#BlogTour: Don’t Tell Teacher by Suzy K Quinn @SuzyKQuinn @HQStories @Joe_Thomas25 #DontTellTeacher #BookReview

It’s a blog tour day! Thankyou to Joe Thomas of HQ Sories for sending me out a copy of Suzy K Quinn’s newest book Don’t Tell Teacher that was released in paperback on the 11th of July. As of now, Don’t Tell Teacher is available in all reading formats apart from hardback, you can check out the full details here.

For Lizzie Riley, switching her eight-year-old son Tom to the local academy school marks a fresh start, post-divorce. With its excellent reputation and outstanding results, Lizzie knows it’ll be a safe space away from home.

But there’s something strange happening at school. Parents are forbidden from entering the grounds and inside, there are bars across the classroom windows.

Why is Tom coming home exhausted, unable to remember anything about his day? What are the strange marks on his arm? And when Lizzie tries to question the other children, why do they seem afraid to talk?

Tom’s new school might seem picture-perfect. But sometimes appearances can be deceiving…

Don’t Tell Teacher is a thriller that I would characterize as a slow burner with a great concept entwined within the depths of an unsettling dialogue. I thought that the whole novel was really well written and planned out, but for me the last half of the book was more fast pace and suspense filled than the first half – which is 100% okay because the first half was more focused on character and scene development. I am glad that I stuck with it because I did find myself constantly thinking about where the storyline was going to go and when I did pick it up, I was gripped.

The way in which Don’t Tell Teacher is written, is with the use of multiple points of view – this is always a great tool, especially with thrillers as it provides a bigger picture of what is going on, as well as allows us as readers to drop the puzzle pieces into place in unison with the storyline. Once or twice I found myself, only slightly, confused at the context of the POV – dated chapters would have helped, although this may just have been me.

The concept of the storyline was based on how Lizzie’s son Tom was going to school and coming home hurt, changed and exhausted – Lizzie didn’t have a clue what was going on and the staff were just non – cooperative. *creepy bared school alert* I love a good bit of detail, but when it came to the school, I felt that there was more thickness of detail there than was needed while being quite sparse else where, like family relationships etc.

Overall, the book whiplash I received from this book left me stunned – although I questioned sticking with the read, I am so glad that I did. This is possibly due to my own personal bookish tastes, as I’ve said, in this case I believe the slow burning beginning was particularly necessary before it begun snowballing into unsettling territory. A past narrative is at times also introduced. This allowed the darkness the story resolves around to sneakily creep in. In spite of this particular read not being for me, I would definitely read Suzy’s work again, as well as recommend it.

Thanks again to HQ Stories for the opportunity to be on the blog tour and for the copy of Don’t Tell Teacher to read in preparation.

Happy reading!