Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

In real life I hate hot weather, but a great way to experience it is to read claustrophobic thrillers - unfortunately this one, even with the intrigue of a missing person, just didn't deliver - I've read this book before but done much better unfortunately. 2.5 stars

The writing in this book was brilliant. It is so poetic.
I loved this book until the very end. I was disappointed with the ending.
Otherwise a great read

Unfortunately this one wasn't for me, the tension was good, but the pacing a little slow and I always struggle when I find all the characters unlikeable.

Beautiful writing. I was hooked!
A perfect read for the summer holidays.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my feedback.

Set against the backdrop of a blazing hot summer, "Heatstroke" explores the relationship between mothers and daughters, right and wrong, lust and obsession beautifully. When the best friend of Rachel's teenage daughter goes missing, Rachel faces an impossible choice: come clean about her affair and risk her marriage, or keep quiet about the man Lily appears to have been linked with before she went missing?

What follows is a well written exploration not just of the aforementioned themes, but also of mental health and moral obligations. Really enjoyed this and would recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher, who provided me with a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

A family drama seen through the eyes of English teacher Rachel whose colleague and erstwhile lover runs off with one of her students. The premise was interesting but I was irritated with the character of Rachel and the static nature of the writing. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

A fabulous book, one to read with book club to tease out all the different opinions. A page turner, one that would you definitely recommend and pass onto people with a pressing “you must read this”

An unsettling and intense drama. Unfortunately I couldn't accept anything about the character of Rachel - her actions were completely implausible and unforgiving, and this then tended to distract from the story.

This is such a brilliant read – so intense and claustrophobic but impossible to put down! The novel follows Rachel, mum to Mia and also teacher to her peers so when Mia’s friend Lily goes missing Rachel becomes increasingly obsessed with what might have happened. I read this book in the garden on a very hot day and it really added to the tension emanating from the pages I was reading. There are shocks in store in the novel but there is also a blending of what is actually happening and what is imagined to be happening, which gives the book a dreamlike feel. I got completely swept up in this and had no idea how it would all play out in the end. I definitely recommend this one!

A story of obsession, betrayal, motherhood, womanhood set against the backdrop of an intense heatwave .
I didn't expect the book to be as intense and dark as it was , its by no means a light read but its enjoyable all the same.
It's narrated from the perspective of Rachel who is the mother of the missing girls best friend . She is a very complex character and the obsession with her daughter and friends forms the basis of the story . It's very well written and I will certainly look out for this author in the future.
Thank you netgalley for this e ARC

This was an intense story set over a hot Summer, the relationship changes between Mothers and Daughters and how you lose them in the teen years. Lots of lies and secrets, don’t know if it was based on a similar true story a couple of years ago (won’t say what it was).
I really enjoyed it.

Mother, daughter and her friend, sweltering summer and secrets that can destroy friendships, families and relationships. Lily, Mia's school friend and student in her mum's school, is missing. Rachel is obsessed with her disappearance, but why?

I loved especially the intense heat of the weather and the secrets that are coming out in the book. This is an intense debut, and Hazel Barkworth somehow manages to describe the atmosphere, the tension between the characters and the heat of the weather in such way, that the reader can imagine themself in this world. There is a discomfort and uneasiness as the motives of the characters are uncovered, the paths which author wants us to follow revealed. There are shadows of "My Dark Vanessa" but the main focus is on Rachel and her relationships, especially with her daughter. The effects of peer pressure and conformity are also very well presented. And although I'm feeling conflicted about my feelings towards some of the actions Rachel choses to carry out, there is a lot to think about here, many conflicted emotions to experience, and the extra pressure on the reader as the oppressive summer simply leaks through the pages of the book.

Years ago, when Mamma Mia first came out at the cinema, I went to see it with my Mum. When it came to the wedding day and Meryl Streep helping her daughter get ready for the ceremony, I saw so much emotion flow through my Mum’s face. I didn’t want to make a fuss, because I knew that if I touched her or asked if she was ok it would make things worse. It threw me a little bit because I couldn’t remember my mum ever being sentimental about me. I’d always been someone, she thought, could took care of herself. On our drive home I asked her what about the scene made her emotional, and she said it wasn’t the scene it was the song ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’. It talks about a mother who never seems able to fully capture a moment with her daughter, because she moves just out of reach all the time. Away to school, on to grammar school, to new friends, boyfriends, university and into a fully grown woman. I’m not sure I fully understood what she felt, I don’t have children, but more recently I became a stepmum to two teenage girls. I can see now, with my eldest, how girls grow so quick and out of your influence. How friends become the people who understand them, how they’re constantly making plans to get away, to visit other places, to move on, to study in another city. It’s as if the woman they’re becoming wipes away the trace of that little girl you once did everything for. This book is about that point between mother and daughter; Rachel sees her daughter Mia slipping through her fingers.

