The Taking of Annie Thorne, by CJ Tudor {Plus Bargain Books giveaway}

It’s Friday, and as we do, it’s book review day here on the blog! July was declared #ThrillerJuly by Bargain Books and thrillers are my jam, so I was happy to be involved. Today’s review includes a link to an awesome thriller book hamper giveaway from Bargain Books, so make sure to check that out AFTER you read this review 😉

The Taking of Annie Thorne is the 2nd novel from CJ Tudor, who you may remember, wrote The Chalk Man that I reviewed over here recently. I had wanted to read The Taking of Annie Thorne immediately when I spotted it, but #bookstagram told me to read The Chalk Man first. They felt it was the more superior offering between the 2, so I went with it. I still wanted to read this book though, so thankfully Bargain Books came to my rescue and sent the book to me to review.

What is The Taking of Annie Thorne about?

The new spine-tingling, sinister thriller from the Sunday Timesbestselling author of The Chalk Man.

One night, Annie went missing. Disappeared from her own bed. There were searches, appeals. Everyone thought the worst. And then, miraculously, after forty-eight hours, she came back. But she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say what had happened to her. Something happened to my sister. I can’t explain what. I just know that when she came back, she wasn’t the same. She wasn’t my Annie. I didn’t want to admit, even to myself, that sometimes I was scared to death of my own little sister.

My thoughts

Sounds creepy right??? Yikes! I’m a huge fan of CJ Tudor’s writing style, so already I was excited to dive into this book!

The cover

As I felt with The Chalk Man, the cover for CJ Tudor’s books are always well done. Creepy as anything and pitch black, I just love her book covers.

The characters

Joe is Annie’s brother, and the protagonist in the book. I really enjoyed Joe’s character, his humour and banter was a highlight for me in this book and had me laughing out loud. In between the creepy, dark bits, the humour was a great relief and interlude from it all. His actual character though, in terms of having a bit of a drinking problem, is reminiscent of Eddie’s character in The Chalk Man.

All the supporting characters, I felt the author did a great job with their character development.

The storyline

The book, out of the gate, starts out being really creepy and sinister with a gruesome crime scene. Joe returns to his hometown under the pretext of filling a vacant teaching post. The teaching post of a now dead teacher (Julia), who killed her own son (Ben), who she claimed was ‘not my son’. Joe thinks that whatever happened to his sister, Annie, must have also happened to Julia’s son, Ben. The story is basically about Joe, returning to his home town, to try and find out exactly what happened to his sister all those years ago and also….was it happening again?

The book is narrated, as with The Chalk Man, in the past and in the present. We journey with Joe into what led to his sister’s disappearance and how that filters into the present day.

Joe says in the synopsis of the book that ‘she wasn’t my Annie‘ and I think what frustrated me in part was that, Joe, the kid, felt this way. His parents don’t seem to notice anything strange about Annie, even though the signs are all there….that something happened to her. I think that’s a common theme again, where the parents are not really present in CJ Tudor’s books and as a parent I want to throttle them.

Final Thoughts

I felt the book was a slow burn for the first 3/4’s of it, but once you hit the last 1/4, it really picks up the pace. There were a few plot twists and quite a few revelations in the book. I didn’t feel like I got all the answers at the end of this book. Sure, I could formulate a conclusion with what they gave me, but I like everything to be wrapped up in a book for me. Though that has more to do with the supernatural element to the book, so there can’t be neat bows on this ending.  It was still an enjoyable read though.

Rating

The Taking of Annie Thorne has an average of 3.86 stars on Goodreads and I think this is a fair rating. I am giving this a 3.8 star rating. This supernatural thriller retails for around R219 and is available at all leading book retailers.

What do you think….will you be picking it up? Also, make sure you’re following my dedicated book Facebook and Instagram pages 😉

*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*

Bargain Books is hosting an awesome thriller hamper book giveaway over on their Instagram account, that includes the following books:

• The Taking of Annie Thorne By C.J. Tudor
• The Rumour by  Lesley Kara
• One More Lie by Amy Lloyd
• Conviction by Denise Mina

Head on over and ENTER now!

Disclaimer: I received this book from Bargain Books SA, but all opinions are my own.