Andrea Mara has done it again! Hide and Seek, her fifth novel, is her best yet! Mara is one of the undisputed champions of twisty, gripping thrillers that will leave your heart racing and your nerves shot!

Set in a leafy suburb in Dublin, Lily Murphy disappears in 1985 while playing the age-old favourite children’s game of hide and seek. Many years later, a new family has moved the house once occupied by the Murphy family. When Joanna realises that Lily once lived there, she is immediately overcome with an awful sense of dread that she just can’t shift. She thinks she knows that happened to the little girl and if the truth comes out, her world will also be turned upside down.

This fast-paced crime thriller will have your literally on the edge of your seat with turning of each page. Mara’s ability to hit you with one revelation after another ensures that you will not want to put this book down.

One of my favourite aspects of Mara’s writing is the way she brings the characters to life on the page and draws the reader into the story. You feel a connection to each of the protagonists and are invested in their outcomes and the solving of the mysteries within the story.

Jumping between time periods, Mara seamlessly ties the various timelines of the story together perfectly. She isn’t afraid to delve into some very dark topics in her books and Hide and Seek is no exception.

I never saw the ending coming and her ability to make me as a parent think about what it would be like to lose my child was truly terrifying. Any parent will feel their stomach drop when the story unfolds before their eyes!

Be prepared to not be able to put this book down!

Hide and Seek is her best book yet and I can’t wait to see what stories she can create next! Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for the arc. Hide and Seek will be released on August 4th- add it to your preorder list now!

this is my second book buy this author and very much enjoyed i love a mystery and it certainly delivered. Joanna and her husband Mark move to a bigger house with there three children Joanna and her youngest daughter are playing hide and seek in the garden but Joanna panic s as she can't find Sophie but then her new neighbour Fran says she hiding in her garden and Fran tells her that the occupants that used to live there lost there daughter Lily playing hide and seek and was never found. Joanna husband Mark is from this area and he never thought that this was the house. and as Joanna gets talking to her mother -in-law they where good friends with the parents the Murphy s .so Joanna decides to play detective and find out what happened to Lily as Joanna has a secret and will do anything to protect it wont say no more but so good will keep you guessing until the end

Loved the premise of this book and I flew right through it… from the leafy suburban setting to the perfect couples with seemingly perfect lives to the dual past/present timelines through which the story unfolds. It would have been a solid 4 stars from me but I felt a few parts of the story towards the end were a little far-fetched and sometimes it was hard to keep track of all the characters but overall this is a quality page-turner which keeps you guessing right up to the end.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hide and Seek by Andrea Mara.

With this, her fifth novel, Andrea Mara has copper- fastened her position at the top of Irish suspense writing. What a read!

In 1985 a game of hide and seek ends. All the children playing the game in the woods in a South Dublin suburb leave their hiding places and go home except one little girl, Lily Murphy Her parents and neighbours search the woods but Lily is gone, never to be seen again.

Years later, Joanna has just moved into her forever home with her husband and children. Life is good. Then she discovers this was the house that Lily Murphy lived in. Unease and dread takes over and Joanna can't leave the past alone and begins to ask questions of her new neighbours. In doing so can she begins to find out what really happened on that day in the woods in 1985 and risks unravelling her own web of secrets.

I think this might be my favourite of Andrea Mara's books, it gripped me from the opening chapter and I raced through this book, it kept me awake until the middle of the night, compulsive reading, I couldn't put it down. Its brilliantly paced, with a whole host of well developed characters, which is rare in a thriller in my reading experience. The book twists and turns the whole way through, it was impossible to guess where it was going. The story unfolds in the present with flashbacks to the 1980s. Both timelines are effortlessly weaved together and I loved how perfectly Mara captured the 80's setting in particular. The whole story was so chillingly realistic.

Brilliantly paced, sharp and clever writing, this is the best suspense novel I have read in a long time. The definition of a page turner. Bravo Andrea Mara.

5 star.

Hide and Seek will be published on August 4th 2022 and is available to preorder now. I have preordered my own copy to add to my collection.

WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW

This book is PHENOMENAL!! A thriller with a capital T,H,R,I,L,L,E and R.
The writing is impeccable, with descriptions that bring everything to life and exciting but realistic character and story developments that keep your interest piqued. The mystery unfolds over time, yet there is no slow burn and no obvious answers, no lulls, no unnecessary paragraphs, never mind chapters. Every chapter brings another surprise, another gasp, another jaw drop or another wtf!!!!

This book is a fast paced race to the very last word. When I got to the end I felt like I had run a marathon, one that I loved every second of though!

Go preorder this book now, but I'm warning you, clear some space for this one.....once you start reading, you will NOT want to put it down.

#netgalley Spoiler free

I have never read this author works before (I will now be going to read their previous works) there is mystery throughout the book, a nice twist at the end, a really enjoyable book.

I absolutely loved this book as I was hooked from the opening pages. So many twists and turns. Andrea is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.

absolutely brilliant 😍 this book had me hooked from the first page and I couldnt put it down. there were so many twists and turns that kept it exciting and not at all predictable. highly recommend

I’ve loved all Andrea Mara’s books so when I heard this one was available on Netgalley I didn’t even hesitate. All I can say is WOW WOW WOW 🤩. Once I got a good run at it I was so engrossed and just couldn’t stop turning the pages. There is so much going on in this book and I love how Mara can weave such a story with so many characters and so much going on with each but none are left behind. Once you get to grips with the different characters the storyline unfolds at a rollercoaster pace and it’s like you just can’t read fast enough but your brain just needs to know what’s coming and your suspicious of everyone 😳. Such a good storyline with so many twists and turns that all comes together beautifully and I just couldn’t put it down. On that note all that’s left to say is GO GO & preorder now…

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK for the opportunity to read and review this ARC that is due to be published on the 4th of Aug 2022.

Joanna and Mark have just moved to a quiet housing estate in Edenvale, Co.Dublin. It’s only when Joanna has moved in she realises that her house, 6 Rowanbrook Drive was the scene of a tragic accident. She can feel the sorrow and gloom radiating from its walls.

Lily Murphy at just 3 years old in 1985 disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever saw her again. She was the daughter of Mary and Robbie Murphy the previous owners of the house. This sent shockwaves through the community and set in motion a chain of events.

Feeling slightly unsettled Joanna embarks on a mission to try and unearth the truth about Lily and what became of her. She starts digging around the neighbourhood. Some of Joanna’s neighbours that’s she met since moving in have lived in the area since before Lily went missing and knew her personally. Surely someone must know what happened to Lily and what became of the little blonde haired child. After all everyone deserves a grave. A headstone. A cross.

I’m not sure how much praise I could possibly give this book without sounding like a crazed lunatic. However I will give it my best shot.

Hide and Seek is by far the best book I’ve read this year and certainly the best in a very long time. The story drew me in from the get go and I particularly liked the jump from present day to 1985.

Every single character was written extraordinarily well. Each had their own storyline, their own cross to bear and their own memory of Lily’s disappearance.

This story took so many twists and turns it was almost impossible to predict the ending. However I did guess at one part and I was delighted with myself when I found it to be correct! (It’s the small things in life). Throughout the reading of the book I felt as if I had my breath held in anticipation of what was to come next. I was utterly gripped and couldn’t turn the pages (or click them) fast enough!
I now also feel bereft and the biggest book hangover coming on!

This was my first of Mara’s books I’ve read but I have All her Fault ready to go!
If you are lucky enough to have this approved on NetGalley then bump that way way up right to the top or absolutely go ahead and preorder it. You won’t regret it.

Did I mention how fantastic it was?

Thanks to @netgalley and @andreamara for the arc. Hide and Seek is due for release August 4th

In ‘Hide and Seek’ we meet Joanna who has just moved into her new house with husband Mark and their three kids. It’s a lovely neighbourhood and Joanna’s delighted to have found their forever home until she finds out who used to live there. In 1985 Mary and Robbie Murphy lived here with their three year old daughter Lily, or at least they had done until she couldn’t be found one day after a game of Hide and Seek. To say that Joanna feels unsettled by this discovery is an understatement and so she goes on her own little investigation to try to figure out what happened to Lily, because she has a feeling she knows something about it.

