is on a station platform late one night intending to throw himself in front of a passing goods train he is haunted by the death of his wife Julia and the fact that he couldn't prevent her being killed in front of him and unable to go to the police due to threats to his loved ones by the perpetrator.
Before he can complete his mission, Sarah arrives on the platform early to wait for her train, having just left her cheating boyfriend.
Not wishing to traumatise her, Chris tries to persuade Sarah to leave but she won't so he aborts his attempt and leaves the station.
Later realising his intentions, Sarah determines to help Chris and tracks him down, At the same time, Chris's best friend Steve is trying to help Chris come to terms with Julia leaving him as Chris has told him she has gone to Australia to visit her father.
Told in the first person by Chris, Steve and Sarah, together with excerpts from Julia's diary, the days count down to the day Chris has decided he will finally kill himself but Steve and Sarah have other ideas.
It was quite an intriguing read but I had worked out by halfway what had happened, Nevertheless, it was a pretty good read, more,than./. I thought I would never get to the end of this book, I skipped pages after pages and it still seemed to take forever,
I found the characters very boring and not really worth spending my time, Chris was certainly a boring character, He came off to me as having no redeeming qualities whatsoever as a human, He was boring and his obsession and depression were not even entertaining in the least, The endless pages and pages of him just walking around, depressed, were, for me, very cumbersome, I guessed at the very beginning what had happened to Chris's wife, Julia, and I was correct, I only skipped through to see if it did get better, Which it did I am glad to say at aroundof the book being read, Much, much too long of a wait for a reader to get intrigued with this book,
I think this would make a great short story with aboutof the boring stuff cut out,
Thanks to HQ Digital and Net Galley for providing me with a free egalley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
Just getting annoyed with these characters, too many other books to read and enjoy without getting bogged down with this one,Stars rounded up
A thrilling ride that starts with a jumper, and the woman who stops him,
Chris Hayes' life has fallen apart, His wife Julia is gone and he can't live without her, Therefore, he came up with what he thought was a well thought out plan to be with his wife, He was going to jump in front of a late night train, One with no passengers. One no one ever waited for, He planned it perfectly. But minutes before he was to jump, someone else showed up at the station and she ruined everything,
Sarah is a mess, She spent the night with a man who could care less about her, She leaves his place with a few dollars on both her train pass and on her debit card, having now idea if she can actually make it home.
They had dated for fiveyears and he cheated on her for most of it, At this point, her self worth is down the loo, When she arrives at the train station, she spots a man, wavering at the edge of the platform, kissing a picture of a woman and is immediately entranced.
She doesn't hesitate she speaks, Life is altered. For both of them.
Chris Hayes wishes Sarah never spoke to him, Never made contact. Sarah however, can't get Chris out of her mind, She wants to help him, Wants to make a difference, Her sister Nat is against it, Sarah doesn't listen. Chris' long time friend Steve tries to be there and help him through the rough times, Chris refuses. Chris and Sarah become bound together and both are keeping secrets, If you want to know what they are, you'll have to read this one for yourself,
"Our Little Secret" by Darren O'Sullivan was an enjoyable psychological thriller that built slowly and kept that slow burn throughout.
It kept my interest with characters that were interesting yet pained, That said, this wasn't an intense quick read at least for me, In addition, though I had storyline figured out fairly
early on, it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the novel,
Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins UK, and Darren O'Sullivan for an arc of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Published in NetGalley and Goodreads on,
Will be published on Amazon on, I received a free ecopy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review,
Chris is about to enact on his plan to kill himself to join his dead wife when his wellthought out plan is interrupted by Sarah.
When Sarah stumbles across Chris on the edge of a train platform, she can't walk away and forget about him, and instead enters his life and begins an intense relationship.
However, there's a mystery about the death of Chris's wife and a shadowy figure that appears to be shadowing everything he does.
Is Chris who he says he is, and is Sarah safe with him
Our Little Secret is a rather intense, fastpaced thriller that I was able to read in one day.
I really enjoyed the slow reveals about Chris and his wife, and how what appeared to have happened to her wasn't at all what the reader would at first assume.
His mind really begins to unravel throughout the book and it's definitely a journey trying to decide whether the reader can trust him or not.
Sarah was, to be honest, a little bit of a wet blanket and a bit surface level throughout the novel.
