Review: The Date by Louise Jensen

Title:  The Date 

Author:  Louise Jensen 
Publisher: Bookouture 

Publishing Date:  June 21st, 2018

Pages: 320
Genre: Adult Psychological Thriller

Series:  Stand Alone
Source:  ARC

 

Something bad has happened to Alison Taylor.

Her Saturday night started normally. Recently separated from her husband, Ali has been persuaded by her friends to go on a date with a new man. She is ready, she is nervous, she is excited. She is about to take a step into her new future.

By Sunday morning, Ali’s life is unrecognisable. She wakes, and she knows that something is wrong. She is home, she is alone, she is hurt and she has no memory of what happened to her.

Worse still, when she looks in the mirror, Ali doesn’t recognise the face staring back at her. She can’t recognise her friends and family. And she can’t recognise the person who is trying to destroy her...

I received this book for review and thought it sounded so interesting.  I haven't actually heard of the facial blindness before and I was so curious to read a book that featured this disability. It's very very interesting and this book made me want to research it some more. The book was very good. I felt the beginning was a little bit slow but other than that it was a good mystery thriller. 

Ali went on a blind date one night. She wakes up the next morning not knowing what went down the night before, bruises on her wrists, a killer headache, and she can't recognize her own face in the mirror.  She needs to find out what happened as she fears something terrible went down. How she is going to do this with no memory and the loss of recognizing faces, well she doesn't know. She does have the help of a good friend and her brother.  What she discovers is secrets and lies and betrayals and people are not who she thought they were. 

I enjoyed this book. It was a good thriller, good mystery, great suspense, creepy as hell, and very interesting. There were many things I loved about this read and really most of it I did love. The main character was a strong female, the facial blindness was a great addition to the suspense of the book, the writing was well done. I like everything but the pacing. 

The beginning was a little slow for me. It did take me a while to really get into this book. I don't think it was entirely the book's fault, but it was a little slow until about halfway through. Once it picked up though, well it got so good and I couldn't put it down. It took me a week to get halfway then the other half I read all in one night. So it got really really good. 

There were tons of twists and turns in this book. I must say that the facial blindness was just genius to add to a mystery thriller.. What can be more freaky and scary then not just memory loss of an attack but you wouldn't be able to recognize someone if they were stalking you. Yup creepy. That was just a piece of the story, this story had many many layers and really I had no idea what I was getting myself into. There were so many wow and what the heck moments. I did figure out who the bad guy was right before, I mean seconds before it was revealed. So yay for not figuring it out. I love it when that happens... even thought I always try so hard to figure it out. 

The main character, Ali, I truly loved her. She was strong, resourceful, independent, and so very smart. She didn't give up, ever. She had a hard time piecing it all together without recognizing faces but she pushed through. I can't imagine how scary this would be. 

The relationships were a bit hard to connect to in this book but that was only due to the fact that Ali really didn't know what was going on, who to trust, and who was who most of the time. There were some other great characters though. Many secondary that played important roles in the story. 

Really this was a great read and I really do look forward to reading more by this author. It was a great discovery for me for sure. If you like thrillers and need something new and interesting... give this one a shot. 

Loved it!

Louise Jensen is a Global No.1 Bestselling author of psychological thrillers The Sister, The Gift & The Surrogate. To date Louise has sold approaching a million books and her novels have been sold for translation to nineteen territories, as well as being featured on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestseller’s List. Louise was nominated for the Goodreads Debut Author of 2016 Award.

Louise lives with her husband, children, madcap dog and a rather naughty cat in Northamptonshire. She loves to hear from readers and writers and can be found at www.louisejensen.co.uk, where she regularly blogs flash fiction and writing tips.