A ticking time bomb of a thriller.
Maggie has just seven days to save her son! She knows because she has already lost children when they get to the age of three.
I had to keep reading this book, I read it long into the night, I read it in one go and I never do that, but the tension was coiled tighter than a spring and i couldn't put this book down until I knew everything.
A great read. Throughly enjoyed it.

This book alternates between the past and present. I often struggle with these types of books, but this one had me hooked, reading through the night to get it finished. I could picture the setting and characters perfectly. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Wow. This book is fantastic. Imaginative and interesting with well-crafted characters. Plenty of twists and turns to keep your imagination hooked right till the end. Recommended.

An amazing story.....full of twists and turns and was absolutely addictive. One of the best books I've read this year.

Maggie was 15 when she was abducted on the way to her cousins house. Twelve years later, she has a son Max who will be turning three in seven days and she knows on his birthday "the man" will take him away. She has just those seven days to try to find a way to save him.

The story is told from the perspectives of Maggie, her family and DI Wynne assigned to the case. It flips between the present and the past which is where we learn of Maggies fate over the 12 years and the toll her disappearance has had on her family.

It builds up the characters and keeps you turning the pages to find out if she manages to figure out a plan and that she is able to return to her family before its too late.

A great read and can't wait to read more from this author

Maggie is scared of losing her young son - every son she has is taken away from her on their third birthday, never to return. Can she keep this from happening to Max?

It was only after I had read Seven Days that I realised I had read another of Alex Lake’s books – After Anna which I’d given 3 stars to. This book felt a lot more solid than the other one, and I found it to be a better read. Although the page count looks a bit high for a book of this genre there are a lot of short chapters and it’s very easy to read – I finished it in about 2 sittings. The book jumps in timeline from 12 years ago to today with a few middle years in it as well. It also jumps in perspective from Maggie in the basement, her father, her brother and the leading detective on the case. This works quite well and gives us a good overview as well as some extra information on the outside world that Maggie is missing. I think it would perhaps have been good to have an insight from her perpetrator as we know who he is quite early on and there seems to be some deeper motivations that don’t quite feel explained or resolved by the end.

One of my main problems with After Anna was the fact there was a massive spoiler on the cover of the book and although it’s not as obvious, I did have similar issues with the pacing of this book. The fact that we start out with the ’12 years later’ timeline takes all of the tension out of the earlier detective-based chapters as we know she won’t be found for several years. I think perhaps rearranging the chapters a little might have made for a less predictable read as the book throws out its own spoilers regularly through the timeline shifts. There is also some odd repetition of the same events which could have been edited out.

Overall, Seven Days is a pacy thriller but could have been a little less predictable with a bit of editing. Thank you to NetGalley & Harper Collins UK – HarperFiction for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I found this story riveting. Read in 2 sittings as couldn't wait to see what happened next. Maggie and her son Max had a horrendous life and she knew she had to escape soon to stop history repeating. More and more true life stories are similar to this showing there really are sick people out there.

This was the first book I've read from this author and I really enjoyed it. The story was different from anything I've read recently and really captured my attention. It was so well written and the characters were fantastic.

First of all this book is basically a rewrite idled ‘Room’ which was brilliant!
This was a worse version. The chapters are very small. The author is obviously doing this to create tension but it just makes it more predictable and less wanting to read on. Let’s just say I didn’t complete the book. The main reason being the repetitiveness of the story. Unlike in ‘Room’ the child is strangely educated and mature for a 3 year old. No 2/3 year old I know is speaking complete sentences and asking questions. I mean he’s never seen the world so how does he know so much about it at such a young age. Forgive me but it didn’t seem very realistic. It also seemed quite far fetched that the main protagonist was able to teach her child in and advanced way with no mechanisms to do so, e.g. Any books, especially where she was abducted so young. Her wisdom would have stopped due to lack of socialisation, education, being in the world. It annoyed me that an author is so willing to make ‘education’ so easy. I am sure it isn’t easy to write fiction about the abducted but I think if it is to be done then a lot of research should be used to capture the reality. If you want something similar to this read ‘Room’ - it’s brilliant. I’m not sure what other reviewers were reading but save yourself time and money.

A thourghly engrossing read, once I started I didn't want to put it down.
Maggie was abducted when she was 15, she is held captive for 12 years. In that time she has 3 children, the first two are taken on their third birthday. Maggie can not allow this to happen again, she can not let the man take Max. She has seven days before his birthday to come up with a plan to escape and save Max.
This is a truly captivating book, I really would recommend.

I really really enjoyed this read. I found the concept gripping, disturbing and powerful. I flew through this read in a matter of hours because it was so intense. I really liked the strong characters and discovering what had actually happened all along.

Simplistic writing style lends itself to an incredible story and meant that I tore through this one at an unprecedented pace.
I've been wanting to read CopyCat by this author for a while but haven't gotten round to it so when I saw this one available for request, I thought I'd give it a go and I was blown away. I've now pushed his other books to the top of my to-be-read list and recommend everyone who hasn't given Alex Lake a chance, to do so immediately!

