ME NOW is a twisty, dual viewpoint thriller. Natalie Campbell is a suburban housewife who suffers from PTSD after an office rape and a trial that found her attacker innocent. Natalie has blackouts in which she loses time and finds herself in different places with no idea how she got there. These blackouts - what she calls "losing time" - seem to be stress-related. They began with the court case almost ten years earlier exacerbated by the arrival of threatening letters sent by her accuser's wife.

Some years have gone by since she has received new letters, but her anxiety hasn't ended. The stress is starting to increase again as some new letters arrive, and her husband is accused of raping his assistant. Natalie's relationship with her husband has changed over the years and now she doesn't know if she can believe him when he says that the accusation is false.

Stress ramps up still more when the young, pretty accuser is found murdered in the woods near their home at a time when her husband was out running.

DI Helen Stratton is the other viewpoint character. She's under stress of her own as it is nearing the anniversary of her older sister's disappearance. She joined the police force to find her sister and over the years of her career she has solved many crimes. However, her sister's disappearance remains a mystery.

Now, she finds herself being partnered with a fast-tracker - a young police officer being pushed up the ladder and with responsibility for this new murder case reluctantly given to her by her superior with whom she once had an affair. Helen is also dealing with a mother with dementia whose care home is hinting that another facility might be better for her.

While Helen zeroes in on Natalie's husband as the murder suspect, Natalie is also trying to unravel the case. And when Natalie's husband apparently commits suicide, the case gets even twistier.

This was a dark story which leaves the reader to put the pieces together even as the two viewpoint characters are trying to do the same. I enjoyed the twists and turns though I felt the ending came too fast and tied up the loose ends a bit too easily.

Thank you Crooked Lane Books for the gifted digital ARC!

It's pretty rare that I am completely sucked into a book from the jump, but that was 100% the case with this one. I also really enjoyed that we got to have POV chapters from both Natalie and the detective investigating the murder, Helen.

There were lots of red herrings and details that didn't seem very important but looped back around for the big reveal. It had all of my favorite thriller elements: fast-paced plot, several mystery storylines, and characters behaving badly.

I hope this author continues to write thrillers, I am a big fan already!

Believe Me Now pub date is June 10.

Believe Me Now by S. M. Govett is a recommended investigative thriller that unfolds between dual narrators. The title is Believe in the UK.

Natalie Campbell experienced a traumatic event ten years ago and still struggles with PTSD and blackouts. She has coping strategies and routines to help her and she also relies on her husband Ryan. Then her life is shaken up when she begins to receive the same kinds of threatening letters she was sent years ago. Following this her husband is accused of the same crime that ruined her life and the accuser, Alice Lytton, is found dead.

DI Helen Stratton understands past trauma. Stratton joined the force to make a difference for lost or missing women after her sixteen-year-old sister disappeared years ago and the police didn't take it seriously. Now she's been on the force for years and assigned a new partner, DC Bradley. The two are assigned to the murder case of Alice.

Following the two very different points-of-view in alternating chapters works very well in this investigative thriller. Natalie is a very sympathetic character but with her blackouts readers also won't know if she is entirely a trustworthy one. Stratton is a bit of a prickly woman, but an observant and competent detective that you will trust.

There are plenty of suspects and the suspense is high throughout the fast-paced novel. I knew exactly who did it very early in the novel and all the twists and additional information didn't change my opinion, but they did add depth to the plot. Thanks to Crooked Lane Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.