Joanne Haynes has a secret: that is not her real name. And there’s more. Her flat’s not hers. Her cats aren’t hers. Even her hair isn’t really hers. Nor is she any of the other women she pretends to be. Not the bestselling romance novelist who gets her morning snack from the doughnut van on the seafront. Nor the pregnant woman in the dental surgery. Nor the chemo patient in the supermarket for whom the cashier feels ever so sorry. They’re all just alibis. In fact, the only thing that’s real about Joanne is that nobody can know who she really is. But someone has got too close. It looks like her alibis have begun to run out….
The happiest of publication days to CJ Skuse for her newest thriller The Alibi Girl, which is published by HQ Stories and is available for all your reading needs TODAY, just in time to cancel weekend plans and binge. I’d like to thank  Joe Thomas and HarperCollins for sending me out a copy of this book out for the tour, as well as the opportunity to be on the tour. You can grab your own copy of this quality thriller here.
C.J. Skuse is the author of the Young Adult novels Pretty Little Things, 
Rockoholic and Dead Romantic and more. She has recently written the adult crime novels Sweetpea and its sequel for HQ/HarperCollins. C.J. was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England and has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels, lectures in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University.
Well, The Alibi Girl was my first taster into the works of CJ Skuse, can you believe that the book held be hostage, held firmly in a seat with the use of its wordy grasp. I wished not to be returned to the world outside of CJ Skuse’s words but inevitably, it happened, I was spat out from this intoxicating thriller involuntarily. I’m going to have to start by saying that I regret not reading any books by this author previously and that I plan to delve into the Sweetpea series real soon, I think a back to back reading session is needed.
Right, back to The Alibi Girl. If you’re in the market for a darkly plotted thriller with an essence of unreliability weaved in then this is going to be a read for you. We meet Joanne, who isn’t the person she says she is, she is quite the Miss Ripley of this novel with the personality characteristics that leave her creatively equipped for this life but she also possesses an underlying  tone of naivety and fragility. I, as the reader couldn’t help but get drawn into the entanglement of personas and wonder who the true face of our protagonist was – I loved that air of eerie mystery.  You just *know* that there is more to her story and oh don’t we love a thriller that flashes into the past? CJ Skuse uses the writer’s time machine to journey us to Joanne’s past, which both builds her true character up, as well as perfectly weaving together her past and present. Why is she flicking through characters? What is she hiding? The tension!
Although The Alibi Girl could be labelled as a slow burner, it’s one of those ones that you can’t help to get utterly consumed by, one with a tightly weaved plot that has a fine tuned level of complexity. This thriller was truly darkly delicious and I thoroughly enjoyed every single bite of it. The creepiness of a being watched factor had me on edge, even as a reader I had no clue who to trust, but I was hooked on the suspense and fully enjoyed the engaging storyline. This is a super difficult read to review and not spoil but it’s one for the thriller readers out there, remember if you’re going to read it, cancel those weekend plans!
Until next time,
Happy reading!
The Reading Closet 