Talented film maker Alex is tasked with revisiting her home town to make a documentary for Channel 4. Already haunted by her past, but unable to piece together several incidents that severely damaged and traumatised her, she reluctantly agrees to accept her commission against her better judgement. It will be a challenge for her as she has totally blocked out all but the most basic of her memories of growing up in the area.
She drives up to Blackwood Bay in the north east of England to a rented cottage which acts as her base. She gradually meets members of the small local community and encourages them to shoot and upload videos of their local area, once a thriving and charming seaside resort, but now suffering badly in the economic downturn with diminishing tourism. She makes her own films alongside the others and is keen to use videos from the locals in her documentary. Then a young girl goes missing in mysterious circumstances. It seems that the community has dark secrets that the townsfolk don’t want publicised, indeed, that they will stop at nothing to supress.
The novel is cloaked with mysterious events from the past and present and Alex gradually begins to remember some of what happened there when she was a vibrant and gregarious teenager. She tries to get to the bottom of what happened to drive her best friend to commit suicide, still feeling guilty that she hadn’t helped more. The locals are suspicious of her motives and are not overly friendly. She tries to work out why they are so secretive and cold with her. She experiences flashbacks and night terrors and is keen to complete her documentary as soon as possible and return to her home. Just what are they hiding?
I thought the storyline and the storytelling were good. There was a multitude of interesting and diverse characters and throughout the story an air of mystery hung over the story. I also detected a feeling of menace pervade throughout the storytelling. I felt uneasy and edgy. I took longer than usual to get into the novel and found it a little slow at the start. I enjoyed the multiple twists in the story, but none more that at the climax of the story. It really shocked me and I thought deeply about what I had learned, reasoning it out. I liked Alex as the unreliable narrator but felt sorry for her struggles to come to terms with what happened in her teen years. I thought she was quite a sad character, burdened by her memory loss, but conversely brave in her struggle to sort it all out. Secrecy and identity were the main themes explored, but I liked the touch when the author explored family relationships as well.
I enjoyed this story but thought it didn’t come even close to his award winning ‘Before I Go to Sleep’ which I thought was his debut masterpiece. That novel absolutely astounded me and I loved every single bit of it. I received a complimentary copy of this novel from publisher Transworld Digital through my membership of NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this novel. These are my own honest opinions without any outside influences. I loved the two-word title – it was so clever and virtually sums up the entire story.

In the THEN Daisy and Zoe are girls that have gone missing at Blackwood Bay. One girl with memory loss is found at Deal on the beach. She later identifies herself as another missing girl, Sadie.
In the NOW Alex is making a documentary film about life in the community at Blackwood Bay, prompted by a mystery postcard. She gradually reveals she has a past linked to the place and its dark secrets.

SJ Watson loves to use memory loss as a means of piling on the puzzle and for the reader to not quite know what is the truth. I'm afraid I found this stretched to break point in this story, with so much length having to be gone to in order explain things away, with characters behaving against previous type, with common sense being avoided, that it left me disappointed. I think a good thriller could have been made from the dark goings on in Blackwood Bay without the addition of a huge plot twist that throws everything under the bus.

Sorry, as I really wanted to like this thriller!

Oh, I so wanted to like this book but sadly I just couldn’t get into it. I found it very hard to follow, and at times I was reading about people that I’m sure hadn’t been mentioned before, so it was very confusing.

I really do appreciate the time it’s taken the author to write this book as it’s not an easy thing to do! He certainly had the creepy, atmosphere seep out from the pages but unfortunately, I just struggled to follow the story and I didn’t feel gripped or that I wanted to keep reading.

I won’t pop this one on my blog as I don’t think it’s fair to share around a 2-star review. I’m sure many will like this book and that’s what matters. We can’t all like every book we read.

If you’ve not read Before I go to sleep by S J Watson then you must as that really is a fantastic read.

Thank you to the author, publisher & NetGalley for my ARC of this book.

The Final Cut is another excellent thriller by the wonderful author SJ Watson.
Alex travels to Blackwood Bay to make a documentary about village life, the sense of community and how things have changed over time. Some villagers are not keen to have a filmmaker staying, and do not want history raked over. Do they have something to hide?
Other member of the community are happy to have someone who wants to know about village life and their past, and are feeding her with videos of their lives. But will anyone let her know what has happened in the past at Blackwood Bay? Will Alex find answers to what she is looking for? Will she complete her film or will someone stop her before she can fulfil her task?
A brilliantly crafted novel, full of all of the elements that make a great thriller.
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this fast-paced twisty thriller and am honestly surprised at some of the negative reviews. I enjoyed that the twists kept coming and had to keep reminding myself to breathe towards the end. Some of the twists you can see coming but overall I felt like I had to keep reading to find out if I was in fact right.

Really disappointed as this sounded so good from the blurb but it just didn’t work for me. Slow burning but without a spark to keep me interested, the twist I saw coming a mile off and characters who seemed like actors playing those characters! Not for me I’m afraid.