Andrea Mara knows how to write. She knows how to clutch at your heart, play on your fears, and knows how to keep a firm grip on them. By the end of the first chapter my jaw was on the floor! I don’t know what kind of magic she’s got flowing through her veins but Andrea is truly a phenomenal author. Just as I had done when reading All Her Fault, I made notes along the way and once again I was nowhere near getting it right! The way in which the plot develops is truly an art form of twists and turns and minuscule clues that you genuinely don’t pick up on. Everyone feels suspicious, everyone makes you think. Your heart will race, you’ll hold your breath, you’ll gasp out loud, and you’ll be itching to talk about this book with anyone who will listen! You will not be able to put this down! Hide and Seek is an outstanding book that you need to add to the top of your TBR!

From page one, I was gripped by this story. The author has an uncanny way of drawing you in immediately and holding you there for the duration of the book. There’s no lull, no time to catch your breath; it’s just non-stop, fast-paced twists and turns. Every chapter contains something of note; there is not one superfluous paragraph from start to finish.

By the second day of reading, I was having weird dreams involving the characters. Mara paints characters so expertly, I didn’t even realise how much they had come alive until I saw them while I was asleep!

If you like your crime thrillers fast-paced and unpredictable, you’ll love this book.

Moving into a new house - close to where her husband grew up - Joanna is shaken to learn that it was once the home of a family whose three year old girl disappeared, never to be found, back in the '80s. The story resonates frighteningly with something in Joanna's own, long hidden past, and she feels compelled to search for answers about what happened to little Lily Murphy, and any connections to her own life.

The story is well written but there are a lot of characters, not helped by the dual timeline - I did find it confusing and had to resort to writing a list to remind me of who was who. Perhaps because of this it was quite a while before the story really came to life for me.

Towards the end, though, the story did start to grab me and the revelations were unexpected. And quite satisfying, in fact.

An enjoyable read. Thank you to the publishers for providing me with an advance copy.

The game of hide and seek is over, everyone has gone home, but little Lily Murphy hasn't been found. Her parents search the woods and tell themselves that the worst hasn't happened - but deep down they know this peaceful Dublin suburb will never be the same again. This book transported me to another world… A beautifully written page-turner ... When you've finished reading you'll be desperate to pass it on…..

They say females experience heart attacks differently to men and honestly I wonder at times if reading an Andrea Mara book is in a way a similar experience. Andrea has this uncanny ability to create a layer of tension that imposes itself on the reader from the very first page and it does not relent until you get to that relief inducing last chapter. I for one had several moments within this book where I was left gasping for breath, with a tightness in my chest and a panicked pulse.

I think Andrea's talent in creating such an extreme reaction in her readers is in one part due to how she writes so fluidly and realistically. While there may be layers upon layers of twists imbedded within the plotline at no point do her words feel over written, the story always feels far too real and plausible. There are so many relatable snippets that you are immersed into a world you recognise and feel comfortable in, until those stark, jarring moments when you're not.

A lot of thriller writers in recent years seem to be fans of the slow burn approach and often that can leave a reader underwhelmed. The opening section of Hide and Seek immediately grabs hold of you, slaps you in the face and leaves you cast aside agonising over what's to come.

Within the many glowing reviews of Andrea's books she is frequently called the Irish thriller Queen or Queen of the unexpected twist and inside the pages of Hide and Seek she proves yet again why she will always retain that title. Andrea flawlessly spins a web of mystery and ensnares you into a false sense of security, in which you think you have it all figured out, you know exactly who is to blame and then she violently rips the carpet right-out from under you.

Alongside the tension you could cut with a knife and those whiplash inducing plot twists the book is full of characters that are relatable. Some you will see in yourself, others are that annoying neighbour a few doors over that never smiles, remember that family down the road that seem to have it all or even that cluster of snotty Mummies at the school gates. We all know these characters, whether we love or hate them, it becomes ridiculously hard not to become invested in them.

