When Cleo gets a message to say her former best friend and housemate, Rachel, has gone missing, she is taken back to their last terrible days together. The guilt from this is why Cleo delays returning to her cruise ship job to stay to look for Rachel.
With flashbacks to when they went on Camchat together, lying about their true identities, we have to guess where Rachel has disappeared to, and whether by choice.
I found this book slow moving for most of the story, although the ending was good.

What an incredible book! Superb writing, clever plot, well portrayed characters and revelations and twists galore. Two close friends, Rachel and Cleo, go on line every night using alter egos and play games to liven up their dull existence. However, one fateful night the games go wrong and their friendship is threatened. Five years later Cleo is informed that Rachel is missing, and she rushes to help....Wonderful!

Rachel and Cleo were friends. They played an online “game” where they acted as different people. Something goes wrong. Five years on and Cleo is about to go back on a Cruise ship where she works. She gets a text from Rachel’s sister saying she is missing. Torn between continuing to run from the past, or confronting the past she opts to help find Rachel. Returning to the house they shared something is not right. The book draws you in and clearly everything is not what it seems. The twist at the end means that this is edge of the seat stuff from start to finish.

An exciting story jam packed with tension and secrets..
A friendship between two women Rachel & Cleo.
One is in danger so you go to help don't you...
I found I couldn't quite put this one down.

(I am on the blog tour on 24th August so I will come back and post my review)

I thoroughly enjoyed this dark, chilling thriller about two best friends, Chloe and Rachel, whose friendship is suddenly put to the test when they begin playing a dangerous, online game that ends in tragedy. Years later, still trying to come to terms with what happened, Chloe discovers that Rachel has disappeared....

This story sucked me in straight away and I couldn't put it down. The close, complex friendship between the girls was cleverly portrayed and, although both characters weren't particularly likeable, this didn't stop me being glued to the pages.

The book is written in two different timelines, which I found easy to follow. The underlying uneasiness is present throughout and keeps on growing, incorporating several twists; one of which I suspected, the other I didn't.

I'd definitely recommend this edge-of-your-seat read and will be looking out for Lauren North's other books.

Thanks to the author, Lauren North, publishers Random House UK and Net Galley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A fantastic psychological thriller that keeps you fully immersed from the first page. Lots of twists and turns and I struggled to put it down as I was enjoying it so much.

I always reach for any Lauren North books as soon as I see them as I know they’ll be a fabulous read. I’m already looking forward to her next one!

Highly recommended.

This most certainly was a psychological thriller full of suspense. Definitely my type of read. I was absolutely absorbed into this book from the very beginning. This author has a wonderful way of creating her characters so they draw you in from the very beginning. I was suspicious of practically everyone and I was proven wrong in my thoughts a few times. A brilliant read with an absolutely wow ending.

Wow what amazing thriller book with so many twists and turns I had goosebumps reading this , we all save our best friend if they would be in danger wouldn't we ? this book without giving any spoilers away is full of betray and revenge and I loved it, I haven't read the authors books before but going to hunt them down now to read them. many thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the arc of this book.

Wow what a page turner from the first page loved the characters Cleo and Rachel. This is a tense story of Cleo trying to find Rachel the twists and turns keep you wanting to read more. Full of intrigue and action packed and you think you know who is responsible but then another twist is revealed and clues.
The ending is a real surprise that is surprising.
Highly recommend this book well worth a read.
Thanks to NetGalley & the publishers for a advanced copy.

I am a big fan of Lauren North and she’s on my “buy without blurb” list where I automatically preorder her next book without even knowing what it’s about! All The Wicked Games was a much anticipated read for 2022 (as is her next book The Ugly Truth which is out in 2023-there were a few much listed after proofs at Harrogate Crime Festival this year and early reviews are saying it’s AMAZING!) and as usual Lauren North hit it out of the park!

Besties Cleo and Rachel have drifted apart since an horrific event changed their friendship forever. Cleo has moved out of the digs they used to share and is now working on the cruise ships. But Rachel (and the night where everything fell apart) is never far from her thoughts and when Beth, Rachel’s sister, contacts her to say that Rachel has gone missing she decides to put off embarking on her latest ship to go back and investigate what has happened to her friend…

All The Wicked Games is a shocking psychological thriller that kept me on my toes throughout! Full of unexpected twists and unsavoury characters, I could not put it down! I was so full of questions that I needed answers to NOW such as what happened THAT NIGHT?! Where was Rachel? And what did it have to do with what happened THAT NIGHT?!! Yes everything seems to point back to the night that Cleo and Rachel played their game and it took them in a direction that has affected both of them (in different ways) ever since.

