Book Review - Her Last Breath by Tracy Buchanan

Amazon UK

Title: Her Last Breath

Author: Tracy Buchanan

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Avon

Publication Date: 12th June 2017

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Food writer Estelle Forster has the perfect life. And with her first book on the way, it’s about to get even better.

When Estelle hears about Poppy O’Farrell’s disappearance, she assumes the girl has simply run away. But Estelle’s world crumbles when she’s sent a photo of Poppy, along with a terrifying note: I’m watching you. I know everything about you.

Estelle has no idea who’s threatening her, or how she’s connected to the missing teen, but she thinks the answers lie in the coastal town she once called home, and the past she hoped was long behind her.

Estelle knows she must do everything to find Poppy. But how far will she go to hide the truth – that her
perfect life was the perfect lie?

Well this was certainly a book that kept me guessing throughout. There are two perspectives in this book, Estelle a food blogger who is launching a book, and then another person who pops up now and then that is written very cleverly.

For it is this mystery person that is clearly behind all the weird things occurring in Estelle’s life but for most of the book I was left wondering who they are, and just what they are trying to achieve.

Oddly I enjoyed reading about Estelle’s childhood, its gritty and very real, from a 7 year old until placed into foster care and then the main story features around one of her foster families while she was 15.

For during that year there were two main events that left their mark on young Estelle and shaped her into the woman she is now.  And it is these events that seem to have come to the surface and are the focus of the book.

I am sorry to say that I didn’t find this book anywhere near as gripping as I had hoped, although I did enjoy reading the story.  The characters on the whole I just found incredibly hard to like and for me that makes it harder to read. 

I was intrigued to find out what was happening, and there is a storyline that takes in landslides that definitely kept me reading. There is plenty of deception and mystery to this book to keep you guessing.

Thank you to Netgalley and Avon for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.