From the author of Behind Her Eyes, Soon to be a Netflix Original Series
“Sarah Pinborough is about to become your new obsession.”—Harlan Coben
Lisa is living a lie and everyone is about to find out.
Lisa lives for her daughter Ava, her job and her best friend Marilyn.
But when a handsome client shows an interest in her, Lisa starts daydreaming about sharing her life with him, too. Maybe … an interest in her, Lisa starts daydreaming about sharing her life with him, too. Maybe she’s ready now. Maybe she can trust again. Maybe it’s time to let her terrifying secret past go.
But when her daughter rescues a boy from drowning and their pictures are all over the news for everyone to see, Lisa’s world explodes.
As she finds everything she has built threatened, and not knowing who she can trust, it’s up to Lisa to face her past in order to save what she holds dear.
But someone has been pulling all their strings. And that someone is determined that both Lisa and Ava must suffer.
Because long ago Lisa broke a promise. And some promises aren’t meant to be broken.
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The amazing Sarah Pinborough has done it again with this brilliant, pacy story of lies and deceit.
The plotting in Cross Her Heart is calm, cool and beautifully orchestrated—until, WHAM, you marvel at what Pinborough has just tossed in your lap. There are plenty of I-can’t-believe-she-just-did-that moments that will have you sitting straight up in your chair. What a terrific ride.
One of the most captivating, exciting thrillers I’ve read in a long time…a real masterpiece of suspense. Will be looking for more books by this author!
This is a quick-read suspense novel with lots of twists and turns. It’s told in multiple POVs and it’s difficult to figure out what the real truth is until the very end. I enjoyed the book despite the fact that I didn’t really like several of the main characters.
Lisa lives with her daughter Ava. Ava is a typical teenager – loving to her mom sometimes and critical of her every move at other times. We find out right from the beginning that Lisa is hiding a secret not just from her daughter but also from her best friend Marilyn. Marilyn is a great best friend for Lisa – she is supportive and helpful but Marilyn also has a secret that she is keeping from Lisa. To round out the trio, Ava has a secret that she is keeping from her mom — an older man who is texting her and who (in her teenage mind) she is falling in love with. Despite all of the secrets, these three women appear to be living a normal life with normal problems until Ava saves a little boy from downing and her picture along with her mom appears on the front page of the newspaper. Once people are aware of who Lisa really is, all hell breaks loose and the thrilling part of the story goes into high gear.
This is a fun book to read – not too deep with characters who are not totally believable in their transformations but still interesting to read about. The last 25% of the book is where all of the action is so it was worth it to continue reading.
Sarah Pinborough has done another excellent job with a psychological thriller! While different from Behind Her Eyes, captivating & breathtaking all the same. Loved it!
My first book by this author. It started a bit slow but gained momentum and had my attention throughout. Good page turner.
I was very slow getting into this book
Good unexpected ending. All & all
Pretty good
Not as good as Behind Her Eyes… But then that book is probably one of the best top five books I’ve ever read in my life!
But I still enjoyed this read.
Favorite Quotes:
I said yes because I wanted to. Because I’m lonely… being near him is like peeling back layers of delicate crepe paper wrapped around a treasure you’ve packed away somewhere to keep safe and forgotten about.
His eyes are full of quiet interrogation. Marriage, divorce… other boyfriends – all the information men are interested in. Things that boil down a woman’s relevance in relation to other men, rather than anything in and of themselves. The inside information comes later. Those talks are for the middle of the night, heads on pillows, faces only outlines in the darkness. That’s when people surrender their weapons to each other and hope they don’t end up stabbed in the night by them in the future.
This is the other thing she’s learned over time. The secret is her own. It’s her burden and sharing it doesn’t lighten the load it simply doubles it… You can’t trust a drunk, she knows that too.
My Review:
This was a darkly intriguing, tragically twisted, and disturbingly realistic tale, which was cast with a full slate of unlikable and contemptible characters. There wasn’t one admirable person in the lot while the vast majority were quite vile and committed heinous acts that had me flinching and cringing and wanting to swear the most wicked expletives I know, and maybe even create a few more for good measure.
The storylines were cunningly crafted, shrewdly paced, and deftly written from multiple POVs that kept the little pea rattling in my cranium on fire with constantly evolving theories and hypothesis, I fear the little legume will forever bear scorch marks.
Sarah Pinborough is obviously an evil genius, and someone her neighbors should seriously take heed to respectfully and quietly tip-toe around and should never even consider disturbing or knocking on her door without having armloads of tasty treats and posh bribes in hand.
OK thriller. A little overkill, for me, on the emotional embellishment and I found myself skimming passages because of it. Having said this, she’s a decent writer and I’d still read her next book hoping for something a little more succinct.
Loved the twists in this one, could hardly put it down.
