One for Sorrow

By: Sarah A. Denzil

Narrated by: Jasmine Blackborow

Length: 9 hrs

Publisher's summary

A chilling psychological thriller by the Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Silent Child.

Who really killed Maisie Earnshaw?

Within the walls of the high-security psychiatric facility Crowmont Hospital reside many violent offenders. To nurse Leah Smith, no matter what, all offenders are patients first and foremost. When Leah is appointed as nurse to Isabel Fielding, she is determined to remain professional despite the shocking crime Isabel allegedly committed in her past.

Seven years ago, six-year-old Maisie Earnshaw was found facedown in a duck pond, her body mutilated. Isabel - at age 14, found covered in Maisie's blood - was convicted of murder.

As Leah spends time with Isabel, she comes to know her as a young woman with a sweet, gentle nature, someone she could never see as a murderer. Leah begins to suspect members of the Fielding family of framing Isabel as a young girl, and she's not the only one. True crime blogger James Gorden thinks Isabel is innocent, too.

But is Leah letting her own dark past taint her judgment as she grows closer to her patient? Or has a young woman been unjustly robbed of her childhood?

©2018 Sarah Denzil (P)2018 Audible, Ltd

Worth the credit!

Great story. Love the plot and how it weaves it characters together. Would have liked to know more about the mom but wonderful story!

Mental Illness or not that is the question

Can you say totally twisted and unpredictable? This is one of the best books I read all year. At the onset this is an adrenaline producing and psychologically gripping piece of work. The characters although different in so many aspects from many crime novels make this unbelievable novel totally believable. Jasmine Blackborow brings the characters to life with a narrative style that is wonderful to listen to. I am looking forward to reading more by Sarah A. Denzil.

A top-notch psychological thriller!

A psychological nurse, Leah Smith, working in a high security ward for convicted murderers & psychopaths, and a young woman convicted of murder when she was but 14 years old, Isabel Fielding, are at the center of this psychological thriller. The nurse, a new hire, is assigned to care for Isabel, and under Leah’s care, seems to improve. Leah begins to believe that Isabel may be innocent of the murder and she tries to quietly dig deeper into Isabel’s background, which uncovers new leads as to other suspects. As Leah digs deeper, and her own life circumstances intervene, the plot takes a threatening turn! The chilling twists and turns of this thriller make for intense but satisfying listening.

solid.

solid listen, has a nice twist, but it got to a predictable point. i do still recommend it, but i didn’t think it was the strongest story. loved the narrator!

Helping sick patients

When a psychiatric nurse works closely with sick patients in a high security facility her need to care for her patients puts her in danger.
Part one:
Getting to know the patients at the high security psychiatric facility.
Part two:
Clever twists and turns with shocking unexpected revelations.

Narrator:
Jasmine Blackborow was the solo performer of One for Sorrow. She performed this story word perfectly. The sound quality was smooth, crisp, and clean. While her voice was the only one used for the many other characters I felt she offered enough distinction to provide a clear understanding of who was being referenced. I could listen to Jasmine perform all day. Something about a British accent enchants me.

Overall:
There was a steady pace of excitement between James blog posts, Leah’s visits with Isabel, Leah’s talks with Alfie, and Leah’s personal life with Tom.
The blog posts was an open forum where opinions were discussed in regards to the Fieldings being murder suspects. The bird drawings by Isabel added a dark element to the story. Alfie reminisced about past killers bringing up old cases about murder and death bringing chills to my skin.

Your going to enjoy every written word. Every twist and turn had unexpected surprises. Clever is a word that comes to mind while reading this book.
I was hooked from the first written word all the way until the end. Brilliantly written. One of the best psychological thrillers I’ve read. This one truly can be categorized as a psychological thriller. Sarah nailed every item on the list with twists, turns, shocking revelations, danger, darkness, murder, and chills. It’s the complete package.

Excellent Book

This book held my attention all the way through. Many twists and turns. I truly enjoyed it.

Never Again!

I had never read anything by this author before. I took a shot in the dark. It held me for a long time, but in the end? It was completely over the top and not my style of story at all. Sensational and horrific. No thanks.

Spoiler alert!

I really enjoyed this book. Overall, it was excellent. The only problem I have with it is the reasoning behind Isabel being obsessed with Leah. It just seems a little bit nonsensical. You’re that obsessed with a person because they, “cared” about you?

Bloody hell! Brilliant emotional shocker!

“I didn’t kill her. Shhhhh” still reverberates in my mind... As always, a favorite narrator of mine, Jasmine Blackborow, reveals why she is perfectly chosen to present “One for Sorrow.” Author Sarah A. Denzil creates an emotional rollercoaster ride, bringing me to the top, then rapid twists and turns that took my breath away. Tears were shed! Jaws were dropped! I will be looking for more by these two exquisitely talented women. Shocking and unexpected secrets and subplots kept my attention. I was awestruck by its immensely intense ending. So audictive, I found it hard to take a break. I bought this during an Audible sale for $5 and I am thrilled I did. I look forward to Book 2, “Two for Joy.” This one shoots up to the top in my vast Audible library. Well worth a credit! Psychological thriller, indeed! So highly recommended, I can’t see to the top. Epic, I say! EPIC, EPIC, EPIC!

