I'm a big fan of Claire McGowan, and her latest novel is another winner. I Know You begins by introducing us to Rachel. Rachel is out walking her dog one morning when she discovers a dead body. She doesn't stop to investigate and doesn't call the police. Instead, she runs!! It's understandable when you learn that this isn't the first dead body that Rachel has found. And as it turns out, this particular dead body is the estranged wife of Rachel's boyfriend, Alex.

Twenty years ago, when she was known by her real name, Casey, Rachel took a job in LA to work as a live-in nanny. Back then, Casey dreamed of being an actress and hoped that a job in LA working for a producer and his actress wife would prove to be her entry into show business. At least that's what her s/mother wanted! In reality, the nanny job is a nightmare. The producer husband is chronically absent. The actress wife is disconnected and obsessed with making a comeback. As for the two children Casey is to take care of, Madison is a Jon Benet Ramsey-type child, five years old and ready for her close-up. But Carson is a darling six month old, easy to love. All is not well in this family, and one day when Casey was out on a walk with Carson, the family was brutally murdered. Casey was accused of the crime, found guilty, and imprisoned for years. Eventually she was freed on appeal, and returned to the UK where she worked to rebuild her life using a new identity.

I Know You alternates between the present day POV of Rachel and that of twenty year-old Casey in LA in 2000. The big question the book sets out to answer is who killed Anna, and is someone out to frame Rachel for the murder? Both the Rachel and Casey storylines are compelling and keep the reader engaged. All of the characters are well developed, and the suspense kept me turning pages well into the early hours of the morning when I should have been sleeping.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer/Amazon for providing me an eARC in exchange for an honest review. I thoroughly enjoyed I Know You and will recommend it to others.

i just finished my advanced copy of I Know You by Claire McGowan (thank you NetGalley and the publisher, sorry it was late) and i have thoughts. i am honestly frustrated with the book. i wanted to finish it because i was desperate to find out who the killer was for one of the murders in the book, as the other felt quite predictable. i was frustrated with the main character's decisions and i found it difficult to sympathize with her. i would recommend this for crime/thriller fans but it was mostly just okay

Definitely a page turner. Casey, a 19 year old girl from England hoping to break into show business travels to California taking a position as a nanny for a couple who are both in the film industry. Her character gathered my sympathy as I pictured a nineteen year old living in similar circumstances …. until tragedy strikes. The story is told from two points of view - Casey as a 19 year old and as an adult named Rachel, almost 20 years later.
Moving from past to present I was easily able to follow the storylines and found myself talking to Casey/Rachel trying to help them avert the huge “ pit” they were walking into. By the end I had figured out most of the twists and turns , enjoying the long winding path. Please keep writing Claire!
Many many thanks to Claire McGowan, Thomas & Mercer, and NetGalley for affording me the opportunity to read an arc of this just published book.

Enjoyable read about a 19yr old English girl who works as a nanny for a Hollywood family in LA. The book switches between Rachel who stumbles on a body in the woods in the lake district in England and her as the nanny twenty years previously in LA, Racy Casey. Rachel decides she is being framed for this new murder and has to work out who has found out that she is Casey, the nanny. Some good twists. Good page turner.

Finding so many bodies in the course of one short life did make for a fun set up of the book. I really have enjoyed most of McGowan's books and this wasn't an exception. I did find the conclusion a little predictable---why did she ignore the most obvious of suspects?? But I thought the flashbacks to the difficulties of nannying for a couple that was a real mess and liars in a foreign country with a less than helpful mother was spot on.

I've loved everything I've read by Claire McGowan so far and this is no exception. I've been getting a little tired of thrillers, but this one sucked me right in and had me locking myself away so I could finish it in peace.

How unlucky do you have to be to get accused of murder twice? And in both cases be the only and obvious suspect? That's what happens to Rachel, who finds a body while out walking the dog one morning, a body from someone who could have made life difficult for Rachel...

There are definite echoes of the Louise Woodward case in this and it's delicately handled. As all the secrets come tumbling out, I found myself loving how neatly everything came together. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

When Rachel stumbles upon a dead body in the woods early one morning when walking the dog, she doesn’t report it. Turns out that twenty years ago she was charged with murder, and she panics with the realisation that involvement in two murder cases in one lifetime won’t appear to be a coincidence.
The story continues as police question her about this case and alternates chapter by chapter with the story of the first one.
I Know You is a well-crafted thriller from first word to last. Claire Magowan is a clever writer who excels at clarity and structure, even if at times she should expect a little more from her audience. Some of the characters are great, others not so much and the ending feels a little rushed, but I am delighted to have enjoyed this well plotted thriller.

