Not for me. Really short chapters, from lots of different points of view, jumping backwards and forwards in time. I was a long way through and still didnt know. The slowness of giving information was tedious and annoying.

Unfortunately this was just an average thriller.
The ending really let the book down. I felt that it was unfinished.

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.

Don't Turn Around, by Jessica Barry is a gripping crime novel, expertly crafted to take readers on an unforgettable road trip. Two strangers, Cait and Rebecca, embark on a cross-country journey that quickly unravels into a tense adventure full of secrets and surprises. Barry ratchets up the tension throughout, leading to an explosive finale that readers won't soon forget. With an intriguing mystery and powerful female characters, Don't Turn Around is an unforgettable story about courage, survival, and the unbreakable bonds of friendship. Named one of the New York Times top 10 crime novels of 2020*, Don't Turn Around is a must-read for fans of the genre.

Cait is a twenty something aspiring writer, working in a bar. After writing an anonymous article about a sexual assault, she starts volunteering with Sisters of Service. She is assigned to take women to wherever they need to go for help. The website where Cait wrote her article is hacked and her identity is revealed. She receives a barrage of threats online and feels that she’s being followed and watched.
Rebecca is a wife of a politician and is being taken to her destination by Cait. What follows is a nerve wracking journey as someone is following them.

I liked this book more than I expected to. The story is told from mainly Cait and Rebecca’s perspectives, at various time periods. Sometimes this makes it a little confusing to follow but once you get into the story it isn’t much of a problem.

I liked Cait and Rebecca’s characters and both of them developed as the story went on. The bond that develops between the two characters feels authentic and they’re forced to look out for each other.

The book is quite fast paced and there are definitely some real page turner moments! I could just picture the battered old Jeep out in the remote desert landscape, being pursued by a much more powerful and dangerous vehicle.

The book covers many issues including abortion, incels, radicalisation and online threats. I thought these were dealt with sensitively. I empathised with both Rebecca and Cait as their situations weren’t easy.

I would recommend this book, it was a good page turner and didn’t take me long to read.

Thanks to Penguin Random House UK, Vintage and NetGalley for a copy to review.

Cait is a writer waiting for that story to break, her story does break but attracts the wrong attention.. Working in a bar to pay the bills and volunteering for Sisters for service Cait takes a job to get Rebecca to an abortion clinic.
Rebecca wife of a high profile politician has the heartache of miscarriage several times. Rebecca falls pregnant and things are going well until the scan, her baby girl has a condition that means if she survives the birth she won’t survive more than a few hours, this tears Rebecca and her husband to pieces but Rebecca decides to go ahead with an abortion in secret as her husband has placed an injunction on her not to leave the county.
With Caits troubles and Rebecca high profile the two women set on the journey only to be attacked by a truck, Cait manages to get away but he catches up again and it’s Adam Caits neighbour out to kill Cait, the women stick together and Rebecca saves Cait only to be arrested after facing a fight to save herself and Cait.
An unexpected story line and twist.

This is an enjoyable twisty thriller. The plot is intriguing and kept me guessing, which is what I look for in a good thriller. I would recommend.

A great read and so gripping. I couldn't stop reading. Really enjoyed the characters and the plot. Looking forward to reading more from the author!

This was an absolutely riveting thriller. I honestly couldn't stop turning the pages and appreciated the flashback chapters as they informed us and fleshed out what was happening in the present timeline. The author did an amazing job of exploring each character and their situations. Powerful and poignant.

I would normally have kept this for a holiday read but unfortunately no holiday this year so I decided bank holiday weekend to read it and I wish I hadn't waiting for so long.
A great read, well written, great characters, great plot - more please I need more by this author.
One to definitely look out for in the future and highly recommended

Don't Turn Around by Jessica Barry was a really good book and I read it in two sittings especially as it had short chapters that had me hooked. This book is about two women, who have nothing in common Cait Monaghan and Rebecca McRae,
Cait is a young woman who works in a small bar at nights to make ends meet whilst juggling a carve career as a freelance journalist but things are beginning to come crashing around her, as she wrote one controversial article. Cait also volunteers at Sisters of Service, driving women to safety, this is where her path crosses with Rebecca.
Rebecca is married to an up-and-coming politician, and she is not the typical client the Sisters of Service and Cait has wondered what her story was.

