Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a gifted copy of this book!

To start, I will say that I don’t think this book was for me. Although I typically enjoy police/court procedural and thrillers, this one missed the mark. I found myself struggling to like the FMC, and I constantly questioned her decision making skills. The background premise was interesting, but ultimately I think the FMC made all the wrong decisions. That being said, I did not guess the ending and was surprised at the result. Ultimately, I did struggle reading this one but wouldn’t discount recommending it if you enjoy a FMC you love to hate or a police/courtroom investigative thriller.

Having not heard of Sarah Hornsley before, I was wondering how her debut novel would be.

It took a little while to get into the story but then it got good, with lots of twists and turns. Justine’s first murder case is that of her first love/boyfriend who she hasn’t seen in a very long time.

A very good read which I would recommend.

Thank you for the advance read.

For mystery fans - a propulsive semi-legal thriller with twists aplenty. While it’s arguable that Justine makes some really really bad choices, there’s lots of backstory and character development to offset/explain those decisions. Looking forward to what Sarah Hornsley writes next. Thanks to Zando and NetGalley for the DRC.

Can we stop naming books after Taylor swift lyrics? That’s my first request and my first gripe with this book. Other than that it’s predictable but it is a nice beach read

Thank you to NetGalley and Zando for providing a complimentary copy of this book for an honest review.

Justine Stone is a criminal lawyer who has been handed her first big case to prosecute. As she is reading the folder on the double homicide, she notices that she knows the defendant, Brad Finchley; but she knows him as Jake Reynolds, the love of her life as a teenager. This case has immediately transported Justine back 18 years and reliving the memories of her father's death and the abandonment by her mother and Jake. Justine knows she can't ethically prosecute this case due to a conflict of interest, but she can't help wanting to solve this case; not just for Jake, but for herself. To do this, she returns home to Maldon, after being away for 18 years. As she returns to her hometown, she discovers that her brother, Max, has gone missing and she can't help but think that the double homicide and Max's disappearance are connected somehow. As more and more secrets are revealed to her, she can't help but wonder who she is and who were the people in her life 18 years ago.

There are so many themes to this book and I loved it so much. I love the theme of family drama/secrets being revealed that make the MC question their whole being. They question themselves, their parents, their friends, and their town. It's almost like a coming-of-age story as an adult. Finding connections to what the character never imagined to be connected to and the secrets within. While the twists in this book weren't shocking, I still really enjoyed this. I think what I loved most about it was how everything was interconnected at the end and how you watch Justine grow into the woman she is at the end. You actually feel like you're going through the emotions and the sadness and the grief with her, which was really nice.

Justine Stone is a gifted prosecutor. She has been putting in the hours, helping on case after case, and her boss finally feels like it’s time for her to have a shot at her own case. It’s a double homicide, Mark and Beverly Rushnell were found dead in their home, both shot in the head. The suspect is Brad Finchley, who has no prior arrests. Justine looks at his photo and knows immediately who that is. She didn’t know he’d changed his name. All she knew is that when she looked him up online, she never found anything. No profile on LinkedIn, no social media. Now she knows why. He had changed his name. But he looks the same.

Brad FInchley is Jake Reynolds. Jake was the love of her life. She hadn’t seen him in almost 20 years. And he’d been living in Maldon, Essex, where they had grown up. Justine didn’t think he’d had it in him to kill two people, so she couldn’t believe he was guilty. She recuses herself from the case because of her prior relationship with Jake. But she feels pulled back home to try to figure out what happened.

Justine decides to stay at her mom’s for a few days and tries to get ahold of her brother Max. She doesn’t have a great relationship with her mother, because of the things that happened when she was young. The toxicity of the home is what made Justine decide to leave in the first place. After she graduated and Jake disappeared on her, she left for London to create a new life for herself. And she did. She became a lawyer, a prosecutor, and got married to Noah. But being back in Maldon brings up a lot of memories. And when her repeated calls to her brother go unanswered, Justine’s worries about him grow.

As she tries to find her brother and searches her memory for why Mark and Beverly Rushnell sound familiar to her, Justine dive deeply into her family’s past, where she finds some truly dangerous things. Will she be able to figure out what happened to the Rushnells, to free Jake from his potential conviction? Or will she have to stand by as the love of her life is put in prison for life?

Bad Blood is a twisty thriller about the past and how it can haunt you from afar. This is a debut novel from Sarah Hornsley, and it’s already been sold to television. This has layers of secrets and reveals, with surprises and suspense coming in hot. I listened to the audio, narrated by Gemma Whelan, who did a phenomenal job with this story. I had a great time with Bad Blood. I saw some of the twists coming ahead of time, but I was still so happy to have bought a ticket for this ride.

Egalleys for Bad Blood were provided by Zando, and a copy of the audio book was provided by Dreamscape Select, both through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.

Unfortunately, although this book started out well, with some early suspense and mystery and a hint of a criminal trial looming, it ended up being a story this reader found incredibly irritating, convoluted (so many twists that just did not land for me), and contrived.

A disappointing read, that did hold some early promise.

I started this book at 9pm on Wednesday and finished it about five hours earlier before disembarking my flight from Australia to Los Angeles. But even if I hadn’t crossed the international date line, I still would have finished it on the same day, it’s that good!

This is the story of criminal prosecutor Justine Stone and her mission to discover if her high school boyfriend is guilty of the double murder he’s just been charged with back in her small hometown. His name has changed, her brother has vanished and there are old secrets she has kept from her husband, therapist and mother that threaten to destroy the new life she has built. This history and mysteries conspire to create a fraught read with high stakes.