4.5 stars, rounding up here.

THOUGHTS: I really liked this one. I have not read this author before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was very pleasantly surprised! I really liked Rachel as a character, even though I suspected her the entire time. There are true crime aspects throughout the book, from podcast excerpts and articles, and I really loved those parts. There were some surprises throughout and the ending was satisfying. I will definitely read this author again!

It took me a while to get into this book, but once in I was hooked. This is a well-written book with lots of twists, and very well-drawn characters. Definitely one I would recommend.

I thought this book was excellent. Several plot lines going on but not so confusing you forget what is going on. Also makes you think about decisions people make and reasons for that.

My thanks to Claire and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book prior to the publication date.

This is going to be a difficult book to review without giving away the plot.

It is written as a narrative by 2 women, Rachel in the current time and Casey 20 years ago.
The story is slow to build until suddenly there are lots of suspects and more than a few twists in the tale.

Rachel Caldwell lives in the Lake District and volunteers at an animal shelter.
A very private person, she is in a relationship with Alex Devine. He has told Rachel that he is separated from his wife, Anna, who is refusing to sign the divorce papers and is threatening to keep the house and refuse him access to their 5 year old son, Sam.
When Rachel meets Anna outside the grocery store, Anna yells at her to ‘stay away from him’.

On her daily run, Rachel finds a body in the woods. Strangely, she doesn’t tell anyone what she saw, but this is not the first time that Rachel has encountered a corpse and she hopes that she has learned from her previous mistakes.
When the body is identified as Anna, Rachel becomes the prime suspect.



2000
19 year old Casey Adams has grown up with her self-obsessed mother, Jenna, who lives every day prepared for the knock on the door which will see her go from an unheard of actress to stardom.

Casey decides to seek fame in America and in order to get a visa, she takes a position as a nanny for David and Abby Saffran’s children, 5 year old Madison and baby Carson, in L.A.
In addition to being a nanny to 2 children, Casey is expected to do the housework and cook.

Abby is a younger version of Jenna, self-obsessed and seeking to return to the limelight.

The atmosphere in the house is strained and the showy surface hides a dis-functional family.
When David and Abby start to argue, upsetting Carson, Casey takes him out for a walk and on her return, she finds Abby, David and Madison dead.
Casey is charged and convicted of the murders, spending several years on Death Row before a charitable legal group launch a successful appeal and she is released, whereupon she promptly returns to the UK and changes her name.

Took a few chapters to get into this but what a great story. The characters story is told from her teenage years when she was a nanny in America to the present day where she is trying to live a different life from back then. Great suspense thriller which is hard to put down would definitely recommend

I Know You has an astonishing lead female character that keeps stumbling on dead bodies!
Rachel finds them in England and America! But the worse thing is she is the one that always arrested for the murders, 😱 What a wild and incredible life she must life; it is someone setting Rachel up to appear to be guilty?
I was sort of surprised at The Who that had done it!
Claire McGowan writes a delightful twisted story!

A solid 4.5 stars. This was a fun easy thriller read and whilst I worked out a few of the twists quite early on it no way took away from how much I enjoyed this one.

Set across two main timelines, Casey the young naïve Nanny from the UK babysitting for a Hollywood couple in LA in 2000, and Rachel the forty-something year old woman working in a dog shelter in the Lake District of England in the present day.

When Casey makes the trip of a lifetime to sunny LA to Nanny for a young family she thinks this will be the perfect way to break into the world of Hollywood. Instead she embarks on what would become any young traveller’s worst nightmare, a death sentence in a foreign jail with no one to support or speak out on her behalf.

Looking after a 5 year old girl and a baby boy, while at the same time dealing with un-hinged parents wasn’t quite what Casey was envisaging her new life in LA would be and it didn’t take long before she started sensing all was not right within the home. When the family is brutally murdered and the only witness being Casey and the young baby she was clutching when police arrived, her dreams and her freedoms are gone in the blink of an eye.

Twenty years later when a brutal murder takes place in the quiet town of Coldwater and Rachel stumbles across the body, can she really face the accusations and blame all over again. Could it really just be dumb luck, a complete coincidence, that once again she is surrounded by death, or something more sinister at work? Could someone be trying to frame her? But who, and why?

A great who-dunnit story with multiple characters that could have ultimately been the bad guy and enough twists and turns to keep the storyline moving along at a perfect pace. This was so close to a 5 star read for me, just a few tiny little annoyances around the last few chapters, but overall I really loved this one.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing for my review copy. I can’t wait to grab more books by Claire McGowan. If this one is anything to go by, she certainly knows how to write a great thriller.

