Cari Hunter writes exceedingly good books and this is the best yet.

It starts with a literal “bang” when a car goes off the road in the Welsh hills leaving one woman dead and the other severely injured and suffering amnesia. Who she is and why she is there elude her, and us. Working with Detective Bronwen Pryce from the local police the survivor must piece together her life, and then survive the what she finds.

The plot is fast and sometimes furious, but as usual with Ms Hunter’s writing has moments of calm which allow us to catch our breath. The crime is multi-layered, the baddies found in unexpected places, and the allies equally unforeseen.

The scenes shift between metropolitan Manchester and rural Wales providing a distinct and well-drawn background. As always in Cari Hunter’s books the setting provides an important part of the plot. Here she uses the Welsh hills to represent increasing security, despite the crash, against the unexplained malice of the Manchester streets.

Our two main characters are well rounded, interesting and well matched. The romance takes second place to the mystery, and the attraction starts almost imperceptibly, building quietly between two complex women who have bigger issues to deal with. Both soften as the story unfolds, one from the consummate professional who conceals her compassion and the other finding who she really is and learning how to be herself again.

“Alias” is written in the first person, not everybody’s favourite, but this is extremely well done and even for those not keen on the mechanism I would urge you to give it a go. The writing is smooth and flows along, the plot is well constructed, the characters revealed slowly as the mystery unfolds, and being written in the first person adds to the mystery as we, the readers, discover the world along with our crash victim.

I have enjoyed all Cari Hunter’s books from the North Cascades to the English Peaks. This is another step up in her writing and it’s wonderful to watch an author grow into her craft. Her depiction of backdrop, the slow reveal, the handling of complex plot and character, and the always hard to manage first person, makes this an exceedingly good read. Highly recommended.

I know I’m in the minority but this was just okay for me. I don’t know if it was the lack of knowledge of English cuisine and culture or what I felt was a disjointed climax, but I never did buy in to this one beyond the very promising beginning when she was only known as Rebecca. I felt like they went from earning trust to falling into bed way too fast yet most of the story took too long to unfold. Oh well. On to the next...

Stevie‘s review of Alias by Cari Hunter
Contemporary Lesbian Detective Fiction published by Bold Strokes Books 12 Jun 18

I need to catch up with Cari Hunter’s backlist. I read her very first book, then somehow ended up with a mishmash of her two series on my To Read shelf and got bogged down with the idea that I needed all three of one, the other, or both, before I tackled them. Added to which, I also had it in my head that I was likely to run into her at one author event or another where I could acquire signed copies of the missing volumes. New plan: if she’s not at Manchester Pride and/or they don’t have the books on the Bold Strokes stall, I’m definitely placing an order for print copies as soon as I get back on the right side of the Pennines. In the meantime, I did manage to get hold of a review copy of her new book – not attached to any series (yet!) – and reading that is what truly inspired me to get my act together, by reminding me of all the things I enjoyed about Cari’s first book.

Our story opens on a cold and snowy night, with a crashed car, a dead passenger, and a driver suffering from amnesia…


The driver’s ID gives her a name she doesn’t recognise, and her phone has just enough power and reception for her to call for help, learning in the process that she’s in Wales – nowhere near where the address on her ID tells her she lives. When the ambulance arrives, it’s accompanied by Detective Sergeant Bronwyn Pryce of the local Major Crimes Unit: returning home from a conference and making a detour to help. Pryce stays with the woman all the way to the hospital, and then returns to check on her the next day, working with the woman, the hospital staff and police colleagues to try to discover what happened. It soon becomes apparent that the accident might not be just a result of the weather: the injured woman is really Detective Constable Alis Clarke of Manchester’s Major Crimes Unit, and the dead woman is one of Alis’ co-workers from a local factory where Alis was working undercover.

As some of Alis’ memories start to return, it becomes more certain that the case she was working on was very much the cause of her injuries and her friend’s death. The two women were fleeing from the leaders of a crime syndicate when their car was forced off the road. Fearing police involvement in the gang, Alis begins to investigate by herself, even after being suspended as a main suspect in the case herself. Fortunately, Pryce has every faith in Alis’ innocence and ability to track down those responsible.

As the two women work together, they become increasingly close, even though their involvement could jeopardise the case they are building and also put them into more danger, should the bad guys learn of their feelings for each other. Fortunately, the pair of them are very resourceful, not to mention determined, and in the end no one is going to get in the way of their search for the truth.

I loved this book so much. Alis and Pryce really bring out the best in each other, but also have rich and complicated lives and histories to flesh them out properly. I hope this is the start of another series, and I promise I won’t be playing catch-up with their future adventures if it is.