So, I’m really sorry, but this wasn’t great!
I was really excited to see a new book from S.J. Watson was coming out. I devoured ‘While You Sleep’ and watched the film straight after. So, I expected great things from the author. I was hoping to be blown away and to be completely gripped by the story. I wasn’t!
I really struggled to connect to the protagonist. I know she was having memory problems, but the way it was portrayed made the story seem disjointed. At times I’d feel like I’d missed out on a chunk of the book and I was just sat there bewildered. It was only really at the end that you sort of realise what the author had been trying to do, but I think it missed the mark massively!
It was a combination of trying to keep us, the reader, in suspense with what was going on and Alex having revelations but it just wasn’t working. The villagers keeping all their secrets were very annoying, and Alex would be speaking to them and then the next thing she would have given up on the conversation and be somewhere else. Whenever one of the other characters was trying to tell her something she’d just scream over them demanding answers but not letting them speak. This was beyond frustrating.
She was also accusing one particular character of everything. However, this seemed to be based on nothing other than he lived in a creepy house on the top of a hill. She got a bee in her bonnet about him and wouldn’t let go, but it was formed from nothing.
The ending was very over-complicated, but it was easy enough to keep up. However, the author felt it necessary to spoon-feed us the minor details in the form of a therapy session in the last chapter. I felt this was a little unnecessary as if we couldn’t figure out what had happened. Maybe even he was confused and needed his own clarification?
So, I’m afraid this had a good premise but wasn’t executed very well at all. Only a two-star read of me.

I found the main character of this book to be confusing & irritating. I just didn't get into it at all. I thought the twist was interesting but, for me, it didn't save the rest of the book.

After reading the blurb for this book I could not wait to start reading. I was so disappointed. It took a really long time to get going. For most of this read it was going nowhere. I was waiting for the fireworks but all I got was a damp squib. I really struggled with this book, it had so much promise. I am sure other readers will enjoy it more just not for me.
Thanks to Random House UK and Netgalley for the ARC in return for giving an honest review

Ok, caveat first: I should know by now, not to start a new SJ Watson in the evening time, as I can guarantee you, that I will spend my night up reading, eager to finish and telling myself, “Just one more chapter”. At any rate, by very late night and sleepy day, were absolutely worth while. ‘Final Cut’ is an original and compelling story with a mysterious, almost ghostly element that adds to the overall twisty psychological impact.
In ‘Final Cut’, Alex, a documentary filmmaker, returns to her home village to create her latest project. Fresh from working on cutting edge social documentaries, Alex has been sent to Blackwood Bay ostensibly to create a film about life in a small village with the locals providing much of the footage. In reality, Alex is investigating the disappearance and apparent suicide of a several local girls over the years. Alex herself, has fled from the village and changed her appearance so that she cannot be recognised. It soon becomes clear that she is connected to the original disappearances from nearly 2 decades previously.
The story moves at a rapid pace, with regular flashbacks to the past through Alex’s memories, providing the reader with a increasing number of questions and the strange locals, do nothing to help Alex settle in. In fact, at times, it does feel as though there are also too many characters to keep track of as the storyline progresses. Certainly, not anyone that Alex can easily trust.
The ominous sense develops swiftly in the latter quarter of the novel as the reader comes to question Alex’s sanity and her reasons for trying to “save” the other young girls. Can they really be in such danger? Can we trust her memories?
A short and very enjoyable read.
With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the ARC.

To me, one of the key features of a thriller or mystery book is that I can't guess the ending. Unfortunately for Final Cut, I guessed the 'big twist' within the first 20% of the book and spent the rest of the time waiting to be proved right as the author threw things at me to try and convince me otherwise. By the final 10%, where said twist is revealed and everything I had guessed was confirmed I felt more like I had been reading as a chore and that the majority of the story had been inconsequential.

The MC at times behaves contrary to all the information she has available to her; pursuing a man she's accusing of murdering girls that in a previous or next chapter she's adamant are both alive despite everyone she 'trusts' in the village telling her said man wouldn't have done such a thing, that he's harmless and he's only ever tried to help. Her complete belligerence at blaming him for events seems completely at odds with her relatively logical approach to everything else. It felt too much like the author was trying to force a distraction on the reader to disguise the truth. The MC trusts some complete strangers that no-one has vouched for but then doesn't trust this other stranger who everyone has vouched for.

The story itself had potential and is almost certainly, and depressingly, based on the terrible abuses real people have suffered and it is a shame it has been executed so poorly here in Final Cut. While the MC is struggling with her memory, I still don't think that forgives the confused signals we get from her and her motivations.

Finally, I am unsure whether the e-ARC I received had chapters out of order as there were two occasions were the MC references other characters by name who we have not been introduced to yet and in a subsequent chapter we're then introduced to them. As I say, I'm not sure if this was a mistake and edits will be done before publication or whether it was intentional as an attempt to make the reader doubt their own memory, much as our MC does throughout the book. In either event, I found it frustrating and it felt like a mistake so made me wonder about the editing process. There was one other instance that I spotted which seemed to have been missed in editing - whether that's picked up on between now and retail, maybe, so I let it slide.

Overall, there was a bit too much that didn't make sense in the book on top of the poor characterisation, weird editing decisions and the endless buffeting of distractions away from an otherwise predictable ending.

If you haven’t read S J Watson’s Before I Go To Sleep - you need to! It’s excellent.

Sadly, Final Cut didn’t do it for me. I struggled with the story, the plot and the general pace. It dragged and I lost interest.

Alex Young is a film maker who arrives in Blackwood Bay, against her wishes. She needs to keep the film company happy as they’ve funded this documentary.

However, Blackwood Bay holds too many long-forgotten memories for Alex. She has suffered from total amnesia and slowly, fragments leak into her present psyche. The memories are difficult for her to comprehend, but she needs to get to the bottom of what happened - not only for her own peace of mind, but for the girls that are still being affected.

A predictable ending and 3 stars 🌟🌟🌟

Thank you to the author and publishers Random House for an ARC in exchange for an independent review.

Many thanks to Net Galley, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and the author for the ARC of this book.

#FinalCut #NetGalley

Let me begin with an apology to the author S J Watson, for having kept his phenomenally successful Before I Go To Sleep in the mountainous TBR pile for few years now. After reading Final Cut, I am cursing myself for not having gobbled up every work that the author has published.

I have raised my head from the kindle, walked around quite a bit and gave it a day before I could calm my heart to write this review. Of course, the burning eyes also needed a respite after that intense concentration to keep going and going and going in the race to finish and find the truth.

Alex Young is in Blackwood Bay, the last place she wants to be for a documentary film. The quiet fishing village harbors dark secrets with 2 girls missing and 1 having committed suicide, but Alex, suffering from a traumatic past that has left her with dissociative amnesia is determined to unravel the past and the reasons for her fugue state.

The past seems to be holding sway even in the present as Alex finds out about young 13 and 14 yr old girls being lured by drugs and booze for causes unknown. As Alex delves further into the mystery, clueless about whom to trust and battling her own fractured mind, the story becomes more murkier like the black waters surrounding the village.

Many characters get introduced into the story and there’s quite a bit of going round and round with almost all the people refusing to confide in Alex and talk about the missing girls but the final part of the story was cracking with menace, the atmospheric feel in the story adding to the chill factor.

As fans of psychological thrillers, the twists and turns can be fairly guessed at, but still the book was extremely compelling and riveting enough that I had a real hard time keeping it down for even a sec.

Well deserved 4.5 stars!

This is about a documentary maker called Alex who travels to a small village in northern England to make a film that's been commissioned by Channel 4.
Two girls in the village have disappeared in the past and Alex appears to know the area, but, how?

What follows was, for me, a slow and predictable story that didn't really hold my attention.

I really like this author, but, I found this to be a 2* OK Read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview.

This book had a lot of promise but unfortunately didn't deliver for me. The main character, Alex, is a film maker which sounded like a great start. She's sent a small seaside town to work on a documentary where young girls are going missing. She clearly has attachments to this town but it's not clear what these are.

She has amnesia from trauma and is determined to find out what is really going on in this town. I enjoy books with an unreliable narrator but I found the story very slow. It took me a long time to get into the book and nothing much seemed to happen. I found the story very predictable and feel like I've read it all before.

I really enjoyed 'Before I Go to Sleep' so will definitely still try some of the author's future novels. If you don't read a lot of thrillers, and the premise sounds interesting, I think you would enjoy this. But otherwise I think you'll feel like you've read this all before.

Unfortunately I didn't really enjoy this and actually struggled to finish it.
I found it very slow and drawn out and the writing style just wasn't for me . It wasn't the thriller I was expecting but may work well on screen.

Thanks for the EArc netgalley

Absolutely loved this book!!! Would wholeheartedly recommend to all of my friends, and I cannot wait to read more from this author.

I eagerly awaited S. J. Watson's third novel, having read Be I Go To Sleep and being enthralled by it. Dark, creepy, original and chilling it was a masterpiece. Final Cut unfortunately was not in the same league.
The film aspect didn't ring true, Alex filming everyday life but showed too much interested in the place's shadowy past. The characters were two dimensional and not likeable and the 'Then ' and 'Now' timeframe added to a confusing read.
The author obviously has researched the workings of a disturbed as this is a common theme in his books.but the flashbacks and loss of memory made the novel feel that it was losing the plot (pun intended).
A great disappointment. Maybe S. J Watson is an one trick pony.

This novel didn't work for me. I found it dragging and painfully slow in the middle, even though the beginning and the ending had pace. This, along with the fact that the mystery wasn't very gripping made this a hard to finish book for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a review copy in return for my honest opinion.

Alex makes films and she has been sent to Blackwood Bay, a small coastal village which also used to be her home town to make a documentary about two girls that have gone missing. Alex is familiar with the town but why?

As we read through the book we slowly find out about the girls and also Alex’s life before she left Blackwood Bay. The first half was good, it went at a nice pace but then seemed to slow down and I started to find it dragging on. I did finish the book though and I liked it, it just didn’t grab me enough to love it.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher Random House UK for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.