Posted by Hello, my fellow friends readers and bloggers!
It’s a bright sunny day here and I hope you are having a great time. Today I have the pleasure to take part in Joanne Sefton’s blog tour for her gripping thriller, IF THEY KNEW. It was published exactly on my birthday, September 3rd 2018. Today I have an exclusive extract just for you. Many thanks to lovely Sabah and the amazing team at Avon for the chance to be part of this blog tour.
Don’t forget to visit all the other stops of this amazing blog tour! Enjoy!
I know who you are.
I’ve come to pay you back.
Nobody in Barbara Marsden’s family knows about her past, least of all her daughter Helen. When she is diagnosed with cancer, her secrets are no longer safe. Someone wants the truth to come out.
Desperate to keep her mother safe Helen will stop at nothing to uncover the truth of her past, but the consequences might hurt her own fractured family and put Barbara at risk…
What really happened all those years ago? And who is going to end up paying the price?
A gripping family drama where love and betrayal go hand in hand, perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Kerry Fisher and Adele Parks.
#Excusive Extract
When they got back, Barbara’s delight seemed out of proportion to the gift.
‘That was so thoughtful of you, Helen. You’ve really cheered me up.’
‘And I’ve called work – the kids and I will stay until after the operation. No arguments. Getting you through this is the most important thing at the moment.’
The glisten on Barbara’s eyes was as close as Helen had ever seen her to tears, and the thought of it almost made her well up herself. This Barbara was so different from the Barbara of last night, so hostile and cold over a stupid thing like that card. But then her mum always had been a conundrum. You never knew what you were going to get with her. That way you didn’t get too close.
She had plenty of practical issues to worry about, what with trying to hand work stuff over remotely and making a list of the things she’d need to buy for the kids, but still, somehow, Helen found the image of the green envelope was bothering her. She tried to blame it on tiredness, or perhaps her brain was looking for some sort of distraction from the hideous news at the hospital. But what could it be and why would Barbara lie about it? She kept drifting back to those questions.
Much later, when everyone else was in bed, Helen decamped to the back room to reply to some work emails and stuck on the TV for a bit of background noise. It was only when she finished and went to switch the TV off that she noticed the slim edge of green pushed to the bottom of a pile of papers on the sideboard.
She slid the top section of the pile aside and, sure enough, the green line turned out to be the edge of the small envelope that she’d seen on the doormat. The front simply said ‘Barbara’, written in a nondescript hand with, as she’d thought, black felt tip. The letter looked as though it had never been sealed, and the paper, cheap and green, matching the envelope, slid out easily.