Read from July 12th 2017 - July 26th 2017.
Published May 19th 2017 by Highfield Press
Format Kindle - 454 pages
Synopsis -Taken from Goodreads - This is a love story with a difference. A dark romance which tells of a nice young girl who met a very bad man. Sounds simple? Not really. By the time the girl realised the depths of his wicked soul and a wiser, braver young woman was about to emerge, it was too late. His twisted roots had wrapped around her life, spreading rapidly, taking a firm hold of her confused head and fragile heart. There was to be no escape from the tangled mess unless it was on his terms and even then, once she was free and her life rolled precariously on, the seeds he had sown remained embedded deep within. When she least expected it he would return and make good his promise, exact revenge and ensure she paid any price he felt owed.
Set in Manchester in the early nineties, Over My Shoulder is an intricate tale of blinkered love and obsession. This gripping psycho-sexual thriller with criminal undertones tracks the life of a young woman, from her carefree mid-twenties right up to present day.
Freya falls under the spell of controlling and manipulative Kane and soon, her life changes beyond her wildest imagination. When the luxurious life she craves gradually becomes intolerable, escape is out of reach.
This is a disturbing story of an affluent life, cleverly camouflaging the sinister underworld which funds it. And just when you think it is all over, there is a twist.
When will it end, can it end?
Review - If I could give this book further stars, I would.Patricia Dixon has excelled.This book deserves more than the words I can even describe it by but I shall indeed try.
This book is written in first person, I know some people find that difficult to read so lets get that out of the way now. In this book, it works and I can't for the life of me see how Patricia could have written it in third person anyway. It was written almost like a personal diary where the person is telling the story but then talking to the actual reader which gave it a slightly different feel and setup.This was the first time I had experienced this when reading a book and yes, I enjoyed it.It showed smooth change overs back and forth so as a reader you didn't feel lost.
I quickly took the role of a counsellor or a police lady with a clip board sitting in front of Freya in a little plain room.This was how I imagined and the best part of first person reading.You can be in that story especially when as I have said, the character turns to talk to the reader.
I think Patricia swallowed a thesaurus as she was writing this masterpiece.The words that popped up every so often through out were great, such as metamorphosis, irascible and burgeoning. What? What's that about? luckily, I do know most and reading it on kindle did honour me with a dictionary for the ones I fell foul of. Phew, so there's no excuse.There aren't many and my word, they are such good words, they just seemed to pop out of nowhere.
This book, I'm sure held some mystical powers.A drug that made me want to read on and on and on.
It wasn't dull and wasn't full of violence but as the book went on, you knew exactly how dark it was getting.It was almost like it was in two halves and started off as a beautiful love/romance (I thought, hmm this may not be for me, a chic lit style thing going on here)but developing into a heart pounding, nail biting, and yes it did turn me into a cannibal of myself at about 3am, leg jiffling scary thriller!
With the plot, Patricia wrote with empathy and sympathetically. This is a very hard, deep topic to start writing about and you do need to get it right.I don't know because I didn't ask her but felt she had done an amount of research prior to writing this story.I don't feel she could have written it without.
How can you get your readers to feel what you want them to feel if you as an author do not or have not tried to feel what you want them to feel yourself is something I heard very recently.I thought about this when reading Over My Shoulder and I do honestly feel that Patricia through whatever way she did it researched this subject and put herself right in the thick of the feel of her writing. She really plunged all she had held back into this book.
She made me, as a reader feel.Made me feel anxiety and butterflies flying around in my stomach.
The book was packed.Packed from start to finish, packed with scenario's and lots of little adjoining stories that connected to the main quite nicely.
I do wonder whether Patricia herself is aware how much anxiety she gave to her readers, then the calm, the anxiety, the calm.Like waves.
I do have a negative.My negative would be that I felt Freya was way too strong throughout.She had elements of 'weakness', but she just seemed extremely strong all the way. With the manipulation and put downs, in reality, I do not feel she would be as strong as she was portrayed by the end or at least have some elements of low self esteem that wasn't shown.This, however is just my own opinion.
