Cross Her Heart

A Novel

By: Sarah Pinborough

Narrated by: Antonia Beamish

Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

"Sarah Pinborough is about to become your new obsession." (Harlan Coben)

The New York Times best-selling author of Behind Her Eyes returns with a twisty, hair-raising psychological thriller about a single mom, her daughter, and her best friend, the secrets they hide, and the danger they can’t escape.

Lisa lives a very quiet life. A single mother nearing 40, she devotes herself to raising her 16-year-old daughter, Ava. Wary of men, Lisa doesn’t speak of her past or Ava’s absent father. Her best friend, Marilyn, wishes she would open up more and maybe finally go on a date - with the sexy new client who’s obviously keen - but Marilyn has problems of her own.

Ava is getting tired of her overprotective mother. She wants to live like a normal teenager - chill with friends, go to swim practice, study for exams, have a boyfriend. Her mom would freak if she knew that Ava’s already got someone special, someone who makes her feel sophisticated - and wanted.

Lisa has spent a long time looking over her shoulder, but lately she’s been especially uneasy. Small things from the past have begun to appear in the present, feeding her anxiety. As her life begins to unravel, Lisa knows the only way she can protect herself and her daughter is to face her fears. Yet courage won’t be enough. She’ll need help from the only person she can trust - Marilyn. Between them, they have to save Ava, and to do that, they have to be honest with each other. Truly honest. Marilyn did promise she’d do anything to help.

But a long time ago, Lisa made a promise, too. Then she broke her word. And that betrayal hasn’t been forgotten - or forgiven.

Now, someone is going to make her pay for her sin.

©2018 Sarah Pinborough (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

NOT LIKE BEHIND HER EYES

Behind Her Eyes is one of my top 2 psych thrillers of all time (and I go through 1/week). I bought this book as soon as it came out and saved it for months, waiting until I was running a marathon with the hopes that another amazing Pinborough book would get me through. TERRIBLE IDEA. Impossible to follow due to the intersecting timelines, no real plot, not gripping at all. Would NOT recommend. What a letdown.

Skip this one

I had to restart it several times. Written out of sequence it was unclear—I usually enjoy this style but this was just hard to follow. Overly graphic child abuse and slow redundant progression added to my negative opinion.

Unfortunately Forgettable

NO SPOILERS REVIEW! I loved Sarah's first book, Behind Her Eyes but Cross Her Heart was not so great. Her first book was so unique and considered a psychological thriller even though the plot was very much paranormal. I guess I expected this one to also have paranormal elements, but that’s not the case and not why I didn’t love it. I hadn’t expected the paranormal aspects with Behind Her Eyes yet there it was, which is why I loved it.

This book is a straight up mystery and a straight up psychological drama thriller. There are some mysteries to be unfolded but the story is just ok. It's been only 3 days since I finished it and I'm already having a hard time remembering the story so with that in mind, it just didn't stand out.

If you like stories about complex relationships this would be a good one. Some may have difficulty listening to the parts involving child abuse. It should have been placed with the psychological thrillers instead of suspense.

....what.

Unexpectedly f!@#ed up. And not in a good way. It's like reading horrible news stories for 10 hours. Also predictable. Which made the f!@#ed-up-ness feel not worth it when you could see the ending coming from 10 miles away.

This book pushed too hard for shock value

I loved Behind her Eyes, so i was really looking forward to this one! I got it the day that it came out on Audible. At first i loved the story! The character development was superb, and the narrator was amazing! i was excited and hooked. Then the second part came around, and there was more about daniel, and without giving it away, it was sad and disturbing and i have to say, forced. The end came, and i understand what she did, but it was unrealistic... and not behind her eyes unrealistic.. just plain old non SCI-FI unrealistic. It left me feeling sad and disturbed. I usually love a psychological thriller, but this one went too far. It was forced shock value, and Pinborough is a much better author than that. I was very disappointed.

More people should be talking about this book...

I don't know how more people haven't listened to or read this book yet. I couldn't stop listening to the narrative of these three interesting women. At each turn in the road, I felt myself falling into the story more and more, and I'm afraid if I keep writing this review, I'll spoil the entire book.

If you're looking for a dramatic thriller with mystery, murder, obsessive love and more, you've found it.

Worst craziest book I have EVER read!!!

SAVE YOUR MONEY! Worst book ever! I listened to it for 5 hours and HAD to stop! It was driving me mad trying to keep up and figure out what the hell was going on! SO MANY CHARACTERS there’s NO way to know who’s who and then they are also on the run so using alias too!! Don’t bother there’s no way to know who’s who in this book! I have never left a review on any book but this one was so horrible I didn’t want anyone else wasting hours of their time and their money on this!! RIDICULOUS

Very Good But Very Dark

As with all books written by Sarah Pinborough, this tale is exceptionally well written with thoroughly well developed characters.
It wasn’t my favorite of her books, as there is a lot of very difficult content (namely graphic child abuse) and a great deal of sadness at certain points.
But it is still a very good read, the characters are interesting, the story is well told and complex and, in the end, things add up and there is some redemption.
I would recommend this one, but be prepared that is triggering and extremely difficult at several points.
The narration is exceptional.

Cross my heart - this is utterly dreadful

This is a truly terrible story. The awful writing uses gratuitous profanity as filler for lack of plot. The plot is stupid and the narrator is simply not convincing as a 26 year old girl, she sounds like a gravelly 50+ woman. Even Lifetime would pass on this one. I cross my heart, I will not read this author's work again.

Kept me interested

I enjoyed the book, it was predictable at times but that didn’t take away from the story. There were instances of violence and child abuse so skip those parts of you need to. Otherwise it was pretty good.