Both girls use their POV to explain what happened THAT NIGHT and how it has led to Rachel’s disappearance 5 years later. We get flashbacks to their early friendship and how it is the game that starts a crack that only seems to grow, creating a canyon that neither of them can cross to get back to the way things were. I remember when a similar game was happening and was very popular especially among teenagers and it worried me sick imagining the sickos taking advantage of the young and the lonely. And there were certainly lots of unsavoury characters hanging around just waiting pounce but could any of them be responsible for what has happened to Rachel?

This is a compelling story about culpability and it’s affect on relationships. Cleo feels guilty about everything that has happened to Rachel and struggles to overcome those feelings even when faced with the truth about the situation she now finds herself in. But why is the past repeating itself and can anyone stop it before it’s too late? It’s game on but this may be one game where the winner DOESN’T take it all!

I loved All The Wicked Games and found it a compelling page turner, full of all the shocks we have all come to love and expect in our psychological thrillers nowadays. Toxicity flows from Lauren Norths words and I loved mopping it up! Highly recommended by me!

A really chilling and tense story. It's like feeling really confused, although the story s explained so well and so many twists. Brilliant story x

Cleo is about to go back on board the cruise ship for her job when she gets a frantic phone call from Beth- her best friends sister informing her Rachel is missing! Beth seems to think they've been in contact with each other and they were meeting up on the day she went missing. The reality is they haven't spoken in 5 years after what happened and Cleo 'ran away', they didn't leave it on the best of terms. Cleo can't help but feel that the game they used to play has everything to do with her disappearance especially as their old landlord Simon told her Rachel has been playing again! Just what was the game? How did they end up in the situation they found themselves in? And wh o is sending the messages to Cleo asking is she's ready to play again?
Really got into this book, just when you think you've figured it out another twist comes along and throws you on another course. The ending was surprising I certainly didn't see that coming! Many thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this, highly recommended.

This is one of the most chilling reads I have read in years. It gripped me from the first page and didn't let go, this book is so full of tension and just shows that even the closest of friendships can be extremely toxic. The twists in this book are so great and it is full of red herrings. Every time I thought I knew the motive I was proved wrong, throughout the novel I never knew who to trust.
I love the chatroom element of this novel and that it proves how dark and threatening they can be, do we ever really know anyone especially online?
I have read all of Lauren North's books and they never disappoint. I read this in 24 hrs because I couldn't put it down even if I wanted to.
#AllTheWickedGames #Netgalley

My thanks to Anne Cater & Tracy on behalf of Random Things Tours for the tour invite. Having read and loved Lauren’s previous book last year, Safe at Home, I couldn’t resist saying yes to reviewing All The Wicked Games.

This is such a chilling read. It is clear from early on that something dreadful has happened to the two girls in the past but the author keeps the reader on the hook and only releases as much information as she wants us to know – I’ve never been a patient person and I was dying to know what exactly had happened in the past that was having such a terrible impact now on Rachel’s disappearance and on Chloe’s fragile mental state.

This dual timeline story moves between the present day and five years previously. Cleo is now working on a cruise ship and is on shore leave when she receives a message that her old friend Rachel is missing. Torn between wanting to get back to her safe life on board ship but scared for Rachel and knowing their history, she stays to try and help. The reader is then fed snippets from both Cleo and Rachel of what happened five years previously together with the current story featuring both girls.

Where to start. The author certainly kept me in the dark for so long on this one! I think I suspected every one in turn and I still got beaten by the reveal. The story shows what a dark and dangerous place the internet can be if abused and Rachel and Cleo were not blameless in any of this. Their ‘game’ on the website ‘CamChat’ seemed harmless fun to them but they often took things too far and they ended up paying dearly with the loss of their friendship being just one casualty.

Of the two characters, I preferred Cleo but that was mainly because she was the one usually on the page and who I engaged with more, she also seemed more sensible. I felt a little sorry for Rachel – going back to the ‘before’ when she lived with Cleo in a grotty house share, she was rather bored and miserable with her life on the make up counter in a retail store, always being picked on by the supervisor and fed up with being ghosted by men. She always wanted something more but good things seemed to happen to other people.