‘Do I really see what’s in her mind, Each time i think I’m close to knowing She keeps on growing, Slipping through my fingers all the time’. ABBA

The backdrop to this mother -daughter story is a heatwave and a scandal. The nightmare begins when Mia’s school friend Lily disappears one night when she’s supposed to be at a sleep over with her friends. Mia socialises in a group of five girls, and in parallel Rachel keeps a What’s App group of their mothers aimed at keeping in touch with their daughter’s plans and keeping them safe. Lily disappears in the midst of the heatwave and the author very cleverly uses it to ratchet up the tension. At home and at Mia’s school, where Rachel works as a teacher, the heat is relentless. Rachel notices the girls in class lifting their long curtains of hair, and twisting it into a top knot just to feel some air on the back of their neck. Everyone is somehow more aware of each other’s bodies: the smells, the damp as you stand up from a sitting position, or on your back as you stop driving and get out of the car. Rachel’s also aware of so much young flesh on show. The girls and their golden legs, without a trace of hair. They’re perfection and by comparison Rachel is aware of her own flesh as less taut, just a millimetre too saggy at the jawline.

At night it’s impossible to sleep. In between the oppressive heat and worry about Lilly, there are short chapters detailing an illicit relationship. It feels obsessive and dangerous. There are no names used. Could it be Lily or is someone else keeping a secret? Then police find that Lily took something with her. A camisole belonging to her mother. That means she chose to go and for a moment everyone breathes, until they realise that means she didn’t go alone and that person is possibly older and might still mean her harm. Rachel asks Lily’s parents if she can look over her bedroom, just in case there is something the police have overlooked. Something that might only have meaning to those who know the girls well. She finds, on Lily’s notice board, some song lyrics and straight away she knows, she knows who Lily is with. The shock reverberates through her. She should tell the police straight away, but she can’t, she needs to process it first. To think it through before the police do find out, because that could bring even worse trouble. Yet, if it’s ever found out that she knew and kept it to herself, she could be in trouble with the police or even lose her job.

I enjoyed the author’s depiction of how Rachel copes with growing older, made especially difficult by her past and Mia’s growing beauty, Rachel has placed a photo outside the downstairs loo. It shows her at her peak of youth and beauty as the singer in a band. In skimpy clothes and torn tights I imagined her look like Courtney Love, the lead singer in Hole back in the 1990s. Rachel seems to be embarrassed when people recognise her, but it seems likely that people will see it, because of where it’s placed. It’s as if she wants to show she was once cool and beautiful. It’s an ego boost for her. There’s a disturbing scene later, when she takes Mia’s prom dress and tries it on. She’s pleased to be able to fit into it, but what seemed harmless turns into something else when Mia comes home. In another scene she has thoughts about Lily, and her first time sharing a living space with a man. Rachel imagines her worrying about how to do all the things that make her beautiful: the shaving, plucking and preening are no longer private and mysterious I wondered if these concerns were really for Lily or whether they were about her own beauty rituals. Would she ever be able to accept her ageing process and know she can be attractive at any age?

The mysterious man at the centre of Lily’s disappearance exerts a strange hold over the women involved with him. The author doesn’t ever give us his thoughts or feelings. We just get snippets of musical taste, but it’s clear he is either beguiling or emotionally/psychologically abusive. One disturbing scene shows him and his unnamed lover enter a freezing cold river in their underwear. He goes in first as if to give her the motivation and even though he says very little, it’s clear the female feels compelled to move in deeper and deeper until she feels the current trying to carry her away. I sensed that he wants her to feel powerless without him. I wasn’t surprised to learn who the anonymous lovers are in these sections, but the ending did surprise me. As everything comes to a head towards the Prom, Rachel gets a chance to see her daughter anew; Mia arrives as a woman, not the girl who ordered the lilac ballgown, which she sees sullied by her mother. Rachel learns so much about herself and how wrong she has been about any things. As she rushes to support her daughter it’s as if that stifling heat has been affecting her ability to think straight. As the rain starts to come down outside, leaving it’s own unique smell rising from the boiling pavements, Rachel’s eyes clear to see that within the beautiful woman in front of her, there is still a glimmer of the little girl inside again.


To appear on my blog at the end of the month.

Heatstroke is a novel thick with tension, it's shocking events happen during an oppressive heatwave that stifles it's characters, and makes for claustrophobic reading at times.

When Rachel's teenage daughter Mia asks for a sleepover, Rachel thinks nothing of it. It's a regular occurrence between Mia and her friends. She doesn't think to wonder where Mia's best friend could be, until she gets a frantic phone call from her Mother the following day.

Lily was supposed to be at Mia's sleepover, but Mia doesn't know where Lily is.