Grade: A

I was absolutely unprepared for how much I would enjoy this book. It was dangerous and suspenseful, smart and cheeky, and it kept me up until past 1am one evening just needing to find out what happened next.

We start amidst chaos, a car crash in Wales leaving one occupant of the car deceased and the other absolutely in the dark, both literally and figuratively. There are twists and turns, a bunch of Britishisms and Welsh things that I'm sure I know from being in the UK and a bunch that are able to be sussed out by context clues.

Without spoiling, because even bits of information can spoil it: there is corruption, suspense, action, murder, and so much mystery. This is a mystery/suspense novel with a side dish of lesbians. (Which is not to say that the romance isn't great, but to show that you can have both romance and a killer story all in one.)

Highly recommended.

I was provided a copy of this book from Bold Strokes Books via NetGalley for an honest review.

Whew... what an intense book. Made me feel anxious the entire time reading it. My wife is a huge Hunter fan and she listened to the audiobook while I read the ebook. While I tend to like romance over mystery or crime novels this was really a fantastic read. I couldn't put it down. Makes me think I should really start her Dark Peak series. The romance between Alis and Pryce was for me not nearly enough. I know romance wasn't the focus but I could have used a little more. I have my fingers crossed for a book for Esther. If you are a Hunter fan I am sure you have already read or listened to this one, but really everyone should pick this one up. It was really worth it.

Oh wow, what a wild ride this was. I knew of Cari Hunter but never read any of her work. I’m finding out after the fact that she has quite an award-winning pedigree (I’m not surprised) and will make sure to read her back catalogue.

I basically inhaled the book in two days, sucked into it from the opening sentence ”I know she’s dead.”, I just could not put it down. I loved the pace, the mystery, the fact that we are in Alis’ amnesia addled brain and as much in the dark on matters as she is. Not knowing who to trust (not even herself) makes it all so much more nerve wracking and foreboding.

The writing style was well-paced, with a nice tight plot, realistic, graphic and captivating. The romance, unfortunately, was on the thin side so you certainly don’t want to buy the book looking for lots of that. The one sex scene included was very good though. I loved the setting. The city of Manchester became as much of a character as Alis and Pryce.

The bland cover art (the girl on the cover is Alis I gather?), however, did not honor the book at all. It’s simply the wrong choice for this gritty mystery and the publisher could have done a better job there.

f/f

Themes: Wales, injury-recovery, undercover, amnesia, Manchester, I love the Northern Britishness of the book, nose ring, student nurse Ceinwen for the win, who can you trust when you can’t even trust yourself.

4.4 stars

* A free copy was provided by Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books Inc. for an honest review.

Alias told the story of a woman who wakes up on the side of the road not remembering anything, even her name or how she got into the car accident that killed the woman right besides her.
We then follow her how she uncovers what has happened little by little, memory after memory.

I really liked this book.
The mystery was on point and kept me on my toes the entire time.
I really fell for the characters and their relationships, especially because of all the gay.
I’m really glad to have picked up this author and will be checking out more books from her.

This is the first book I read of Cari Hunter and I really, really loved it.

I always loved a good story about losing your Memory and finding / trying to find it back. And this is no exception. The story is a bit lowpaced but nevertheless engaging. We follow a young women who had a car crash and she need to find out what she knew before it - but it is all lost. Was she a good person? A bad one? She obviously did somehting really out of order but she does not know why.

One by one the secrets of her past get clear and paint a shocking picture.

The showdown was great! I really liked it.

It's a great story about finding yourself, solving a mystery and a crime and finding passion and love. It has everything that needs to be there.

The writing style is great as well and I was really engaged with this story. Couldn't stop reading until I reached the last word - and read it. This will be a re-read someday for sure.

4.5 stars

Coming back to consciousness beside a woman who is dead, in a crashed car, is an interesting place to start a book written in the first person. Some memory loss means that the only name the main character has to go on is what she finds on her bus pass. Not an auspicious start to remembering who she is and working out how to find help.

Her flashbacks of kidnapping and violence suggest that there is more to the story than a car crash, and makes it impossible to know whom to trust. So when Bronwen Pryce, the local Detective who came to her rescue keeps dropping by, she forms an unlikely alliance to work out what happened, before anyone else gets hurt.

Hunter is an established writer of lesbian crime thrillers, and this is a thoughtful and well-plotted book. It is a little hard to review this book without giving away spoilers, so forgive me some vagueness.

The main character is smart and gutsy, and with no small amount of guile. Clearly there is more to her than the name on the bus pass, but Hunter doles out the clues about who this character is rather than providing us a character who is fairly set. Normally a character is fairly fixed, and is changed through the events in the plot. This unknown main character provides a different set of references for an audience; we know more about the character’s personality without really knowing who she is, or how she fits into the plot. It makes for interesting storytelling.