Rachel stumbles upon a body - again - while walking her dog one morning, and she runs. Jumping back and forth in time, we slowly uncover Rachel's previous life as Casey Adams, who went to LA seeking stardom, and instead got a death sentence for discovering the couple she nannied for, and their 5 year old daughter murdered in their home with no sign of an intruder. Hiding in the closet with the 8 month old baby instead of calling the police immediately casts instant suspicion on her. Years later, she re-emerges in the Lakes District UK with a new boyfriend and new identity as Rachel Caldwell, having rebuilt a new life - until she becomes the #1 suspect in the murder of her boyfriend's estranged wife - whose body she doesn't report finding.
A total page-turner, not without some issues with gaps in the story line, secondary characters and story lines that were a little rushed, Effectively made the reader both despise and feel deep sympathy for the ill-fated Safran family during the Casey time period. Enjoyed the dual mysteries - one being a bit obvious, though the other kept me guessing until the end. Solid 3.5 stars, rounded down.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5-4 stars

Being accused of murder once is bad enough, but for Rachel, it’s becoming an unfortunate trend. Twenty years ago she was known as Casey and had taken on a job in Los Angeles nannying two children. One day Casey returned home after a walk with the youngest child to find the rest of the family murdered and became the prime suspect. She was convicted and received the death penalty but was later released after an appeal.

When Casey returned home to England, she started over as Rachel, but she again found herself tangled up in a local murder. Does someone know who she really is and the past that she worked so hard to escape? Is someone seeking revenge by framing her for murder? I’ll leave that for you to find out!

Overall, I thought this was a pretty good read. The story was well paced and had a steady build of suspense. I enjoyed getting the backstory of Casey while she was a nanny and seeing how little details leading up to the murder of the family tied into Rachel’s present-day murder accusation. Some revelations were a little anticlimactic, and the end of the story seemed to fizzle out a bit, but I still thought it was worth reading.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4287340496

This is two interconnecting stories within one and is actually rather good. Casey is 19 and after her wannabe actress mother pushes her into nannying for a film producer and his actress wife in LA she soon finds herself out of her depth trying to cope with two small children. Rachel volunteers in an animal shelter and while walking her dog early one morning stumbles across a woman’s body in woodland.

Straddling two time periods the two stories lead to a dramatic ending.

I was totally gripped throughout. A great read.

I've read all of Claire McGowans books and love the way she tells a story. A great quick and entertaining read that will do well. Thanks for the advance read.

Have you noticed that it is always some poor unsuspecting dog lover who finds a dead body in the woods? However, for Rachel, the dog walker whose canine sniffs out a corpse in the woods in the picturesque Lake District, this may not be the first time she has been in that situation .... Are you intrigued yet?

I admit that I KNOW YOU was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I loved the premise of a woman whose past secrets have come back to bite her, and Rachel’s backstory sounds truly harrowing. The inclusion of true crime podcasts, online forums and newspaper articles provided a nice touch to marry past and present mysteries together and gave it a very contemporary feel. But even though I could relate to Casey, having been a nanny myself at the same age, there was something that just didn’t totally gel with me. Both Rachel and Casey never got under my skin as much as I had hoped. To be totally honest, none of the characters felt genuine to me. Perhaps I have just been reading too many mysteries lately, but nothing about these characters really stood out for me, and a few days after finishing the book it has already become blurry in my memory.

That said, the mystery surrounding Casey’s conviction for murder at a young age kept me turning the pages to get all the answers and tied up the loose ends in a satisfying finale. I just didn’t feel the same way about Rachel’s timeline, and found her story a bit dull. Even though we get a thorough look into Rachel’s / Casey’s past, her character felt poorly developed to me, which was a real loss. Without any true emotional connection, I was hard pressed to understand each character’s motivation and decision making process. Whilst I understood the author’s choice to make Rachel live under the radar under a different name, the story would probably have worked better for me if Rachel had forged out a richer, “normal” life for herself by the time her past caught up to her. As it was, her decisions seemed half-formed and immature, especially in the light of her past experiences.

I KNOW YOUwill appeal to readers who enjoy a story of past secrets catching up with the present and those who enjoy seeing different elements included in the book, such as true crime podcasts and other online content. Whilst I did not love the book as much as I had hoped, the premise was intriguing and the final reveal added a slight twist that I had not seen coming.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am always a fan of flashback view books. I like going back and forth between the past and present. It lets you get to know the character and what led up to the person they are today.

I guessed the outcome long for both crimes before it happened, but it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book as I still wanted to know the why.

This is a fun book to read on a rainy day. I will definitely read this author again.