Why is she here?

Why did she need to turn to strangers for help rather than her loved ones especially her husband?

"When, you find more about Rebecca you will feel so sorry for her, they both become friends and they are both running away from something, it's only as the miles pass by and the drive progresses that we get a glimpse into their backgrounds and everything they have been dealing with and how the decisions they made have led them to this point".

They are running from the same thing and that mysterious stranger catches up with them. WoW........

Big Thank you to Random House UK, Vintage Publishing and Netgalley for my advanced copy of this book to read

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

compelling read thoroughly enjoyed it

Two women, both of them strangers to each other, set off on a hazardous 322 mile journey across America, from Texas to New Mexico. One of them is in danger whilst the other is part of the Sisters of Service a clandestine organisation which helps to remove women from dangerous situations and take them to a place where they won't be found.

Cait Monaghan never asks questions, she merely waits, and once she has her passenger safely installed in her beloved old Jeep she drives the long and lonely stretches of highway until the feeling of being followed goes away. However, when she picks up Rebecca McCrae, Cait discovers that this journey is going to be like no other, neither women have much in common, and both of them have their own good reasons for being in each other's company at this time.

The journey is filled with tension and the long creepy drive towards a future destination is filled with both danger and trepidation. This adds an altogether different dimension to the story as both Cait and Rebecca guard their secrets well. Cait more than most knows what its like to be looking over your shoulder, and Rebecca, both wary and distrustful, keeps her story locked away inside.

This cleverly put together psychological thriller takes a little bit of adjustment as the story moves between different time frames, and whilst they help us to understand just what has happened to bring Cait and Rebecca together at this particular moment in time, it can make the narrative seem a little disjointed at times. Having said that, the short and snappy chapters work really well and I particularly enjoyed the countdown to each destination which made me feel like I was a back seat passenger in the Jeep as it went on its long, lonely and decidedly, dangerous journey.

Don't Turn Around is a timely piece of writing which has more than a hint towards #MeToo issues.

Two women driving through the night hundreds of miles from Texas to New Mexico in an old jeep. They don’t know each other but they have to trust the other. Who are they fleeing from and why?

Cait Monaghan and Rebecca McRae come from completely different backgrounds. Cait works in a rundown bar whilst trying to make it as a journalist and former teacher Rebecca is married to an ambitious politician, running for higher office. Cait also helps out with Sisters of Service, driving women to safety.

Cait picks Rebecca up at midnight – again why the secrecy? and their journey begins, however it turns into a nightmare when it becomes clear they are being targeted and they are not meant to reach their destination – but by whom and why.

Both women have reason to be scared. They each have their own secrets and as the miles drop away and the chapters pass, we discover more about their lives and what they have to fear.

There is so much about the story that’s high on the creep factor. Miles and miles of deserted roads, remote roadside cafe, creepy men, the dangers that women face being on their own and feeling unsafe. It’s a highly topical and timely read especially bearing in mind that this was written long before all the recent publicity in the UK regarding women’s safety.

The chapters are fairly short, and either have a countdown in miles to the destination or go back to a previous point in time to gradually tease out the full story.

Cait and Rebecca are both strong characters and they need to be. What’s interesting is how they react to each other during the trip. Cait is the younger of the two and has her own reasons for wanting the drive. Rebecca is the more reserved and just wants to reach her destination as quickly as possible. As the storyline gets more intense they will need to trust each other and call on all their reserves of mental and physical strength if they are to make it through.

The story doesn’t just involve Rebecca and Cait although they are the main focus. There are separate threads through the story involving other characters and it was quite shocking to see just how far some people will go for their beliefs.

There is tension and drama aplenty here until the very end. I very much enjoyed it.

As soon as I started reading Don't Turn Around I had so many questions running around my head but the main ones were, why were these two strangers on a road trip together and where were they going? And it wasn't too long before the next question popped up, who was chasing them so aggressively?

The two women, Cait Monaghan and Rebecca McRae, have literally nothing in common. Cait is a young woman who works in a bar at night to make ends meet whilst trying to carve a career for herself as a freelance journalist although it would seem that one controversial article might bring everything tumbling down around her. She also volunteers at Sisters of Service, driving women to safety, which is where her path crosses with Rebecca.