Hence why despite recieving my advanced reading copy at 9am after an 11 hour night shift, I sat in bed and got through about 50% of the book in one sitting. I woke with my kindle slapped on my face wondering what just happened and where the hell was Lily.

An unputdownable page turner which will have you gripped from the opening lines, and tortured until you find out the staggering truth about Lily and those around her. All is not what it seems in these quiet leafy Dublin suburbs.

Wow! Just wow. I really did not see that coming. In a book full of twists and surprises the ending still managed to be an absolute shocker. The book is basically a cold case investigation although I was surprised at just how many people answered Joanna's seemingly obscure questions. I suppose after so many years a disappearance like that of Lily becomes less of a tragedy and more of a topic for gossip. This author's last book was great but this is a masterpiece. My book of the year so far.

Hide and Seek is the latest from Irish thriller queen, Andrea Mara.
I’ve loved her previous books so I was delighted to get an advanced copy of Hide and Seek, prior to its release in August.

Joanna has just moved into a beautiful home in the Dublin suburbs with her husband and kids. All is well until she finds out from her next door neighbour that her new house was also the former home of Lily Murphy; a three year old who disappeared following a game of hide and seek nearby in 1985.

Joanna is horrified by this and starts to look into it; her in laws knew Lily’s parents and a lot of the neighbours remember the Murphy family also, so Joanna is not short of people to chat to about it, but what really spurs her on to uncover the decades-old mystery is her realisation that the photos of three year old Lily look very familiar to her indeed.

Joanna thinks she may be remembering what happened to Lily, and her childhood self may have been involved.

I loved this book! As I mentioned on my stories, I started reading it on the plane home from Tenerife. As it was an evening flight I had a little doze and had a dream involving ALL of the characters in the book! Completely invested in the storyline, and I had only just started it!

I love a dual timeline; the 80’s irish suburb along with the attitudes of the time felt very familiar to me, but equally the modern day setting felt realistic too.

I couldn’t work out the solution to the mystery for most of the book, even at that I only deduced part of it! I’m not slipping, it’s just a particularly good mystery! 😅
This one has some really excellent creepy vibes, something that’s been lacking in a lot of the thrillers I’ve read recently.

I highly recommend Hide and Seek, I think along with The Sleeper Lies, it’s probably my favourite Andrea Mara so far. Available to pre-order now.

With thanks to @netgalley and @randomhouse for this ARC.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random house UK for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Joanna and her family have just moved into their new house only to quickly find out that a child who in presumed to have drown once lived there. Joanna starts to get concerned that the child in question had a connection to her in the past and she may have in fact been responsible for the child's death.

I liked this book for the most part but I had one big problem. There were too many characters and I felt like we got introduced to them all at once and I really struggled with who was who. Other than that it was a pretty good read with some interesting reveals. Though I preferred the previous novel I read from this author, I am sure I will read her next.

Well as always this author does not disappoint her readers, I had goose bumps reading this book throughout from page one to the end but what a rollercoaster of a book, twists galore in it, love this woman’s books so much …

I read this very quickly after being approved for it on Netgalley, primarily because I have really enjoyed the author’s previous thrillers and I hoped this would be another propulsive, compulsive read. I’m pleased to say it was. This was for me perhaps her best thriller yet, up there with The Sleeper Lies.

Shortly after Joanna, her husband and three children move into a new house in a mature, middle class estate in Dublin, Joanna discovers that the house was the former home of Lily Murphy. Lily disappeared when she was three years old during a neighbourhood game of Hide and Seek and was never found.

Joanna is determined to find out more about Lily and the circumstances of her disappearance, not least because Joanna is harbouring secrets of her own that may have some bearing on the unsolved case.

From the moment I picked it up, I found it very hard to put this book down - it was everything I wanted from a thriller: a smart, well-plotted, tense and suspenseful read with a cast of characters about whom you’ll find yourself constantly second-guessing. Is Joanna herself a reliable narrator I began to wonder? There is some deliciously dark humour in it too that I loved.

Hide and Seek will be published on 4 August and is available to pre-order from all good bookshops and on Kindle. It would make for a super holiday read - except that you’ll have it read by the second day of your holiday! 😅 Recommended. 4/5 ⭐️