I am so happy to be the one starting this amazing blog tour for Keeper by Jessica Moor! Huge thank you to the team at Viking, for sending me a copy of the book, to read and provide an honest review. Please check out the other participants as well.
★★★★
Keeper by Jessica Moor is one of the most gripping thrillers I have read this year!
Synopsis:
When Katie Straw’s body is pulled from the waters of the local suicide spot, the police decide it’s an open-and-shut- case. A standard-issue female suicide.
But the residents of Widringham women’s refuge where Katie worked don’t agree. They say it’s murder.
Will you listen to them?
My Thoughts:
As soon as I started reading Keeper, I couldn’t put it down. The story is gripping from the very first moment, and the intensity keeps growing with each page.
Scenes from THEN and scenes from NOW give us a story of Katie’s life before, and the investigation of Katie’s death now. In the past, we get a detailed view of Katie’s life in her new relationship, and how it progresses from true love to something very unhealthy. In the current time, we meet a couple of refuge women, who all suffered domestic violence, as they are being interviewed by the detectives, in the hope to shine some light to Katie’s death.
There is no evidence to point out that Katie took her own life, but there is also no evidence to suggest that she has been killed. And the detectives now have to rely on small clues, to try and figure out what exactly happened that day. Some secrets that Katie kept also don’t help their investigation at all.
Even though this is Katie’s story, it is also the story of the refuge women. Even more so. Through their experiences, we can fully understand Katie’s perspective. And through their lives, we find out secrets hidden that should never have come to surface.
The main subject of the book is about domestic violence, both physical and psychological. This can be a trigger warning, as many scenes go into a lot of detail. We meet different characters that suffered in their relationships in different ways. And while they are in the refuge home, we see the aftermath that these relationships have on the women. Some women are unable to speak to men anymore. They are unable to trust people. Nothing is ever the same. And some decide to go back to that horrible environment, because it’s the only thing they know. On average, a woman tries to leave her partner seven times before she succeeds. This tells you all you need to know, of how hard it is to leave in the first place, and why it is so easy to also go back.
I loved the main mystery. The fact that we assume something happened to Katie, but we are not sure. It is not until the very end that we actually find out the truth. The plot twists in the end were very well done, and I really enjoyed that WOW factor. I have the urge to read the book again now, just to capture the secrets clues that were right in front of me, but I never saw them coming. I also loved the issue this book raises about domestic violence, the refuge centres, and how little help they are getting. Struggling for budgets and being ignored by large organisations is very a very common practice, and the women staying there can feel this, which results in them not feeling as safe as they should be, or not getting the help they really need.
Keeper is set in a very uncomfortable atmosphere. In each chapter, you can almost feel what these women are feeling, and even though I cannot relate to them, I could feel their pain and felt so anxious to help them. Jessica Moor was able to perfectly capture their fear, their anxiety, their struggle, and I could empathise with them.
Beautiful fast-paced thriller that you can’t put down, with amazing plot twists and topics so unfortunately common and infuriating! I definitely recommend it, you won’t be able to forget Keeper easily.
Purchase Links:
Amazon UK | Amazon US
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