Do No Harm by L V Hay @LucyVHayAuthor @OrendaBooks @annecater @lovedreadinthis #DoNoHarm #LVHay #BlogTour #RandomThingsTours #OrendaBooks #BookReview #TeamOrenda

Orenda Books 31st August 2018

Book Description

After leaving her marriage to jealous, possessive oncologist Maxwell, Lily and her six-year-old son have a second chance at happiness with headteacher Sebastian.  Kind but vulnerable, Sebastian is the polar opposite of Maxwell, and the perfect match for Lily.  After a whirlwind romance, they marry, and that’s when things start to go wrong…

Maxwell returns to the scene, determined to win back his family, and events soon spiral out of control.  Lily and Sebastian find themselves not only fighting for their relationship, but also their lives…

My Thoughts

What a great, gripping and twisty thriller this was and what a great introduction to Lucy Hay!  No honeymoon period for Sebastian and Lily as their marriage is beset with interference from the outset.  A tale of obsessive love, Lily and Sebastian seem strong and well suited but will their love survive the fixation of another?  We don’t hear huge amounts about Lily’s previous marriage to Maxwell, although their are hints of his past tricky behaviours throughout the book. Successfully painting a picture of a wholly unpleasant but charming man.  What we do know is that Maxwell has no plan’s to fade into the background, leaving Lily to enjoy her new relationship and his son to settle into his new home.

With 6 key characters, including Denny – Lily’s son, Fran – Sebastian’s mother and Triss – Lily’s best friend this book was highly readable, written in the third person from alternating perspectives of Sebastian and Lily the pace moved fast, although the reader had the luxury of seeing events from both perspectives at times.  The book description tells us of trouble from the obsessive ex and there were some brief dialogues interspersed throughout the book in a range of formats, which gave the reader clues as to what was to come, and maintained the suspension to the conclusion.

A cleverly written book which was unpredictable, with the author successfully pointing me down dead ends and keeping me guessing until the big reveal.  Not a happy ending but one which I considered brave and impressive, with some shocks along the journey.

A great new author discovery for me, in line with what I have come to expect from the mighty Orenda Books – original, edgy and highly readable.

About the Author

Lucy V Hay is a novelist, script editor and blogger who helps writers via her Bang2Write consultancy.  She is the associate producer of Brit Thrillers Deviation (2012) and Assassin (2015), both starring Danny Dyer.  Lucy is also head reader for the London Screenwriters’ Festival.  She has written three non-fiction books: Writing & Selling Thriller Screenplays, its follow-up, Drama Screenplays, and, most recently, Writing Diverse Characters For Fiction, TV & Film.  She is also the author of ‘The Intersection Series’ of Young Adult novels.  Lucy lives in Devon with her husband, three children, five cats and five African Land Snails.

Links

You can follow Lucy on –

Facebook facebook.com/LucyHayB2W

Twitter @LucyVHayAuthor

Website lucyvhayauthor.com

This is a blog tour, so huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me to participate and to Orenda Books for providing me with a copy of the book.  The details of the rest of thetour are below so do check it out!