Married to an up-and-coming politician, Rebecca is not the typical client the Sisters of Service has so I instantly wondered what her story was. Why did she need to turn to strangers for help rather than her loved ones especially her husband? Once I knew more of her story my heart literally broke for her, it was a lose-lose situation no matter what decision she made.

It's clear that both women are running away from something and it's only as the miles pass by and the drive progresses that we get a glimpse into their backgrounds and everything they have been dealing with and how the decisions they made have led them to this point. One thing's for certain, both have something to fear if the mysterious stranger catches up with them.

The concept was certainly unique and the drive along remote highways in the middle of the night certainly provided its fair share of tension-filled and dramatic moments. Such an eerie setting and the first incident on the trip alone would have made me want to turn around and go home, let alone carry on driving in the darkness not knowing whether or not they would ever feel safe again. I can't really say much more without giving anything away.

Although Cait and Rebecca are the central characters, there are also threads with a couple of other characters and at first you're not sure of their importance and how they tie-in but it's only as the story progresses you realise the impact they play and how far they will go for their beliefs.

Don't Turn Around was a tense and suspenseful read that had me on the edge of my seat and my heart racing as everything unfolded. I thought I had it all figured out as who was being chased and by whom but I was so wrong!

You know how sometimes you start reading a book expecting it to be one thing and then it turns out it is something entirely different? Well, Don’t Turn Around was one of those books.

It’s about two women, Cait and Rebecca who are travelling across America together for reasons not immediately clear. The book opens with Cait sitting in her beat up Jeep at midnight, waiting outside Rebecca’s imposing home for her to make an appearance. The clock ticks on and there isn’t any sign of Rebecca, until suddenly the door opens and she scurries out to the car under the cover of darkness. This is the first time the women have met, they are complete strangers but Rebecca is has pull all of her trust in Cait.

They can’t be more different. Rebecca is a beautiful, polished woman married to a man running for Congress. She is wealthy, mixes with the upper-echelons of Texas society and is incredibly well put together. Cait is a young woman who works two jobs, driving women like Rebecca to safety and working at bar in short shorts, a cropped t-shirt and stetson hat serving drunk men more beer hoping for enough in tips to cover her rent. In the little spare time she has she is a writer, sending pitches to editors of print and online magazines hoping for her big break.

They journey through Texas towards New Mexico. It is the middle of the night, it is pitch black, there is nothing but desert around them and suddenly a truck looms in the rear-view mirror. Its lights are on full and it is speeding towards them. Somebody is after them? But who? And why? Well, if I told you that it would make for a very boring read indeed. What I can tell you is that both of these women have secrets, not just little ones either. They’re the sort of ones which upend lives and are devastating and whoever is driving this vehicle could be after either one of them.

This is a real thrill of a book which touched on a myriad of themes and took me in a direction that I wasn’t expecting at all. At its heart is a story about two incredibly strong women whose bravery and tenacity knows no bounds. Barry does an incredible job at building the stories of Rebecca and Cait and allowing us to see what motivates them and to see what has led them to be in a car together. They’re both phenomenally well written, particularly Cait who is just so ballsy and I was fully invested in both of them and their plights.

It is an incredibly tense read and it sent goosebumps up my arms on more than one occasion. I think most women would find the prospect of being on a dark road in the middle of the night being chased down by an unknown predator absolutely blooming terrifying and this terror is written with such a deft touch that it felt incredibly real. This is a game of cat and mouse, but who exactly is doing the chasing?

This is so much more than a psychological thriller, it is a book which examines some huge issues and shines a light on some uncomfortable truths. Much of the issues examined are rooted in reality and my heart broke for the women who were forced into difficult situations at the hand of men. I know I am being cloak and dagger about the subject matter, but I really don’t want to spoil the s book for future readers. Suffice to say it is emotive, thought provoking and handled incredibly sensitively.

Don’t Turn Around is an absolute page turner of a book – I read it one sitting. Believable nuanced characters, a thrilling story, great plotting and great writing make this a book I wholeheartedly recommend.

It is a story of intrigue, secrets and danger by the minute and mile. I liked the spider’s web of stories that linked them together, as the actions of one person rippled through to affect everyone else. All the characters are at critical times in their lives, and although some of them have never met, they each hold other peoples fates in their hands.