I enjoyed this carefully woven story that jumps from past to present and between multiple POVs with ease and intrigue. Every chapter had me rethinking my theory, which made for addictive reading. It was reminiscent of The Silent Patient with its twists and turns, and even though I twigged early on that Justine was an unreliable narrator, it didn’t detract from the suspense of the story one iota. The only reason I didn’t give it five stars is because the ending left me conflicted. (I did not see it coming!) I can’t wait for my friends to read this one so that I can properly debrief.

A stunning debut from author Sarah Hornsley who, interestingly, is also a literary agent. I loved it.

I honestly didn’t get the main character’s motivations at all. She gets all worked up over something we don’t even find out about until the end and even then it’s super vague. Out of nowhere, she leaves her perfectly decent husband and just runs off to her hometown without giving him any reason. Then she goes and cheats on him, acts like she’s some kind of genius (she’s really not), and does a bunch of shady stuff that doesn’t add up. Somehow, she magically knows things she shouldn’t know, which just came off as lazy writing to me. And the ending? It felt totally off and kind of uncomfortable, like it was meant to be this big revelation, but I was just left confused.

I appreciated the advance copy but it didnt work for me this time :(

BAD BLOOD started out strong: A criminal lawyer returns to her hometown to investigate a double homicide, for which her childhood sweetheart has been charged. The beginning was compelling and, for a few chapters, it progressed enticingly.

It quickly stalled out. The mystery is nothing new or surprising; there are plenty of family secrets that are alluded to without any satisfying exploration until the end. And as for the ending? Some decent twists, but they landed with a dull thud after the lengthy buildup.

The writing is fine, but extraordinarily wordy. As I neared the end I definitely skimmed sentences and paragraphs—there’s a lot of internal monologue.

If you enjoy slow-burn thrillers about dark pasts, family secrets, and a flatly unlikeable heroine, you might like this one.

Thank you to Zando Projects and NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

While well written this book was kinda garden variety mystery. It was fairly predictable but still kept you interested. The split timelines and only getting pov from other in past tense was a different way of presenting the story and got a little tedious and drug out a bit longer than necessary. Overall a decent read but if you were hoping for something twisty and unpredictable it may be let down for you.

4.5 stars - This book was a wild ride. Everyone in this story has their secrets, each darker than the last. I never knew where this story was going and it had my head spinning with theories throughout never quite satisfied with any of them which I loved.

Justine is a train wreck on the inside but does a very good job of keeping up her appearance until she no longer can as her world unravels from under her feet.

The ending of this book gave me whiplash in the best way and I really enjoyed how all the pieces clicked into place. I had a great time with this book

Bad Blood by Sarah Hornsley is a gripping psychological thriller that masterfully explores the tangled roots of family, memory, and betrayal. When long-buried secrets become apparent, the story spirals into a tense and emotionally charged journey where no one can be fully trusted, including the narrator .The writing is sharp and suspenseful, building a sense of dread that grows with each chapter. Twists are delivered with precision, keeping readers off-balance and eager for more. With its haunting atmosphere and deeply human characters, Bad Blood is a chilling and thought-provoking read that lingers well beyond the final page. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

2.5 rounded up.
What I did enjoy!
I think I will always like a multi pov. I love the way it weaves the story together, keeps it interesting, and provides small pieces of the puzzle that allow you to draw your own conclusions.

Why didn't it get 5 stars from me?
I felt that the story was really repetitive and redundant in some spots. Justine often said "not here" "not in this place" "I don't want him here, here where the past can hurt us". It just felt like it was too obvious. We get it-- home doesn't have pleasant memories. There were a few other places where there was repetition or redundancies that made me feel like the author thought we were dumb.

I also couldn't connect to the characters at all and I didn't care about anyone in the story. I didn't feel an emotional pull to our main character and I felt that she was extremely unlikeable. Maybe that was the point, but sometimes you find yourself rooting for the morally questionable and i really just couldn't feel anything but distaste for our main character.

It was simply an okay book.

addictive as heck. i loved this so much. fast paced and always wanted more. i love the plot, nothing like ive ever read before.

This was a good book. Couple of twists, but not much excitement. There was a lot of rambling at certain times and a little anti-climactic. But overall, it was a good read.

Honestly I loved this book. I couldn’t put it down. This is Sarahs first book and I loved it so much. I honestly did not see that ending coming and was wondering who played what part in everything. I can not wait to see what’s next from Sarah!

Enjoyed this book right from the start. It gave me Gillian McAllister vibes. The story deals with dark morally grey issues and there’s an undercurrent of tragedy that kept pulling me through to the end. I love books that end up taking me down different, unexpected paths and this book certainly did that.

This story was a bit of everything. It is a legal drama with a great lead female character. I loved Justine! It is also a family drama, has some romance and lots of secrets and thrills. Now it is a bit of a slow burn, but that's definitely not a bad thing here. Justine is excited to take the lead on her first case. It's a murder case but she quickly learns that the suspect is her high-school boyfriend, Jake under a new name, who left her 18 years ago. Uh oh. She goes back to her small hometown after 18 years to see what she can find out about Jake's case. Her brother goes missing and she realizes that her family is full of secrets and her missing brother and Jake leaving could be connected. I enjoyed the past and present storytelling, and the ending is great. Hard to tell this is a debut I would definitely read more from Sarah Hornsley!

Thank you to #NetGalley, Sarah Hornsley and Zando for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

Bad Blood is one of those stories that makes you keep guessing what the truth really is till the end, it's engaging, well-written, with the story being told from several points of view. Although everything is justified by the characters under motherly love (and in real life there might be people who think that way too), in my opinion, that's no justification when a crime is committed. The plot is well put together and I was happy to find a new author to follow.
I thank Ms. Hornsley, her publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC.