David Mark really knows how to get into the mind of someone with Borderline Personality Disorder and it is an interesting take on a thriller to have the narrator with this condition.  I found it all very tense and unsettling and frustrating.  Almost too much for me to enjoy the book.  Its a good story with strong characters but I spent the entire book shouting WHY in my head.

When Liz is presented with an opportunity to reinvent herself, she grabs it with both hands, even though she knows next to nothing about the handsome down-to-earth man who came to her rescue.  Now "Betsy," she lives with him in a cottage in the wood, but rumors about his dead wife are giving her second thoughts.   This twisty tale kept me guessing right up to the end.

This is a story about mental illness, coercive control and trust. A woman battles her mind and her dominating husband until she finds a lovely fantasy man who seems to good to be true.

The book looks at depression and particularly Borderline Personality Disorder and the effects on those around them in great detail. At times the minutiae of email conversations is tedious, even if it is accurate. Often slow in moving forward, the tale contains beautiful, hallucinogenic  descriptions of nature that serve to contrast with the scenes of horror, creating a tense confusion towards the end.

​The book opens with a distressing sequence where a woman and child are in a woodland and are injured. They are being forced to go somewhere against their will. The next chapter begins the disturbing mental slog up to this point, demonstrating that mental illness is not confined to those with a diagnosis.

A well written and spellbinding tale for those who like vivid  psychological suspense.

Liz fights daily to keep her controlling partner, Jay, leaving her. She's recently been diagnosed with BPD - Borderline Personality Disorder. She wants to be well, to be understood, to be loved.

Jay talks her into making an appointment to see a therapist, and on her way, Liz gets lost and eventually she runs off the road. Thankfully, she's not badly hurt, but she has no idea where she actually is. A local farmer, Jude, comes to her rescue.

There is an instant attraction. Jude is calm, polite, in direct contrast with Jay who is anything but calm and insists on yelling at her and disparaging anything and everything she does.

But Jude also has secrets. Jude's wife died alone in the woods near his home. His past is rearing up and Liza wonders exactly what this new man in her life is capable of doing. Was he responsible for his wife's death?

A high level of mystery starts off the story and maintains that pacing until the surprising conclusion. Characters are solidly drawn and not all are what they seem to be. It's well written with twists and turns to keep the reader riveted.

Many thanks to the author / Severn House / Netgalley for the digital copy of this psychological thriller. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

You never quite know what you’re going to get from David Mark, and I love that. Because you do know that whatever he offers in his stand-alone novels will be compelling reading and is bound to hold your attention right through the book. There’s richness and depth to his writing, combined with a willingness to go down whatever path the story takes, that makes each book journey a fascinating one.

In Suspicious Minds, Mark beautifully portrays Liz Zahavi, a woman living with her controlling partner, Jay and enjoying her relationship with his 9 year old daughter, Anya.

Liz is also living with Borderline Personality Disorder, a mental health condition which renders her behaviour unpredictable; her actions are often impulsive and she has a tendency to say what she thinks irrespective of the consequences.

Liz knows, because Jay tells her often enough, just how lucky she is that Jay puts up with her. All he asks is that she tries to be a half decent homemaker. So Liz tries her best to be what she is not and makes an appointment with a therapist to appease Jay.

On her way to the first appointment, nervous and unsure about what she is doing, she gets lost and muddled by the sat nav and has a car accident. A collision with a rather unpleasant local land owner leaves her distressed and upset until she is rescued by Jude, a brooding, rather good looking, local farmer. There is an immediate and instinctive spark between them and Liz becomes Betsy, a different woman to the one that Jay knows.

When Liz lets Jude take over and sort everything out, she feels a strong connection to him and so when her life with Jay implodes spectacularly, it is to Jude that she turns.

At this point I wondered whether Mark was going for an intense and emotional romantic drama, but with the Hardy-esque references it was always clear that this relationship was going to have an emotional intensity that would create ripples beyond their solitary existence and that proves to be the case in spades.

For Jude is in the midst of a battle and Liz – or Betsy as she now styles herself – finds herself questioning whether she really knows this man at all. Her BPD causes her to second guess everything and when she hears things about Jude that cause her concern, and then she sees what he could be capable of, she begins to wonder what she has got herself into.

David Mark has created a great character in Liz/Betsy. A woman whose backstory is traumatic and whose BPD means that she can never quite be sure if what she thinks is related to her mental health condition or is something else entirely. This lends an unsettling and quietly disturbing air to a woman who has so much capacity for joy and love that it is upsetting to see her setbacks caused by self-doubt.

Darkness and violence enter her world with hugely distressing consequences until she does not know who to trust or whether she has made the right choice about the man she loves.

Verdict: Suspicious Minds is another cracker of a book from David Mark. Dark, absorbing and edgy, this is a psychological thriller that had me wholly in its grasp, not letting go until the last page. For all that though, it’s also clear that Mark is a romantic and that pleases me no end.

A standalone from the author of the outstanding Aector McAvoy series, this book was just OK for me. Elizabeth, a sufferer of Borderline Personality Disorder, is in a car accident and taken to refuge by Jude, a young, handsome, reclusive farmer. Over time, Liz learns more about Jude and his questionable past, including the death of his wife. Then as shady, powerful land owners pressure Jude to sell, Liz also sees a very violent side of Jude. Told in chapters from the past, this was a search for truth by Liz........who really is Jude ? Not as dark as most of David Mark's work, this was a solid read but lacked that important "Wow" factor that I always look for. Thanks to David Mark, Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

EXCERPT: It didn't matter that this was where his last real lover had died.

It was their place now.

Theirs

She saw a tartan blanket, a thermos of tea; triangular sandwiches packed in opaque Tupperware, all plucked from a wicker hamper. She'd visualized him, leaning against the old beech tree, both arms around her like lengths of tarred rope, telling her the names of the plants and plucking stray twigs and silvery catkins from her hair. She saw herself barefoot; dirty-kneed in a ragamuffin dress, a tartan shawl pinned with a sprig of holly. Fantasy, of course, but one of her best...

'Sweet chestnut,' he'd said, slapping a random tree trunk. 'This one's ash. The brambles have bound their branches. They're holding hands, look. And up there; that bracket of mushrooms - they can cure sore throats. Taste OK too. Nice in a stir-fry. They tend to explode if you let the fat get too hot, but I like a meal that offers an element of danger . . . '

Come back, Liz. Liz! Oh for God's sake . . . Betsy!'

The words come from within her: a chorus of voices, each gasping as if running out of air. She registers pain, suddenly. Pain and loss and fear.

ABOUT 'SUSPICIOUS MINDS': Liz Zahavi is desperate. Desperate for her controlling partner, Jay, to stay with her, to actually love her. Desperate to be well again, after a recent diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. Desperate to be understood.

Private therapy seems like the answer to her prayers, but Liz doesn't even make it to her first appointment. Lost in a maze of country roads, she crashes her car, only to be rescued by a brooding local farmer . . . who just keeps on rescuing her. Attractive and intense, Jude is a dream, and Liz doesn't want to wake up.

But four years ago, Jude's perfect, pretty wife died alone in the woods near their house. And as Jude's past boils into the present, threatening to destroy their new happiness, Liz begins to wonder what exactly her new man is capable of . . . and how far he's willing to go.

MY THOUGHTS: David Mark's writing style is both raw and brutal, and almost poetic. He certainly has a way with words and an innate ability to draw the reader into the scene he has created. His characters are larger than life - they seem to explode from the page and wedge themselves firmly into the reader's mind.

Liz Zahavi, legally Elizabeth, but Betsy in her heart, has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. This is a disorder of mood and how a person interacts with others. It is characterized by emotional instability, disturbed patterns of thinking, impulsive behaviour and the tendency to form intense but unstable relationships. Her partner, Jay, is controlling, domineering, almost OCD. Liz, not Betsy, thinks that if she ran past him in flames, his major concern would be that the curtains didn't catch alight. He threatens her, often, telling her that no one else would put up with her,that she cannot survive without him. He erodes her confidence, stamps out any small spark of independence. But she has a good relationship with his young daughter Anya, who sees her as a free spirit, a welcome antidote to her rigid, work obsessed parents. Her family is a nightmare. Her mother was abusive. Her sister thinks she is lucky to have Jay to look after her.

Lost and alone she meets Jude, who rescues her from an encounter with Campion, local landowner, bully and worse. I thought of Hitler. And then he just keeps on rescuing her, dismissing her concerns about her BPD, saying that he loves the fire in her, that it should never be dampened or extinguished. And Betsy (not Liz, though Liz will come to visit from time to time) senses something timeless in Jude. He is nurturing and gentle, but there is a sense of darkness and violence lurking beneath.

Suspicious Minds is a book that crosses a lot of boundaries. There is a fair bit of darkness and violence in this story. But it is not gratuitous. It fits. It is a story of greed and dominance, of people who use violence and threats as a means to an end, interwoven with a beautiful story of two lost people finding themselves and each other. It is also tempered with a dry wit that had me snorting with laughter at times. I was impressed and will be seeking out other books this author has written.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.3

#SuspiciuosMinds #NetGalley 

'She finds herself furious that she smell of freshly baked scones cannot be trapped in an aerosol and sold as a room deodoriser.'

'Don't overthink it. Don't analyse it to death. Don't deconstruct it, because it might not fit back together again.'

'Long before social media, the world was full of wankers.'

THE AUTHOR: David Mark spent more than 15 years as a journalist, including seven years as a crime reporter with The Yorkshire Post—walking the Hull streets that would later become the setting for the Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy novels. He lives in Yorkshire, England.

DISCLOSURE Thank you to Severn House via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Suspicious Minds for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

Suspicious minds by David Mark. 
This was a good read.  I had to keep putting it down i did find it slow but readable.  Likeable characters.  3*.

Liz or Betsy ( as she later becomes) has had a very difficult young life so far.  Her mother was a drug addict, who regularly beat her and pimped her out to men she owed.  Liz also had to protect her younger sister Carly.
Now living in the Durham area with cold and aloof Jay.  She has been diagnosed with BPD.  Borderline Personality Disorder.  This manifests itself in a variety of ways.  Fear of abandonment, unstable relations, impulsive self destruct behaviour and explosive anger.  However Jay believes she should simply pull herself together!  The only good thing in her life is Jay's eight year old daughter Anya.
Then she meets and gets involved with Jude Cullen and this is when she changes her name to Betsy.  Jude lives in a tumbledown type of farmhouse, which he inherited on the suspicious death of his wife Maeve, who was a committed animal rights activist.
The local major landowner is determined that Jude will sell his property, as he has plans to extend his grouse shoot.  Jude is equally determined not to sell, despite the crude attempts including violence to make him sell up. Betsy and Jude start living an ideal life, and for the first time Betsy is happy and feeling better, however horrendous violence is waiting to strike.
I am more used to the exploits of the D.S. McAvoy series, I also enjoyed "Borrowed time" and prefer these books as I found this book too violent and for the most part too bleak for me. The ending although a little far fetched, did redeem the story.  It is well written by an excellent and descriptive author.  However you just wonder how much misery poor Betsy can take!  If you enjoy thrilling books this one comes highly recommended.

A good thriller that started off slow but once it got going I was intrigued to find out the ending and carried on reading it.

The Wicked Hour by Alice Blanchard is an intriguing mystery. The second installment in the Natalie Lockhart series, I highly encourage reading book one, Trace of Evil¸ for important backstory.

  Like the rest of Burning Lake’s residents, Detective Natalie Lockhart is relieved their yearly Halloween celebration has come to a close. Needing to keep busy, she volunteers for early morning clean up duty in the downtown area.  Following the discovery of the remains of a naked young woman, Natalie is working hard to identify the victim.  Realizing a vital clue from the outset, Natalie soon learns that another missing person might be linked to her victim. With the assistance of her friend and boss Lt. Luke Pittman, Natalie follows the scant leads she uncovers in hopes of catching the killer.

  Natalie is struggling in the aftermath of a previous case that thrust her in the limelight and left her reeling after a shocking discovery. Keeping occupied is the only thing that helps keep her from dwelling on her memories.  Natalie is also a little off center at work since her relationship with Luke and another co-worker are somewhat strained. She hopes to recapture their once easy camaraderie but she is making little progress.

  Natalie’s current case reminds her of the circumstances of her best friend Bella Striver’s disappearance twelve years ago. Pushing aside her concerns about Bella, Natalie follows the little information she has on the victim.  She begins by retracing the woman’s steps on the night she died. She soon learns very unnerving details that bring her face to face with someone else from her past and another person with whom she implicitly trusts. Uneasy about the direction her investigation is going, Natalie nonetheless explores all leads regardless of her personal feelings.

  The Wicked Hour is an engrossing police procedural that is interesting yet a little slow paced. Natalie is quite introspective as she tries to move forward and heal the rifts in her personal and professional lives. With a very unexpected plot twist,  Alice Blanchard brings this engaging mystery to a surprising conclusion.  A great addition to the Natalie Lockhart series that will leave readers eager the next book in the series.

Did Jude rescue Liz/Betsy or did her condemn her to...?  This opens with Liz, who also identifies as Betsy, in a terrible situation, along with Anya, the daughter of her partner Jay, and then it moves back in time detail how they got there.  Liz has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and is struggling to deal with Jay, who isn't the best guy.  She runs off the road while on a trip to see a psychiatrist and is rescued by Jude, a mysterious farmer she falls in love with.  She leave Jay for Jude but then discovers that he's suspected of killing his wife Maeve, the people in the area don't like him, and there's something creepy going on.  This gets Gothic.  It changes in tone as you read and becomes faster paced so know that you won't get spoilers from me.  Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.  A good read.

I requested this book after seeing it was centred around a character who had Borderline Personality Disorder. My sister had this and recently passed away and as I struggled to understand her illness, I hoped this would give me an insight into the condition, 
This made it a very difficult read, and I feel I am unable to continue reading it. I am hopeful I will be able to finish the book in due course. So far, I am very impressed with it's accuracy on BPD but want to give the book my full attention.

Suspicious Minds by David Mark  is a compelling thriller.  It features a somewhat unlikely female protagonist in Betsy who is diagnosed with BPD (borderline personality disorder). She has wide mood swings and regularly sabotages herself. As the novel starts, she’s driving to her first appointment with a counselor and gets lost in a rural area. She’s frazzled trying to find her location on the car GPS and then her car gets clipped and thrown off the road by another vehicle. Jude, a rough hewn man with a mysterious past rescues her. 

The novel revolves around Jude’s protective relationship with his pastoral home and the gentry who oppose him. Betsy is caught in the crossfire. Her suspicious nature forces the reader to question Jude and his past. 

This is a compelling and well crafted read, quite different from the earlier police procedurals by this author. One similarity is that his male protagonists have intellectual and artistic depths more generally associated with less physically imposing men of action.

A kind of psychological thriller with a myriad of characters bringing twists that made you wonder who was doing what and to whom. Elizabeth/Liz/Betsy is diagnosed with BPD and so has erratic behaviour. Living with controlling Jay she sets off but never gets to an appointment but through an accident meets Jude who also has a chequered life. She moved in with him and one wonders whether he is another control freak. Liz ends up in danger but the surprise is in finding who is actually behind the threats. 
I just did not relate to the characters so did not totally enjoy the book

Cumbria, Northumberland and County Durham, the most northerly counties of England, were once my home, a place I loved, a part of England's green and pleasant land. A vast landscape, ancient and pagan.
David Mark brings fear, terror and bloodshed to this ancient land. It permeates every page and is as memorable as the Yorkshire moors of 'Wuthering Heights'.
A tiny cast of central characters are written with passion and perfection. The landscape and the characters blend into a darkness that tingles with expectation like the moments before a storm.
Nobody writes crime thrillers better than this. David Mark deserves bestseller status and fame.