Bronwen Pryce is less interesting as a character, but she is a smart and capable detective, who has strengths of her own. It also doesn’t hurt the plot at all to have some sexual tension in there too.

I thought this was a clever thriller with an interesting take on the amnesia tale.

Advanced reading copy provided by NetGalley for an honest review.

Whew. What a story. Definitely a thriller.

It starts with a car accident down the side of a road. We meet Rebecca (or that's who she assumes she is). She doesn't remember why she's in the crashed car, or for that matter who she is.

She meets, Bronwen Pryce, one of the first responders and there's a small spark between them. But, she's all bashed to hell and Prcye is all business trying to figure out what happened to the woman.

Rebecca slowly finds out more about herself, her family, friends, and job. But, a lot of the details still escape her, and that's what makes the novel interesting.

It was most definitely a thriller. I found myself wondering who was going to be the doer and such.

I really liked the characters too. Bron took awhile to get used to, but, I really liked the student nurse who was Rebecca's nurse in the hospital.

And then there was the biggest whoa-- I didn't really realize until the 7th chapter that it wasn't in past tense as most books usually are that I read. And yet, only once or twice in the book did I remember that was the case. It was a nice change of pace (usually I can't read anything but straight on past tense). Very cool.

I was given this ARC by Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books.

*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion*

4 Stars. I enjoyed this book a lot. This book was about Alis Clarke, a Detective Constable for the Manchester Police who lost her memory in a car crash and tries to put together what is missing from her memory. When Alis crashes the car, she kills a woman and seems to have been running away from something, but she is unsure what. She is helped by DS Pryce, the officer who first arrives on the scene and just wants to help Alis..The whole case starts to make sense the more the two of them investigate and try to figure out what Alis had already known before the crash and memory loss.

This book is interesting, as it is mostly around the mystery and undercover assignment Alis was working on as Rebecca. I enjoyed trying to figure out the mystery and seeing where it goes. The main theme running throughout the book is a missing flash drive, which Alis can't remember where she left it. Alis is injured when she is in the crash, but that doesn't stop her and the book only gets more interesting when Pryce is more involved in the case. Its hard to talk about the case without giving too much of the book away. Its a good, solid book that people who enjoy police investigation and mysteries should read.

By now y'all know how much I love a good lesbian main character. You may also know I'm particularly harsher on my reviews of these stories. That is because I want, no need, them to feel real. Even in a fantasy book (which this is not), I need a queer MC to be authentic. This is because so often growing up, I'd read stories - always with heterosexual characters - and kind of role my eyes. I could only relate to that type of person on a superficial level. But I never had the type of queer story I so often craved, even if I wasn't aware of it.

That said, Alias is a pretty wonderful story. When a woman wakes up from a car crash with zero recollection of who she is and a dead woman beside her, she's left with a bus pass and an unlikely friend in Detective Pryce. Together the two women have to work to uncover the truth, even when it may not be what they hope to find.

The two characters were easy enough to like and even relate to. The story itself was quick paced and easy to follow. There were moments when my heart raced right along with the story, not really sure where it was going to take me. Cari Hunter's writing is eloquent and smooth making this a fairly effortless read.

I'm giving it four stars (wishing I could give 4.5) only because I wished for more depth to Detective Pryce's character. It would have made me commit to the story just a bit more, making this an unforgettable story.

If your looking for a quick, no holds barred, lesbian thriller, I encourage you to give Alias a shot. My opinion is my own and I thank the publisher and netgalley for the opportunity to read this story.

Wow, totally amazing. The mystery was rich and well written, the characters had gravity, the setting was wonderful, I could not ask for more. I definitely felt a great deal of stress and anxiety while reading this book but it seemed like the intended experience. I recommend this to anyone who likes a good character driven sapphic crime mystery

From the very beginning, Alias has you hooked, getting thrown left and right, hurling around tight corners and at times dangling upside down with only a sweaty tight grip on the book holding you in place.

From the moment I picked the book up and started to read I was unable to put it down. This caused several late nights, early morning rises where the book was the first thing reached for and finally, several hot cups of tea were left to go cold, along with any meals that weren’t salads.

Alias is a fantastic mystery/ police drama, holding your attention from start to finish and finally when you get to the last page you want to start it all over again, because frankly its just that good.

Buy it, read it, it’s one you’ll never forget.

Cari Hunter delivers once again with a crime thriller told from the perspective of an accident victim trying desperately to remember who she is and why she is lying beside a dead woman she doesn't recognize. From the opening chilling scene on a storm-drenched stretch of road in Wales the reader knows this is more than some simple love tryst gone awry.