A lot of her personality development appeared to be her penchant for loving abusive and terrible men, and we didn't get a lot into her background as to why this may be and why she is so unhappy with her life apart from the shambles of her love life.
I liked the weird relationship she had with Chris, though at times the way she described their sex life could be troubling.
I will say, this book does need to be come with a trigger warning for those suffering with their mental health and who may be battling suicidal thoughts.
Chris really gets into the way he planned to kill himself by jumping in front of the train, and those scenes are intense, descriptive and a bit troubling.
I am absolutely thrilled that I had the opportunity to read an advance copy of Our Little Secret as it looked and sounded fantastic.
Then, just before I started to read it, I found out that its setting was in and around my home city, Peterborough, which intrigued me more.
The book opens on the outskirts of Peterborough, in a fenland town with a remote train station well its remote at that time of night!.
Chris Hayes is preparing to kill himself, to throw himself in front of the freight train that he knows passes through at the same time each evening.
Meticilous planning has gone into this night, he has chosen March train station because, from his practice runs, he knows that it will be deserted due to the time between the passenger trainshowever the real thing doesnt go according to plan as there is someone present, Sarah.
Sarah is engrossed in her own problems when she sees Chris on the platform, at first she just thinks that he has had one too many drinks and waiting for the same train as she is.
But then she begins to notice little things that just dont add up Sarah wasnt expecting to have prevented a suicide that evening.
. but then she cannot stop thinking about this mystery man and his despair,
Told from both Chris and Sarahs perspectives, Our Little Secret is very atmospheric and right from the start the tension builds, it feels as though that the reader is bystander who can do nothing to stop the course of the events unfolding.
OSullivans writing is great, it pulls the reader in, with good use of the dual narrative as well as the descriptions of the world around Chris and Sarah.
Im a massive fan of psychological thrillers and Ill be honest, I had this one worked out just before the midway point but this didnt impact my enjoyment of the book.
I wanted to keep going to discover if I was right, and also I ended up questioning whether I was correct so it certainly kept me gripped.
Our Little Secret is an emotional read as well as a tense one as it deals with depression, despair and suicidal themes all of which were sensitively handled by the author.
I really enjoyed OSullivans debut and he is definitely one to keep a watch on, I look forward to what his second book brings.
I definitely wouldn't class 'Our Little Secret' a thriller, or even a mystery, I picked exactly what was going on, very early on and there was no 'ah ha!' moment at the end when I realized I had predicted exactly what went on.
Our Little Secret tells the story of Sarah, a young woman who comes across a man on the train platform, waiting to jump in front of the next train.
Sarah interferes without knowing it and prevents him from jumping, After he leaves, she discovers his suicide note and realizes what she just stopped, From here on in, it gets really weird as Sarah becomes obsessed with a mentally ill suicidal Chris, Seriously weird. but just my opinion, What a strange reading experience Our Little Secret is, It begins quite compellingly, then starts slowly coming off the rails as the book progresses, By the conclusion, the train wreck is literally and figuratively complete, and you may briefly consider awarding itjust for doing you the favor of finally ending.
This book feels like it was written by two different authors, one who cared deeply about their characters and story, and the other who wanted to wrap it up as quickly as possible before taking a month off to lie on a beach.
Sadly, both authors are madly in love with sentence fragments, To illustrate:
“I found some shoeboxes stacked two high, Six in total. I opened the first one, It was full of photos, Pausing to listen I made sure I could still hear him downstairs, I had a few more minutes, I picked up a handful of the photos, Each one containing him and the blonde woman, In one they were arm in arm, beaming with smiles in front of an old church somewhere, No doubt a picture of their wedding venue, ”
The frequency of this type of stilted phrasing gets worse as the book goes on, as if Chriss psychological unhinging is directly tied to the authors own increasing mental chaos.
I dont know of anyone who writes or thinks in such chopped up sentences save the truly illiterate, Clearly someone made the writer a bet that they couldnt sell a book this painful to read, and somehow that someone lost.
Unfortunately, its not just the writing style that grates, By the end, I realized that Chris Hayes isnt the only person using Sarah, as she basically becomes little more than a device to slowly reveal and highlight the main characters descent into madness.
The ending doesnt dispel that impression,
If I had to sum up my feelings for this book in four words, it would probably be “I am not amused”.
Either that, or “please make it stop”, .