A riveting story told from Lisa, Ava and Marilyn’s POVs.
Lisa is a mother running from her awful past (snippets are revealed along the way and in the second half of the book, continue to build to reveal after reveal!)
Ava is her daughter hiding secrets of her own.
Marilyn is Lisa’s BFF.
I’ve read a LOT of psychological thrillers and this is one of the best, absolutely riveting!
Far-fetched. That’s how I’d describe this book — far-fetched. Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough was not only unbelievable it was rushed. Had it not been one of the three books I brought on vacation, I would have skipped this one.
Lisa is a single mother of a young teenage daughter, Ava. Her whole life revolves around her daughter, her job and her best friend Marilyn. Lisa is quiet, she doesn’t let people in easily and that is for good reason. Living in fear, constantly looking over her shoulder, Lisa has a secret and she’s just waiting for it to come out. One day it does, after Ava saves a boy from drowning and their photo is all over the newspapers. Lisa’s world explodes and she finds everything she’s built is now threatened. Not knowing who she can trust, it is up to her to same what she holds dear.
One of the major flaws in this book that I found was the extremely slow build up to the secret. While there are interesting plot twists, it lost its surprise because of how long it took to get there. With that being said, the ending was completely rushed. So, you have a slow start and a rushed ending. It was a complete cluster f***!
While this did have some interesting aspects — flawed characters, surprising plot twists, and snappy dialogues — it didn’t win me over. I had such high expectations for this book seeing as Sarah Pinsborough’s first book Behind Her Eyes was phenomenal.
Sarah Pinsborough’s Cross Her Heart had its ups and downs, and as a thriller, it had some interesting plot twists. All things considered, I’d skip this book as it is rather disjointed with the pace and it was so unbelievably far-fetched! Let’s just say while this book revolves around dark secrets — there’s no surprise this book should stay a secret — totally not worth it!
Read my full review here: https://bit.ly/2Y0tgcl
Told from multiple points of view, we meet Lisa, who is struggling to keep her past secret, while dealing with a sullen teenage daughter, and work stress. Read it in 5 days, which is very quick by my standards, and it’s simply because I did not want to stop reading. Have now downloaded Behind Her Eyes, and can’t wait to get started!
A dark page turner with a twist at the end no one could imagine. Nerves will be on edge as each page reveals a Hitchcock like road to thrills. Highly recommend! The reader will follow the path that only lies can follow.
WOW! Wow. I am glad I gave this one a shot. After the outlandish ending of Behind Her Eyes, I wasn’t too sure I would enjoy this one. But this one suited me FAR better, and the twists were truly shocking. There was also a heartfelt component to this one that I really liked, and I will admit that I cried at the end. What a wild, fun read!
This was a slog to get through. So many parts of the book were innuendos – making you wonder. I didn’t like any of the characters.
Ava is a 16 year old teenager and Lisa is a single mom trying to be protective of Ava, while giving her space. But, Lisa is hiding something from Ava. When it all comes out, it threatens to destroy their relationship.
There were too many strange things going on in this book, and I didn’t enjoy it. It was not as bizarre as Pinborough’s first book (Behind Her Eyes), but it was still very odd.
#SarahPinborough #CrossHerHeart
This is a book best gone into cold, with no expectations. You don’t know the storyline, you don’t know what is coming, instead you dive in and…boom.
Pinborough’s last book was much talked about because of the controversial turn it took; this is a much more traditional psychological thriller, but even so, don’t think that you know what lies ahead of you. Take nothing for granted. Each new reveal of information is like being slapped in the face by an icy wave that takes your breath away. You’re left feeling out of your depth, with no clue of which way land is, metaphorically speaking – more literally, it means you don’t know where the book is heading.
The storyline is often uncomfortable and tough to read, in that it deals with some subjects that will turn a lot of readers off, but which I found were handled intriguingly, with emotional depth, and ultimately intelligently. It’s certainly uncompromising.
Cross Her Heart is plotted to perfection, the reader is led this way and that as the author masterfully toys with expectations, then turns them on their heads not once but many times over. But be prepared, because this book is darker than a blackhole, and will suck you in just as effectively.
I really have no words for this. I had a really hard time getting into this story. I did finally finish it but the twist was easy to see coming. I am not one who can easily figure out twist and turns so it was a bit of a let down for me.
Sara Pinborough creates incredibly realistic characters. She does this quickly with no wasted words and yet they grow skin and hair and warts and all sorts of features page by page. And her plotting is always clearly leading you one way while the truth is in another direction – even when you know her style and know thats whats happening – but the approach is so deft and subtle that it is never heavyhanded.
This story is tough to read in several places. There is one scene in particular where I almost had to stop. This was true horror because it grabs your guts but lacks any supernatural aspect at all. But keep going. Its worth it.
I love the was this author draws the reader in as her story unfolds.