I was blown away but how addictive this book was. I couldn’t put down, and found it equally horrifying and emotional. Maggie was taken captive at 15 and kept in a basement for many years – we start the novel 12 years later, as Maggie is still being held by the man who took her, and has a son called Max.

The novel jumps backwards and forwards in time; we go right back to the day Maggie disappeared, and see the effect this has on her family, and then we see the effect capitvity has on Maggie as the years go by, and also on her parents and brother too. It’s heart-wrenching at times, and often very disturbing too. I think Alex Lake has portrayed the events in this book as realistic and convincing; it doesn’t feel over dramatised but the author has given the serious issues in Seven Days the attention and gravity it deserves.

I spent a lot of the book feeling very tense, but in an I-need-to-know-NOW-what-will-happen way, and Alex does a great job of making you really care for (some of) the characters. ‘The man’ who took Maggie is so utterly repulsive that I felt myself desperate to see him get his comeuppance, but also very concerned that the novel would end in a different way to what I’d imagined. I’m not going to give anything else away about this book, but I’d really recommend it to anyone looking for a gripping, tense thriller.

Wow wow wow! The first book I have read by this author and I just want more! I devoured it quickly over two days.
Loved the plot and the gutsy way in which it tackled some pretty harrowing subjects. And yet all the way I was cheering Maggie on, desperate for her to find a way out.
So cleverly done, so well written - amazing!

A fantastic read, the plot was a little unsettling given the context, but it was well written. There were a lot of scenarios in the storyline in a short space, which I didn’t guess. I just wanted to keep on reading, as it was very gripping. My first book by this author, but I know it won't be my last.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

loved this book - would 100% recommend and am looking forward to reading what this author writes next!

Seven Days tells the story of Maggie Cooper who was kidnapped and held captive for many years.
At first, I wondered where the story would go as there wasn’t much to tell about her life in captivity. The story went back in time to cover how her family dealt with her loss, in particular her brother James who fell in with the wrong crowd, and struggled with losing his sister.
Then all of a sudden - the story opens up and I just could not put the book down!
I will definitely be recommending this to friends. A great read. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a great book! It reminded me of Lisa Jewell’s Then She Was Gone (anybody who’s read both books will probably see the obvious parallels). Initially I wasn’t sure about the different timescales/character perspectives in the chapters but I came to realise that’s actually what made the book so good - I found it really hard to put down.

This book is so good! It's creepy, it's tense, it's full of intrigue and drama. I read it over two days and genuinely didn't want to put it down at all!

The story centres around Maggie, a girl who was taken when she was just 15. Twelve years later she is still being held captive. Her son Max, is about to turn three, but when he previous sons turned three they were taken away and she can't let that happen again. This book is centred on the seven days leading up to Max's birthday and the tension builds as the day grows closer.

We know who has kidnapped Maggie pretty much straight away so this is a who dunnit type of book. It's more a figuring out how the hell Maggie is going to try and save her son. Held in a windowless, underground basement I genuinely couldn't see how she was going to get out at all.

This story full on gave me the creeps. Colin Best, the man who holds Maggie captive, is one of the most stomach turning characters I have ever met. He is just vile. I hated him. He made my skin crawl throughout the whole book!

The book has a dual timeline. We have the present day but also chapters set twelve years ago when Maggie was taken, which lead up to the present. There are points of view from Maggie's Mum, Dad and brother James and also Detective Inspector Wynne. This sounds like a lot but the chapters are short and it works really well.

I thought it was really interesting to see the impact Maggie's disappearance had on the family members left behind. And I loved how DI Wynne never let the case go after all those years.

This book had me shook from start to finish. It really is a disturbing story but it's so thrilling and addictive you won't be able to put it down! I will definitely be looking at some of Alex Lake's other books now!

At just 15 years old, Maggie is kidnapped whilst walking to her older cousin’s house. Now, 27 years old, Maggie remains locked in a windowless room, with only her small son for company. However, in seven days, he turns three, and that’s when the man will come and take him, as he has taken her two other sons.

This book not only countdowns the remaining days until Max turns three, and Maggie’s mounting panic about how to stop history repeating itself, but also looks back at the intervening years, both from her perspective, and the perspective of her family members.

I thought it was a great addition to the narrative to allow Maggie’s family to all have a say – it helped to demonstrate how hard her disappearance was on them. However, I actually felt in parts this was a bit weak, much was skirted over, and the bits that weren’t, were just too hyperbolic to really resonate.

Obviously, the subject matter is exceptionally dark, so I’m not sure this could ever be a book you can say you “enjoyed”, but at times it was a captivating read. The problem is, I think there’s only so much pace you can put in to a book that either looks back to fill in blanks, or centers around two people locked in a room.

As a result, it didn’t entirely work for me.

The Stars: A solid three stars – good, but easily forgettable.