34 year old Liz Zahavi, or Betsy as she now prefers to be known, has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). She has no control of her feelings, leading to impulsive behaviour, disturbed patterns of thinking and deception, and sadly, it’s causing constant rows with partner Jay.

She’s desperate to hang onto Jay, she gets on really well with his daughter Anya too, and she longs to have a stable relationship, even though he shows little understanding of her illness, constantly criticises her, and controls every part of her life. In the hope that she can save her relationship, she arranges to see a private therapist, but driving to her first appointment, she loses her way, and ends up on a lonely country lane, and is involved in a collision with another car, belonging to a local and very aggressive landowner. 

Local farmer, Jude, comes to her rescue, and she finds she can’t stop thinking about him, he’s so different to Jay, so caring. The great news is, Jude feels the same way about her, and she leaves Jay for him. But of course, everyone has a past, secrets they prefer to bury, and Jude is no exception. 

Rumours abound about Jude’s violent side, and Betsy begins to question whether Jude’s wife, who was found dead in the woods 4 years ago, really died accidentally, or did Jude have a hand in it.

David Mark has a pace and rhythm to his writing that sucks you right in, from the way he brings the countryside to life so vividly, his sensitivity for the landscape, to the nuances of each character. His portrayal of someone suffering from BPD, is faultless, the storyline is gripping, and, though not all the characters are likeable, they fit their roles perfectly, in this compelling psychological thriller.

Suspicious Minds is very different to David Mark’s usually books however unfortunately I struggled to become interested in either the storyline or the characters so this wasn’t one for me although, as with all books, others will enjoy

‘Eight months ago… A nice house in a nice neighbourhood.’

Liz Zahavi has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  A diagnostic label that raises more issues than it defines.  Liz is desperate for answers: she wants to be understood, she wants to be well; she wants her partner Jay to stay with her (he has threatened to leave plenty of times).  Liz hopes that therapy will help, and when Jay agrees to pay for private therapy, she is keen to make it work. After all, Liz thinks she is lucky to have Jay in her life and she has a good relationship with her 9-year-old stepdaughter, Anya.

An appointment is made, and Liz sets off.  But a car crash on the way to her first appointment changes things.  Jude, a local farmer, with his own history of tragedy, rescues her. 

While this story made me uncomfortable in places, I admire the way in which Mr Marks developed Liz’s character.  Mr Marks captures the emotional volatility and impulsive behaviour of BPD, which can be a difficult mental health condition to live with.  But I kept wanting to step outside the story, to slow it down and get Liz to focus. Can she find happiness? And what about Jude?

An unsettling read.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Severn House Publishers for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.  

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Elizabeth (Betsy/Lizzie/Liz) Zahavi is in a relationship with controlling Jay. Recently diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder she arranges an appointment with a therapist. She  gets hideously lost on her way, ends up in a remote valley, gets very confused and crashes her car. She is rescued by Jude ... what unfolds over the next year tests Liz to her limits in this extremely well written thriller. 

First of all, kudos to the author for the way he portrays Liz’s condition with the dreamlike quality of some of her rambling thoughts and  her mood swings which can go from highs to such lows to the degree that she has been suicidal. Liz is immensely likeable, I love her randomness, her lively personality and her humour. Jude is enigmatic so it takes a while to weigh him up but you so want to believe in him. There’s a good mix of characters, some to loathe and fear and some to like and all are well depicted. There’s a dreamlike, weird Gothic vibe to this story which I love with settings that are atmospheric. There are some rich, beautiful and often magical  descriptions. The story is full of tension and suspense, there’s malice and cruelty, there are some evil, violent characters who try to get what they want any way they can. The valley becomes a scene from something more akin to the Wild West, you can clearly see who the ‘baddies’ are, you are fairly certain who the ‘goodies’ are and what they are fighting for and why. However, you cannot be sure who is pulling the strings which makes this extremely intriguing but also chilling. The ending is tense, exciting and has an unexpected twist. 

Overall, I think this is an excellent thriller with a very good plot that enthrals to the end. 

With thanks to NetGalley and Severn House for the arc for an honest review.