Suspenseful with a sinister undertone to the plot, I was totally absorbed by this story with revenge and manipulation at its heart. I felt Cleo’s frustration that she wasn’t being taken seriously about Rachel’s disappearance and also her guilt about whatever had happened in the past.

Even though I thought I had worked things out, I was caught out by the surprising and chilling final conclusion. Definitely recommended for your reading pile.

An excellent tense first read and then things slowed down,not that that is a bad thing but the difference was notabke,u likeable characters but a good and interesting premise and story

Cruise ship worker Cleo is about to get back on board the ship when she gets a frantic phone call that catapults her back in to a past she has been trying to forget.

Her old best friend Rachel is missing and her sister Beth believes that Cleo may know where she is. But Cleo has not spoken to Rachel for years and it is clear from the start that something happened in the girls past that meant their friendship was not left on the best of terms.

Following a duel timeline and with narration from both Rachel and Cleo, the story fleshes out well with lots of secrets, twists and turns. I did have an inkling as to who was the culprit, but absolutely was not expecting that ending!

An enjoyable but slightly predictable read! 3.5 stars ✨

Cleo is about to board the cruise ship she works on when she receives a frantic phone call telling her that her friend Rachel is missing! Once upon a time Cleo and Rachel were the very best of friends, but it’s clear early on in this story that something bad happened as they’ve not seen each other for five years.

Cleo feels guilty about how things were left between them so she heads back to her old home to help search for Rachel. Seeing people from her past stirs up all kinds of memories and emotions for Cleo and when she finds out that Rachel had been playing a certain game before she disappeared – a game that got them into trouble years ago- she is extremely concerned about her friend’s whereabouts.

This book drew me in from the start. There are many teasing bits of information provided to hold your interest and I was certainly intrigued. I really enjoyed the dual timeline so we could read about now when Cleo is searching for Rachel and five years ago when they were the best of friends.

It was as we hit the twists and turns that I started to predict things, and as my predictions were predominantly correct I found myself feeling a bit underwhelmed. Although I do quite like being right with my guesses in books, sometimes I much prefer being shocked and surprised. Don’t get me wrong there are a few characters in this story that could’ve been the culprit and I didn’t really trust any of them, but the story just seemed to play out exactly as I thought it would.

Overall I did enjoy this story, it is well written and it held my attention throughout. I do also love how it ended.

A story full of secrets, lies and betrayal with a chilling edge to it! Thank you to Lauren North, Penguin & NetGalley for my copy of this book in exchange for my open and honest review.

What a ride! Loved this one from start to finish, loved getting to know the characters and really liked the setting. This was such a good thriller from Lauren north!
Fast becoming one of my favourite authors

Are you ready to play?

Five years ago best friends Rachel and Chloe were inseparable, they worked together in a large London department store, they lived together in a shared house and spent all their spare time together, but they were bored with their monotonous lives so they started using a web based forum called CamChat where they could meet people and make new friends, they decided to mix it up by pretending to be other people, quite harmless until you try to fool the wrong person. Five years on and Cleo hasn't seen Rachel since the night that changed everything, she is just about to board the cruise ship she works on when she gets a message saying Rachel has gone missing, she knows that this time she needs to be there for her friend and find her before it's too late...

All The Wicked Games is told from the perspectives of both Chloe and Rachel, across a dual timeline of Five Years Earlier and Now, with the author slowly leading up to what happened to the girls back then before bouncing back to the present day and continuing like that throughout. This is a well paced thriller full of tension, with characters that I didn't trust so I could understand why Chloe felt the same way. It's a well crafted concept with short chapters that kept me intrigued to the end, always second guessing and definitely not prepared for that ending! If you like an edge of your seat thriller, this is one for you.

I'd like to thank Random House UK Transworld Publishers and Netgalley for the approval, I will post my review on Amazon and Goodreads.

Thanks to Netgalley and RandomhouseUK for the opportunity to read and review this book. This was a twisty, gripping tale of two best friends who get embroiled in an online game with devastating consequences. Told from Cleo and Rachel’s point of view and jumping between timelines it kept me guessing and trusting nobody! A brilliant read with an serious underlying message about the dangers of chatting to strangers online…