Today, I have the pleasure of introducing one of the nicest people I’ve met online, Alex Craigie. Alex (a/k/a Trishthetrout) is sharing a lovely review of her book, Someone Close to Home. This book sounds so good, I can’t wait to read it, and I know many of you will feel the same way. Enjoy the review, and please don’t forget to share it on all your favorite social media sites! Thanks!

REVIEW:

WordsAPlenty – charla white
5.0 out of 5 stars AN AMAZING MUST READ

Someone Close to Home by Alex Craigie is amazing!  Megan Youngblood is a young girl with a domineering and manipulating mother who is seeking to climb the social ladder by any means.  Megan is a talented pianist who grows her talent and becomes renowned, earning money and fame.  All she needs is Gideon, but life takes a turn.  We are given a front row seat to the emotional and physical roller coaster ride that is Megan’s life after a stroke places her in a nursing home at the hands of a vengeful and vicious victim of her mother’s evil plotting.

Written as a memoir, Someone Close to Home is captivating as the reader moves from memory to the present and back.  Craigie skillfully places her readers into the story through the strong character developments and ease in which the dialog and plot move.  Without realizing it, I cheered at Jordan’s departure; I cried at the pain of Megan; I slapped my chair at Theo’s dressing down by Gideon; Martin’s subsequent impact on Annie; and when I closed the book at the end of the last sentence I cried. 

This is a beautifully written book, mixing thriller with memoir style writing. I have not had so many different reactions to one book ever.  Craigie has done what every author wants – transported their reader into a powerful, creative story and let them experience the book completely on many different levels.  There are several different characters in this book that are incredibly remarkable.

If you are looking for a book that holds your attention and elicits passionate responses from its readers, this is the book!  I cannot highly recommend this book enough.  I was truly surprised at how it captured and held my attention and continued well past the last page – and I absolutely hate to cry!   

BLURB:

Talented pianist Megan Youngblood has it all – fame, fortune and Gideon.

But Gideon isn’t good enough for Megan’s ambitious, manipulative mother, whose meddling has devastating repercussions for Megan and for those close to her.

Now, trapped inside her own body, she is unable to communicate her needs or fears as she faces institutional neglect in an inadequate care home.

And she faces Annie. Sadistic Annie who has reason to hate her. Damaged Annie who shouldn’t work with vulnerable people.

Just how far will Annie go?

Buy Someone Close to Home HERE

Author Alex Craigie

Alex Craigie was ten when her first play was performed at school. It was in rhyming couplets and all she can remember about it is that:

• it was written in pencil in a book with weights and measures on the back
• the two heroes were Prince Rupert and his brother (whose name was changed to Sam to facilitate the rhyming process.)      
• as writer, producer and director she ‘bagged’ the part of female lead.

When her children were young, she wrote short stories for magazines and since then has fulfilled her ambition to write a novel. Someone Close to Home has won two ‘Chill with a Book’ awards – The Reader’s Award and the Book of the Month Award.

Alex lives in a small village in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and knows that she and her husband are lucky to have their children and grandchildren living nearby. It’s often chaotic and noisy but these are her most treasured moments and she savours them – even if she’s reduced to an immovable heap after they’ve gone.  

As an independent author, without a big publishing machine behind her, she is very grateful to all the people who have found and bought her first book – and a huge thank you to those who’ve gone out of their way to write a review on Amazon or Goodreads. These reviews make a massive difference to ‘Indies’ and the positive ones encourage other readers to risk buying a copy.

What else can she say?  Nothing, really. Writing this personal promotion has been very, very hard and she needs to go away now and lie down in a darkened room, preferably with a big bar of chocolate… 

She looks forward to any contact from fellow lovers of books and any honest feedback is very welcome.

You can reach her by email: alex@alexcraigie.co.uk