There are so many moral dilemmas, but it lays out the pictures of them, from both sides of the disputes. It is very different being emotionally involved than seeing a problem from the outside with no ties to it. Social media plays a huge part in the story. The pace at which a story can take off on the different platforms is at times not only instant but terrifying.

Cait is a freelance journalist, although she had been unable to find regular work in the industry and gets by doing other work until she writes about something that happened to her and the story goes viral, not in a good way for her. The story flips to Rebecca and her journey from being a teacher to being in the public eye twenty-four seven. Each of them was on a journey across the country together, but someone is out to stop them.

I liked both these women who had unknowingly prejudged the other. Their stories are put on hold, and new characters enter the story. I thought how it all came together was very realistic how it would have played out. A brilliant story with so many undertones that I never saw until it was too late.

I wish to thank Net Galley and the publisher for an e-copy of this book which I have reviewed honestly.

Jessica Barry, Don’t Turn Around (2020)

“Wasn’t living under the constant threat of danger just a part of being a woman in this world?”

Jessica Barry’s Don’t Turn Around is a gripping, swiftly paced female road novel. Her evocative prose propels us into the lives of two strong, determined women, thrown together on a nightmarish journey, facing dangers that neither of them anticipated.

One of the women, Cait Monaghan, is helping out at an Austin, Texas, organisation called Sisters of Mercy, set up to aid women in crisis. Having been eking out a living as a bartender and occasional journalist, Cait has crises of her own to contend with, shadowing and complicating her commitment to helping others. She takes on the task of secretly driving Rebecca McRae, wife of an up-and-coming politician, across a desolate part of northern Texas and into New Mexico, to a clinic in Albuquerque. The two women have never met before and are from very different worlds:

“Cait looked at the woman next to her wiping tears from her eyes and wondered, for the first time, if maybe they would have been friends had the circumstances been different. If maybe she liked this woman after all. She brushed away the thought. It didn’t matter if she liked Rebecca or not. She wasn’t here to make friends.”

Travelling in a beat-up old jeep, the two are in danger almost from the outset, under pressure from an unknown assailant and terrified as they are blinded by headlights in their rear view mirror, a truck charging towards them and trying to force them off the road. The action of Don’t Turn Around only occasionally pauses for reflection. But the tightly wound plot at every point brings vividly to the fore the plight of women in a world of male aggression. The glimpses of the mental world of their pursuer leave us in no doubt about the deep misogyny driving the men who have made their lives hellishly frightening:

”Now that he had been released, he wanted to revel in his freedom. He wanted to look into her eyes and see his own power reflected there. To see that he was a god and that she was nothing in the face of him. This is your purpose on this earth, and you are fulfilling it.”

Beyond the deranged focus of a psychopathic mind, there is a wider world that seems increasingly determined to treat women themselves as the transgressors. Rebecca, the politician’s wife, reflects that “she no longer recognized the waters they were swimming in. The tides turned so quickly these days, sweeping everything familiar out to sea. Now she was out there, alone and drowning.” The bond the two women tentatively form under the extreme pressure of this alien, hostile world is all that gives them hope as they struggle to stay alive: “So, no, she wasn’t alone. She had a woman she’d met only the day before, but who she knew now would stay by her side…That’s what we women are here for, right? To save each other’s lives.”

Don’t Turn Around was written pseudonymously by an American writer who has lived and worked in London for over fifteen years. Her first crime novel, Look for Me, originally published as Freefall (2019), similarly demonstrated her ability to combine psychological tension with riveting action. Crimeculture looks forward to reviewing future high-octane feminist thrillers from Jessica Barry.

[review posted on Crimeculture, https://www.crimeculture.com/?p=7409]

Loved this one! So easy to read and lots ofntwists and turns along the way. Definitely a quick read and one I recommend.

This is a new author for me. I accepted an ARC of the book because of the blurb, I really wanted to read the book and find out what was going on. I thought this was a terrific read and I’m glad I got a chance to spend some time with Cait and Rebecca. I really enjoyed the air of mystery throughout the book. It’s clear there’s a lot going on beneath the surface. What are they both hiding? What exactly is Rebecca’s job? I got sucked right into the story and didn’t want to stop until I knew what the hell was going on. This is an impressive read.