The story had a few places where I actually thought, reading on kindle it must be the end, but happily for me it wasn't. I really wasn't prepared for what came after but was so glad of it. The author really did squeeze out every drop.
I don't do sad books, books that are about domestic violence or child abuse, animal abuse etc because I fail to see why anyone can find pleasure from reading about these things especially when you feel that sadness, that pain BUT this book wasn't written in that way.Obviously there is some but enough and written well.
I found this most excellent work which I most certainly will read again.In fact, I can safely say, I think it is so far one of my top three reads this year.
I gave this top book 5 stars of course ;-).
This book is written in first person, I know some people find that difficult to read so lets get that out of the way now. In this book, it works and I can't for the life of me see how Patricia could have written it in third person anyway. It was written almost like a personal diary where the person is telling the story but then talking to the actual reader which gave it a slightly different feel and setup.This was the first time I had experienced this when reading a book and yes, I enjoyed it.It showed smooth change overs back and forth so as a reader you didn't feel lost.
I quickly took the role of a counsellor or a police lady with a clip board sitting in front of Freya in a little plain room.This was how I imagined and the best part of first person reading.You can be in that story especially when as I have said, the character turns to talk to the reader.
I think Patricia swallowed a thesaurus as she was writing this masterpiece.The words that popped up every so often through out were great, such as metamorphosis, irascible and burgeoning. What? What's that about? luckily, I do know most and reading it on kindle did honour me with a dictionary for the ones I fell foul of. Phew, so there's no excuse.There aren't many and my word, they are such good words, they just seemed to pop out of nowhere.
This book, I'm sure held some mystical powers.A drug that made me want to read on and on and on.
It wasn't dull and wasn't full of violence but as the book went on, you knew exactly how dark it was getting.It was almost like it was in two halves and started off as a beautiful love/romance (I thought, hmm this may not be for me, a chic lit style thing going on here)but developing into a heart pounding, nail biting, and yes it did turn me into a cannibal of myself at about 3am, leg jiffling scary thriller!
With the plot, Patricia wrote with empathy and sympathetically. This is a very hard, deep topic to start writing about and you do need to get it right.I don't know because I didn't ask her but felt she had done an amount of research prior to writing this story.I don't feel she could have written it without.
How can you get your readers to feel what you want them to feel if you as an author do not or have not tried to feel what you want them to feel yourself is something I heard very recently.I thought about this when reading Over My Shoulder and I do honestly feel that Patricia through whatever way she did it researched this subject and put herself right in the thick of the feel of her writing. She really plunged all she had held back into this book.
She made me, as a reader feel.Made me feel anxiety and butterflies flying around in my stomach.
The book was packed.Packed from start to finish, packed with scenario's and lots of little adjoining stories that connected to the main quite nicely.
I do wonder whether Patricia herself is aware how much anxiety she gave to her readers, then the calm, the anxiety, the calm.Like waves.
I do have a negative.My negative would be that I felt Freya was way too strong throughout.She had elements of 'weakness', but she just seemed extremely strong all the way. With the manipulation and put downs, in reality, I do not feel she would be as strong as she was portrayed by the end or at least have some elements of low self esteem that wasn't shown.This, however is just my own opinion.
The story had a few places where I actually thought, reading on kindle it must be the end, but happily for me it wasn't. I really wasn't prepared for what came after but was so glad of it. The author really did squeeze out every drop.
I don't do sad books, books that are about domestic violence or child abuse, animal abuse etc because I fail to see why anyone can find pleasure from reading about these things especially when you feel that sadness, that pain BUT this book wasn't written in that way.Obviously there is some but enough and written well.
I found this most excellent work which I most certainly will read again.In fact, I can safely say, I think it is so far one of my top three reads this year.
I gave this top book 5 stars of course ;-).
Good review! Sounds positively impossible to put down. Is there a good ending, I wonder?
ReplyDelete.....wondering is good, finding out is even better :-O
ReplyDelete