STOP AT NOTHING by Tammy Cohen | Blog Tour Review #StopAtNothing

Published by Transworld Digital
Available in ebook (18 July 2019) | Hardback (26 December 2019) | Paperback (16 April 2020)
430 pages
Source: Review copy provided by publisher

ABOUT THE BOOK

A mother’s job is to keep her children safe.

Tess has always tried to be a good mother. Of course, there are things she wishes she’d done differently, but doesn’t everyone feel that way?

Then Emma, her youngest, is attacked on her way home from a party, plunging them into a living nightmare which only gets worse when the man responsible is set free

But what if she fails?

So when Tess sees the attacker in the street near their home, she is forced to take matters into her own hands. But blinded by her need to protect her daughter at any cost, might she end up putting her family in even greater danger?

There’s nothing she wouldn’t do to make it right . . .

MY THOUGHTS

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and to the publisher for the copy to review. I’ve long been a fan of Tammy’s writing (links to some previous books reviewed here are shown below) and jumped at the chance to take part in the tour.

When Tessa’s teenage daughter Emma is attacked one night coming home after getting off a bus, saved only by a woman who happened to be passing at that moment, Tess’ life spirals out of control as she desperately tries to help her daughter recover from the ordeal. She is angry that the attacker is allowed to go free whilst Emma is scared and fearful; so she takes matters into her own hands. What she doesn’t foresee are the consequences.

It must be terrible to see your daughter suffering so much and not being able to help. Tess is not having the best of times herself and I did feel sympathy for her as she struggled with her feelings of guilt and anger. She’s going through the menopause, her husband has left her for another woman and her family is split. Her ageing parents are struggling to cope; she keeps an eye on them via ‘the Grannycam’ from her laptop. She is unemployed – the career in journalism she used to have and love has moved on and left her out of touch and feeling out of her depth. And now she has this to deal with. This man who has come into their lives and scared her daughter. She wants justice and revenge.

Tess is one of those woman who acts on impulse without thinking, particularly when tired and emotional, and there were times when I wanted to sit her down and say STOP. What on earth are you thinking. Her desire to see this man punished seemed to override any thoughts for what might follow and you just knew that things were not going to end well.

Throughout the book there is an increasing feeling that not everything is as it appears with the twists and unexpected events coming fast and furious as the story reaches its climax. There are occasional chapters from an unknown voice and I was going around in circles trying to figure out who this person was and how they fitted in. Stop at Nothing is an utterly gripping story of a mother trying to do her best in difficult circumstances but not always getting it right. Part psychological thriller/domestic drama – it’s an excellent read and one which has a personal story behind it from the author, as told here on the Dead Good website.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tammy Cohen (who previously wrote under her formal name Tamar Cohen) has a growing backlist of acclaimed novels of domestic noir including:The Mistress’s Revenge, The War of the Wives, and Someone Else’s Wedding.

Her break-out psychological suspense thriller was The Broken, followed by Dying for Christmas, First One Missing and When She Was Bad.

She lives in North London with her partner and three (nearly) grown children, plus one badly behaved dog.
Chat with her on Twitter @MsTamarCohen