And so it begins...

Rachel is a teacher at her daughter Mia's school, so when the Police turn up asking questions, Rachel suddenly begins her own unhealthy obsession with both Lily's disappearance as well as her own daughter's teenage life.

Lily it transpires is in a pretty unsuitable relationship. Could this be the cause of her disappearance, or is the heat making people jump to the wrong conclusions?

Heatstroke won't be a novel for everyone, but it is a solid debut, and I look forward to reading the author's next.

Heatstroke by Hazel Barkworth is a tense and uncomfortable read set against the backdrop of a very hot summer. Rachel is a teacher at the school her teenage daughter attends, she’s in her early forties and teaches English and Drama. Her daughter is 15 and is one of a group of girls who have grown up together and are constantly in and out of each other’s houses. They have sleep overs, buoy each other up with compliments on one another’s carefully curated selfies on Instagram and speak to each other in French, plucking phrases and words to punctuate their conversations and make themselves feel older and more cosmopolitan than they are. When one of them, Lily, goes missing it sends shockwaves through their closely knit group and through the school.

This is a sumptuous read which is an exploration of womanhood, motherhood, identity and our sense of self. At the centre of the novel we have Rachel, struggling to reconcile that she is getting older. Her husband is working away leaving her alone with their daughter Mia. She feels lonely and unloved, and the presence of a teenage girl on the cusp of womanhood is a constant reminder that her youth is behind her.

Then we have the missing Lilly, who I can’t really talk much about lest I spoil it for you. Her disappearance leaves her friends and family reeling and the press and media become a fixture at the school she attends. The biggest impact is felt in her friendship group who are at turns confused and upset. Hazel Barkworth writes teenage girl friendships, which are at once fiercely loyal and yet incredibly toxic, perfectly. I read through my fingers as these teenage girls spent hours doing their hair and make up to hang round the local park and look at boys. Throw in social media and the number of likes on an Instagram post indicating just how popular you really are and it is a very treacherous landscape.

What I particularly enjoyed in Heatstroke was the depiction of the relationship between Rachel and her daughter. Mia becomes unreachable to her mother, forcing her to resort to increasingly desperate means to find out what is going on inside her head. Rachel’s grief at the loss of her little girl, and the loss of her own youth is palpable and it is this which, for me, formed the crux of the novel.

The tension of a missing girl, Rachel’s descent into desperation and her relationship with both her husband and Mia seeps from the pages. Set during a long, hot summer I could feel the heat adding to the pressure building within the pages. It shimmers on the periphery marring everything in its wake.

It is a fraught and tightly written book which got firmly under my skin. It made my brain tick and cleverly plays with preconceptions creating an immersive and heady read. An accomplished debut with a protagonist who will divide opinion this would be a perfect book club book and one which I highly recommend.

This is a corker of a debut. Beautifully written, smart, intriguing, kind of sexy and genuinely unputdownable, I’d highly recommend you get hold of this immediately!

The narrative is told from the perspective of Rachel, a teacher at Lily’s school and the mother of Lily’s good friend, Mia. As Rachel becomes more and more fixated on Lily’s disappearance we find out that this is so much more than a missing person mystery. I won’t say much more than that because you really need to come to this book knowing the bare minimum about it to get the most out of it, I think.

In terms of the writing, I think it’s fair to say that I have never read a more atmospheric and claustrophobic book. How the author manages to evoke so vividly the intensity of a heatwave as well as the pressure cooker of emotions caused by the disappearance of 15 year old Lily, is so incredibly clever.

I found some passages pretty uncomfortable to read, sort of “I need to read this through my fingers” stuff. It deals with some really emotive issues in a very smart way, and it gets you thinking about what you would do if you were in the same position that Rachel finds herself in.

I didn’t love Rachel, mostly because some of her decision-making is fairly questionable and a lot of her internal monologue seems quite immature. But I could sympathise with her in certain ways, and it made me fairly terrified about the prospect of parenting a teenage girl!

I feel like I want to reread this book and soak it all up for a second time and I NEVER read a book twice! So there’s an emphatic recommendation from me!

A convincingly feverish, if sometimes slightly overdetermined, thriller about a girl's disappearance in the midst of a Surrey heatwave, and the way her absence exposes the faultlines between generations. Sharp and keen-eyed about mother-daughter relationships, eerie in places, and building to a great cathartic break, but occasionally slightly laboured in execution and prose - there were just a few too many metaphors that didn't scan for me.

Wow! The tension in this book is palpable. If you’re looking for a light beach read this is not the one- don’t be fooled by the hot title and sun blanched cover. This book is however a fantastic sharp read. When a teenage school girl goes missing, her teacher is left questioning her own input and behaviour. Can we trust her? A brilliant book, I raced to finish it.