Publication Date: Out Today!!!
Formats: Hardback & Ebook
Price: Hb £16.99/ Ebook £9.99
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
I would like to say a huge thank you to Courtney Jefferies at EdPR for inviting me and the SquadPod on this book’s tour. I would also like to say a huge thank you to Hodder & Stoughton for gifting me a proof copy to read and review, I am incredibly grateful. I would also like to say a huge thank you to the creative talent, Jessie Keane, for creating such a remarkable cast of characters especially tough and strong minded characters such as Annie Carter. Intrigued? Let’s head over to the blurb and find out a bit more.
THE CARTER WOMEN DON’T FOLLOW THE RULES: THEY MAKE THEM.
Gangster Max Carter and his ex-wife Annie Carter are leading separate lives in separate countries: past hurts and broken promises cannot be resolved. But then a summons to Majorca and a tragic death makes Max question all that has happened to him over many years.
He had two brothers – both are now dead. His closest friend has been found hanging from a London bridge. As the police wrestle with a seemingly unsolvable case, Max is forced to revisit his painful past to find answers to a mystery that seems to make no sense at all. Who is targeting his family? And why?
Annie Carter is at a crossroads in life. She has a luxurious lifestyle but no one to share it with, and Max clearly thinks she is in danger too. Her daughter Layla, has left her mafia lover Alberto Barolli and is back in London, stumbling into the police investigation and making waves. You should never go back, so the old saying goes. But then the Carter women don’t follow the rules, they make them.
And when the truth of what’s been happening is finally revealed, will the Carter family stand together – or will it finish them for good?
I haven’t actually read any Jessie Keane books before this one, I know that’s an unusual place to start with for a review, but I do think it’s a good thing. Basically I have no previous knowledge of these characters and come to them with fresh and honest eyes, also as it’s a kind of prequel and sequel of its own due to the past coming back to haunt the Carter family, I feel that I don’t really need to read the other books to get a feeling for them.
From the first page I was hooked and transported to a rough and dirty yet full of straight talking rules, back alley London. I found myself in sympathy with a few of the characters and especially the main protagonist of the story who develops a certain grudge (understandable grudge) against the Carter boys even though all he wants is to be accepted by them, especially Max. As this story shifts about from the present to the past, we see more of the family that surrounded Max and how he became I guess the lead Alpha or mafia style boss in London town. We also see how the relationship develops between him and Annie and how it also breaks down.
I found myself picturing this on the tv like one of the soaps especially Eastenders. And it has that seedy yet utterly compelling plot of what goes down when a past comes back to haunt a powerful family even one with the cracks still showing and should the past consider to tickle a sleeping dragon or let sleeping dogs lie?.
I did enjoy this book and found it entertaining it’s one I would call a blockbuster read, as it’s engaging and very easy to read and takes you away from the world for a short time. I am not sure if it suits me as in the genre but I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a bit of gangster angst, and a puzzling mystery.
Rating: 4 🌟s with a large ☕️ and a large 🍰
Author’s Blurb:
Jessie Keane Dubbed ‘Queen of the Underworld’, is of Romany gypsy stock. She was born rich, in the back of her gran’s barrel top wagon, and her family thrived until their firm crashed into bankruptcy and became poor. Her father died when she was a teenager and she fled to London to escape grim reality, finding there a lifelong fascination with the criminal underworld and the teeming life of the city.
Twice divorced and living in a freezing council flat, she decided to pursue her childhood aim to become a writer. She sold her wedding dress to buy a typewriter and penned her first Annie Carter book, Dirty Game.
This was followed by five more Annie Carter books, all Sunday Times bestsellers, then Ruby Darke arrived in Nameless, Lawless and The Edge. Jessie’s stand-alone novels include Jail Bird, The Make, Dangerous, Fearless, The Knock and The Manor.
I hope you have enjoyed this journey into the seedy underbelly of London and it’s gangs of high flying criminals and families. And how you never can be sure the past will not come back to haunt you. If you are wanting a copy, you can find it in Waterstones, any independent store and of course on Amazon. I will leave you now to say Happy Reading and see you soon!!!
Zoe's Book Nook 