This was definitely an engaging thriller that I enjoyed reading to the end. It’s short but I did feel it moved slowly at times

This is gripping thriller about how quickly one throwaway comment can whip round a small town and the far reaching consequences it can have. .

The Rumour is a story about how rumours are spread around small communities and can cause quite a lot of trouble due to the way that they start off small but gather momentum as they spread.

Joanna is a single mother who hears a rumour (that unbeknownst to them there is a child killer living amongst them) whilst on the school run. She unintentionally passes it on with a flimsy comment and it gathers momentum where it become clear that there will be consequences to this rumour which has spread like wild fire amongst the community.

A great debut novel which is intelligent and allows the reader to piece the information together. Throughout the book, I kept changing my mind about who I thought it was!!! The characters are well developed but I think if the reader is going to correctly guess the killer's identity, that we need a little bit more information to go on. The book gathers steam as it progresses and due to being written in the first person, it feels as though Joanna is talking directly to you, the reader.

I would recommend this book if you have not already read it! I look forward to reading more from Lesley Kara.

Thanks to the Author, Publisher and Net Galley for my ARC.

This was actually my first book of the author's and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Set in a small town, it captured the small town gossip and mentality so that I began to suspect most characters! I was pleasantly surprised with the ending (not what I had originally suspected)

Well written with characters that got under your skin.

This was a great story with twists and turns aplenty. Enjoyed the writing style and characters were believable

They should have left the book set in the UK they tried to americanise it but it dropped. Like it just didn't work. It was interesting but I did see the twist a mile off which is slightly frustrating but here we are.

Starts with bored housewives gossiping in the school yard and I am here for it! I enjoyed this book and found engaging to start to finish. Lies and secrets aplenty, I really enjoyed the twists and turns of this book and it has us asking if we ever rally know the people we love.

For me this one fell by the wayside. It took so long to build up to the storyline that the last 30 or so pages just felt lacklustre to me. The writing was easy going but I felt more like I was part of the main characters inner monologue than engaged in the actual storylines.

I really enjoyed this book. It is fast paced, every development is compelling and it features a main character whose motivations I can empathise with. Initially I thought it was going to be a rather generic but perfectly enjoyable thriller but it revealed itself to be something out of the ordinary. In that the author has made every character a plausible suspect - I was convinced I had it solved only to swap my mind a few pages later and be equally convinced I was right - and she also managed to totally surprise me with the twist. It's a great story, really felt for all the characters, such a sad set of circumstances. 4 star rating.

Wait. Then comes a horrid, nasty, shocking, utterly glorious final paragraph twist that is just FIRE!

Full 5 stars.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

another captivating book by this author, cant wait for the next book from this author

Read November 2020

I liked the idea behind this book but the execution was a little thin and flat. How much can rumours affect a small town? Well not a lot apparently. There was a storyline where one person was being targeted but then nothing happened and I'm not sure if we were ever told who did that.

There was an overlarge cast of characters and hardly any development given to any of them. Even our main character Joanna was very bland and had few interests. The intermittent passages from "Sally's" point of view were fascinating and I wish we'd had more of them.

The last quarter was gripping and I liked the twist but the ending itself was quite abrupt and a couple of things were brought up earlier and all but abandoned. That very last passage was also rather chilling. Overall great ideas but a bit more work needed fleshing things out and tying up loose ends.

A great thriller with a very fast pace that leaves you guessing until the very end. These days, thrillers seem to always promise, "A Twist You Won't See Coming!" but actually that was true in this case. It was a very enjoyable read and I look forward to reading more novels by Lesley Kara.

I finally got around to reading this after I bought it. So sorry for the late review, I had completely forgotten I had requested.

I loved this book. I found the plot and the characters interesting and I would highly recommend
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The task of repopulating the senior library has been an exciting and daunting task aS in a boarding school our aim is to encourage all members of the community to read. Because of this, I have been searching down a wide and diverse range of books to read that will entice a wide cross-section of the school to come in, browse and find books that they love.
Books like this will ensure that the senior students in the school see the library as a diverse, modern and exciting place with books that speak to them and they want to recommend to their friends, classmates, teachers and tutors.
It is an engrossing and exciting read with fully-formed characters and a plot that ensures that it's hard to look away. It is as far from formulaic as it is possible to be and kept me up far too late in order to finish it. I immediately wanted to read all of this writer's other books as I loved their voice and found that it really drew me into the story and made me think about it even when I'd stepped away from this tale.
This is a thought-provoking read which I'm sure will be a popular and well-read addition to our new library; I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to read it and I know that the students are going to absolutely love it too!

I really enjoyed the blurb on the back cover and thought this would be something gripping and exciting. However I struggled to connect with this book. I found it a bit dull and repetitive.

I wanted to love this a whole lot more than I did sadly.

The story begins with a rumour that goes round a small village that a notorious child killer is living right here and Jo wants to find out who it is. Having just moved to the village herself, Jo is keen to make friends and stupidly thinks that by gossiping about the rumour she can get closer to people. A very bad judgement on Jo’s half because it backfires in more ways than one.

I liked the ending of this book, definitely not what I was expecting to find. An easy read but one I didn’t love.

Anyone who has had to spend a few years at the school gates to drop off and pick up a child will know that it can feel very much like being back at school yourself – the gossip, the cliques, trying to fit in, feeling pathetic because no one talks to you, the mums who smile and wave one day and ignore you the next… it can be quite a traumatic experience.
And when your child finds it hard to make friends, it can feel like the most important thing in the world to make sure you fit in, to make life easier for them.
Which is exactly what tempts Joanna to get involved in spreading a rumour – one that will have far reaching consequences.
This is a really interesting premise, and one that is very pertinent at the moment, particularly in the way Twitter is used to show how things can get out of hand. It shows how easy it is for things to go too far, for things to run away from you. Joanna is relatable, and it’s refreshing to have a character that has all those little insecurities lots of parents feel. And the story behind the rumour is really interesting too – can little Sally McGowan really be held responsible for her crime?
A good read, well-paced, well-written, with a good twist at the end. Well worth a read.

There's a rumour going around the quiet village of Flimwell. Joanna, who has moved from London as a single parent to Alfie to be close close to her mother has heard a rumour at the school gates that there is a child killer living in the village and has mistakenly passed the rumour on at her book club. where she was simply trying to make new friends. Joanna is aghast as she sees the rumour escalating out of all control. To make matters worse Alfie's dad Michael is a freelance journalist and is eager to do a story on the child killer.
Will Michael discover the true identity of the child killer? Will Joanna and Alfie be safe? With plenty of twists and turns this book will keep you entertained.

I was excited to read Karas debut novel however I struggled to get into it and only made it halfway through. The characters were under developed and I did not feel any tension or reason to carry on with this. Sorry not for me.

A fantastic book, full of gripping suspense!!! I couldn’t put it down. It was everything I could want from this genre