#BlogTour ‘He Started It’ by Samantha Downing

About the book…

SOMEONE ALWAYS TAKES THINGS TOO FAR…

No-one knows you better than your family.

They know the little things that make you smile. Your proudest achievements. Your darkest secrets.

Sure, you haven’t always been best friends.

But if it seemed as though someone was after you, that you might be in danger, then you’d be on each other’s side.

Right?

So gripping you won’t stop reading.

So twisty that you won’t know who to trust.

And so dark that you’ll realise something truly chilling:

No-one is more dangerous than the ones who know you best.

‘He Started It’ was published in hardcover,ebook and paperback on April 30th by Michael Joseph-huge thanks to Sriya for the blog tour invite and gifted ebook copy of this barnstorming thriller!

Samantha’s debut, ‘My Lovely Wife’, was the book everyone  was talking about last year-now ‘He Started It’ is about to say ‘Hold My Beer’ and knock your socks off.

Three siblings-Portia, Beth and Freddie are on a road trip to take their Grandfather’s ashes to their final resting place.

Accompanied by 2 spouses-one reliable, steady and just this side of boring, the other a shotgun wedding bride who the others have never met) they have to replicate a roadtrip they went on as children. No deviation, no hesitation, no getting locked in jail, or the sibling forfeits their portion of a sizeable inheritence.

Told by narrator Beth, with sidesteps to her journal from the first time they made this cross America trip, this manages to be a tight wire of tension as these siblings clearly do not get along.

Each chapter reflects the state which the family have arrived in, the state motto and the cultural history of that state so you have this neat parrallel between getting to know the family AND where they are going.

The claustrophobic nature of being pent up in the car juxtaposes so neatly with the wide open spaces of a road trip and the tnesion builds to unbearable levels as they take the reader along with them.

This is truly a novel to drown yourself in-absorbing, toxic, unrelaible and shocking, you have no idea what happened, what is about to happen and it is unpredictable(in my humble opinion). You feel like you have been packed in with their luggage and have this voyeuristic sense of peeking into the 3 sibling’s most intimate moments then WHAM! your jaw is on the floor again, and you get whiplash from the plot turning back in on itself.

And this is only Samantha’s second novel!!

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good mystery, a thriller which will challenge the nimblest of minds-I don’t include mine in that description!-and a damn fine character study of the complicated realtionships that brothers and sisters have.

Their shared history and experiences can either drive them apart or bring them together-but what is waiting for them at the end of this literal, and metaphorical journey?

Read ‘He Started It’ to find out!

About the author…

Samantha Downing is the author of the Edgar Award-nominated novel My Lovely Wife. Amazon Studios and Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films have partnered to produce a feature film based on the novel.

Her next book is called He Started It and will be released in 2020. She currently lives in New Orleans, where she is furiously typing away on her next novel.

Twitter @smariedowning @MichaelJBooks

Links-https://www.samanthadowning.com/