DS Bronwen Pryce is all cop when she first encounters the injured and confused Rebecca.. She is drawn so well, so cool and professional that when circumstances change and she becomes an ally to Rebecca I wasn’t sure this softer, gentler Bronwen was trustworthy. When I reread the opening scenes I was able to pick up on the compassion and concern expressed by Pryce which I seemed to gloss over on the first read worried as I was with Rebecca’s welfare.

This is a difficult book to review without giving away spoilers. I will say Alias lives up to the high standard fans of Ms Hunter’s work have come to expect when she puts pen to paper. Settings are vivid and the characters who fill the scenes easy to imagine. Using a narrator with memory loss aids in ramping up the tension. The reader is as lost as the MC’s and can only speculate on who to trust and how much danger they face. I love how she includes snippets of memories which add clarity but more often confusion for our injured heroine.

Like other readers I continue to mourn the fictional passing of the Dark Peak series Megan and Sanne. It was hard not to look for similar bonds but this is a standalone crime thriller and these women are too busy unravelling the levels of deceit and corruption to spend a lot of time snogging. (Did I get that right?) It took nothing away from another engrossing read.

Well done

ARC received with thanks from Bold Strokes Books via NetGalley for review.


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a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36374907-alias" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Alias" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507469969m/36374907.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36374907-alias">Alias</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4826521.Cari_Hunter">Cari Hunter</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2422946647">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Ms. Hunter's storyline is like riding a roller coaster - lots of twists and turn. Leads Pryce (Bronwyn) and Alis (Rebecca) shine in this gripping plot which always has you guessing. This book is not for the complacent reader. I read through the night to get to the end....what an end! Highly recommend with 5 stars.<br />I rec'd an ARC from NetGalley/Bold Strokes Books.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31134832-gail">View all my reviews</a>

Absolute brilliance.

A car accident on an icy road leaves one woman dead and the other with amnesia. Little by little Alis's memory returns, but it only leaves her with more questions. She doesn't know where to turn and who to trust. Det. Pryce is her only ally as they race against time to piece together what really happened that night.

Wow. I don't even know how to express how incredible this book was. This is my first by Cari Hunter (How did it take me so long?!?) and it was an amazing experience. The mystery/crime was expertly crafted. I loved the way the amnesia really worked to keep the suspense even though it was told in first person. The whole time I felt like I was in the book - the scenes, the smells, the temperature, the accents - I was there. Alis and Det. Pryce were both fantastic characters - I loved how unique they were. This was heavy on the crime and lighter on the romance but I thought the mix worked perfectly in this instance. Maybe even opening up the possibility of a second book.

I look forward to going back and discovering other books by this author and to buying this book in paperback to enjoy over and over.

I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

There will be no spoilers in this review. I believe people who put spoilers in their reviews should be barred from reading books until they're out for one year (that's the book being out not the reviewer. The latter isn't compulsory). The twists and turns in this story are the beauty of the book and you need to read it with no preconceived ideas, much like Rebecca. She has crashed her car in Wales and her companion is dead and she has no recollection of anything leading up to the crash and only a bus pass with her name - Rebecca. Enter Detective Pryce, moody, quiet and frustrated. Both are excellent characters and I found myself forgiving Ms Hunter for not going me another Dark Peaks book with Sanne and Meg. These two are almost on a par... I say almost for now because I want to read the book again without racing to the end and I can enjoy the developing relationships without panicking about gangsters and guns, and can form a better opinion.

The denouement is superb and you will hold your breath while good prevails - or does it. "Rebecca" learns who she is and gets bits of memory back but the results are not pretty and certainly not good news for Detective Pryce. There is some beautiful writing here - as ever with Ms Hunter - and the setting of Manchester/Wales is an additional character which is another of the author's trademarks. Some of the scenes were so well written I had to pause and reread them. There is a bit where Rebecca is putting warm clothes and socks/boots on Pryce and I was there with her wanting to help.

Recommended if you like well written, well paced, lesfic thrillers with great characters.

I was given a free copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

I have to admit I’m a big fan of Ms Hunters work and after reading this offering I remain a loyal fan. Detective Alis Clarke works for the Manchester Metro Police in the Major Crime Team division. She goes undercover trying to get the evidence on a smuggling operation. She’s doing her job when she has an accident in the Welsh countryside that causes her to lose her memory. The woman with her at the time doesn’t survive and the only name the police can find for her Alis is the fake name ‘Rebecca Elliott’. Welsh Detective Bronwen Pryce is one of the first at the scene of the accident and quickly becomes involved helping Alis find out what happened to her and who was behind it. This book grabs you from the first page and doesn’t let up until the last. Great read. Loved it.
eARC via NetGalley

This was my first experience with a Cari Hunter book, but it won’t be the last! This book gripped me from start to finish. Fantastic story, exciting mystery, well-developed characters. Highly recommend!