👏✍🏻⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️👏✍🏻

One for Sorrow

good story, good plot twists. convoluted at times.
no regrets about reading this book, but no intention of continuing to book 2.

My Dysfunctional Relationship With Sarah Denzil!

I seem to be developing an odd kind of relationship with Sarah Denzil's books, I thoroughly enjoyed Silent Child even though on reflection it had its ridiculous side. Saving April was okayish but a pale reflection of that previous book. This one I again enjoyed but I can see some real flaws in it. It is a book about disturbed minds though and I think that while it is undoubtedly a bit far-fetched there is some mitigation in that which only becomes apparent as the book progresses.

The subject matter is by its very nature dark and gets darker as the book progresses and the characters take on depth. There is a distinct strangeness to Leah's behaviour right from the off which is gradually explained as events progress to the conclusion. Even so some of what happens is hard to validate even by the end. There are some editing clangers in there such as Leah relating that she had no smartphone due to affordability then using the torch app on her phone a little later. On top of that the story does get a bit far-fetched and convenient in places.

Yet, while I can make a good case for there being things wrong with this book I still enjoyed it. Like I said a strangely dysfunctional relationship! Any such relationship needs counselling of course and there is no doubt that Jasmine Blackborow's narration smooths over a lot of the cracks. She puts in a very convincing performance, especially towards the end of the book as the action hots up. She seemed to have a genuine empathy with the characters. I think it also helps that Denzil does set this book up very nicely at the start and builds in a lot of question marks about all of the characters.

Should I recommend this one? On the basis that I enjoyed it yes indeed but if you are likely to be put off by the fault lines in it then maybe steer clear. I think it's genuinely exciting and that Denzil writes an engaging story, I'm willing to let her take a few liberties in the process. At the time of writing I see that one other reviewer, Marjory L, has a very different view and I'd advise taking that on board too before purchasing. I'll likely buy Sarah Denzil's next offering to see if it can heal this dysfunctional relationship of ours completely.

Don't bother

Really don't understand why this has such a good rating. I enjoyed the previous books but this is just silly, the main character weak and often badly written. The general premise was interesting enough that I've stuck it out to the end (despite being so put off at the horrific mockney accent that I nearly gave up after the first chapter) but from the beginning of part 2 it's been ridiculous. I'm not sure if a different narrator or possibly the same narrator using her normal voice could have made it easier to listen to but this is the first audiobook I've listened to that the narration was such a poor fit and detracted from the story. If you're not a Londoner this may not grate so much but listen to the sample before downloading or you might be disappointed.

Also, anyone with experience with cat rescue will tell you that feral cats don't jump out of bushes to randomly attack passersby - that alone should give you an idea of what to expect

Far fetched and ridiculous

Really didn’t enjoy this book. I longed for it to be over. Ridiculous story. Entirely unbelievable. Struggled through the second half finding it just got stupider and stupider. As I have worked In a Forensic Hospital I felt would enjoy this . How wrong I was. I have had my fill of Sarah Denzil novels now. They get worse and worse. Very little to redeem it. Not a hit in my book.

Far Fetched

I was disappointed in this story.. I managed to read half of it then could bear no more. Having worked for years as a psychiatric nurse I thought this book would be realistic and accurate. Certainly not the case. Neglecting patients and obsessed by another is an insult to the nursing profession. Irrelevant stories run through the book and I can only assume it was to pad out the story. The interference, and how it was carried out, to a patient's family was totally unbelievable. I have given 2 stars for the narrator. She did well considering the rubbish she was reading.. Shame on the author demeaning such a wonderful, respected profession.

There’s no such thing as a bad book ,just books you don’t enjoy !

I’m a little disgruntled at this purchase and wish Id just joined my local library so I could have quietly slipped it back on a shelf .
Sorry this book left me cold for all the wrong reasons!
The story was horribly predictable , without any intelligent or logical sense ?
I persevered to the part where the patient escapes then I gave up , I mean who who gives their locker number out to a patient ?
This story, to me was based on a half baked understanding of mental ill health with hallucinations being used as a flippant theme to glue a dreadful story line together .
There’s never a bad book , just books that you don’t enjoy and I really didn’t enjoy this one. I felt that the author shouldn’t have researched her stuff a little better because there’s fiction and fiction but this was ridiculously fictitious for a story line reflecting a CPN , a high security mental hospital and even rural living ( bats are part of the county side, no their not another boring hallucination) . The Magpie theme didn’t make any sense to me either ?

I doubt I’ll be able to exchange it , Audible’s Promise that you can exchange any book at any time isn’t actually true but you only find this out after 4 years of membership!

Started off ok BUT..

Narrator was good, first half of book good, then rapidly lapsed into a farcical story, very disappointed.

Good

After 2 wasted credits I grew unmotivated and unwilling to search for another audio book - that is until I came across this gem. Loved it!
I don’t care if people say it’s far fetched - I really enjoyed it!

Far-fetched

I found the story hard to believe, it was fine til about the middle but too much started happening and most of it not convincing at all. Towards the end I was just waiting for it to stop.

Could not put it down

such an easy, interesting read. absolutely loved it, I'd recommend to anyone who likes thrillers

fantastic

brilliant and gripping, had me wearing my headphones doing the housework as I wanted to know what was going to happen next!
great narrator