#BlogTour ‘One Step Behind’ by Lauren North

About the book…

‘A gripping psychological thriller that pulls the reader through the story at a terrific pace, not giving them a moment to draw breath’ Nikki Smith, author of All in Her Head

Jenna is a wife, a mother, a doctor. She’s also the victim of a stalker.

Every time she leaves her house, she sees him. Disturbing gifts are left at her door. Cruel emails are sent to her colleagues. She has no idea who this man is but she feels powerless against him.

Until the day he is brought into her hospital after a serious accident, and Jenna is given the chance to find out once and for all why this man is tormenting her. Now, the power is all hers.

But how many lines is she willing to cross to take back control of her life?

‘A really gripping rollercoaster of a read – I absolutely loved it, and read it in one sitting’ Lisa Hall, author of Between You and Me

‘The Perfect Betrayal’ landed with a bang last year, it was even more astonishing in its maturity and complexity of plot due to it being a debut. So when Anne Cater of Random Things tours sent out a tour invite email, there was smoke flying from the keyboard as I replied ‘YES PLEASE!’ to her followup, ‘‘One Step Behind’

Published in ebook format by Transworld, this is a tale of a A and E doctor, Jenna, whose life has been savagely under attack for the past year by a stalker.

Trying to hold down one of the most demanding jobs imaginable, she is assuaged by guilt from her husband , Stuart, who feels she looks down on his building profession, and her children who wish she was the type of mum who stayed at birthday parties, or was just on time for the school run.

No matter which way she turns, she is made to feel that she is letting someone down-added to proving herself in a male dominated profession and having her role as wife and mother shoved under a microscope on a daily basis, emails, gifts and a shadowy figure are haunting her days.

A year of watching every move she makes, beheaded dolls dressed in her clothes, offerings in her back garden and so on shake her very fragile sense of self. She is doing everything she can to report and detail all the harrassments, but the law is not set up to protect someone like Jenna.

And then, one shift and everything changes…a trauma victim, rub over by a bus, turns out to be surprisingly familiar.

If you had the ability to end someone’s life and make it look like an accident, would you?

Could you?

This novel jumps through several timeframes and the perspectives of two women-Jenna and a personal trainer named Sophie. The connection between the two is not immediately obvious, when it becomes revealed, it is still very much a tale of two women caught in unenviable situations. Jenna, by her stalker, and Sophie by her partner, (both in business and real life)Nick.

Nick’s actions are driven by a need to keep Sophie ‘safe’, actions which extend from tracking where she has been and where she is going to the point where she feels trapped, juxtaposed neatly with Jenna who only feels safe inside her home.

As events conspire to bring both women together, Lauren North plays with so many widely held societal tropes- the ‘have it all’ woman, wife, mother, career haver who is expected to be grateful for so much whilst receiving so little.

Jenna’s profession is used against her, both in and out of work, and you fall into the trap of wondering if her stalker is even real, proof, if it was needed, that the concerns of women tend to be played down as ‘all in their head.’

This is a great moral tale which has a lot to say on the role of the modern woman, the sacrifices and assumptions made about them, and how families are about more than being blood relatives.

The contrasting tales of Sophie and Jenna place you knee deep in suspense, sadness and regret. As Jenna searches for a possible reason why she is being stalked, she crosses very dangerous lines and as Sophie re-evaluates her upbringing and relationship, you, the reader, are kept on the edge of your seat.

Indeed, you might say, the reader is constantly two steps behind a talented writer who is going from strength to strength!

All my thanks to Anne Cater and Transworld for the blog tour invite and the gifted ebook review copy of ‘One Step Behind’… what are you wasting time for reading my nonsense, when you could be loading this onto your ebook reader?

About the author…

Lauren North writes psychological suspense novels that delve into the darker side of relationships and families. She has a
lifelong passion for writing, reading, and all things books.

Lauren’s love of psychological suspense has grown since childhood and her dark imagination of always wondering
what’s the worst thing that could happen in every situation.

Lauren studied psychology before moving to London where she lived and worked for many years.

She now lives with her family in the Suffolk countryside.

Readers can follow Lauren on  –

Twitter @Lauren_C_North

@annecater @RandomTTours

 Facebook @LaurenNorthAuthor

Links-