I Know Who You Are: A Novel Hardcover – April 23, 2019

One would need a high tolerance for depravity to enjoy this novel. Not a typical suspense thriller. I stopped when the pet was dinner.

This book was fair right through to nearly the end,where the author drops a really sick bombshell. Yuk. Not ever reading her again!

Seriously WTF?? This book was utterly ridiculous and unbelievable. To say I am DISAPPOINTED in this book is an understatement. I loved Alice Feeney's "Sometimes I lie" so I was anxious to get my hands on this book. Not only did I have a hard time actually getting into the book, but I also put it down several times. Now I wish I would have left it down! It's criminal to ask anyone to pay to read this book. I'll leave it at that!

Aimee Sinclair is married to Ben Bailey. But, that's not her real name & Ben isn't who he claims to be, either.Aimee is an actress. For her, it's not about attracting attention or wanting to be seen. She does it because she doesn't know how to do anything else & because it's the only thing that makes her happy.Her first film role changed her life. Ben resented her success. It took her away from him. He believes she is having an affair with her co-star. His jealousy climaxed. Her patience expired. It was the perfect marital storm. Then, Ben disappears; without his wallet, phone, keys, shoes & coat. Aimee reports him missing. If he was going to leave her, why didn't he take his things with him? Everything he owns is still at their house. That's strange!When Aimee was born, her mother died. She was raised by her father who was sad & angry most of the time. Her real name was Ciara. She had a brother who was 9 years older. She was extremely shy, when she was a child. And, even now, she doesn't like to answer personal questions about her family.Something very bad happened, when Ciara was 6. She was kidnapped by a lady who called herself Maggie O'Neill. Maggie tells Ciara that her new name is Aimee & from now on, she is to call her Mum. And, although she was really born in September, they will celebrate her birthday in April. Maggie & John raise "Aimee" as their own, until a traumatic incident separates them & she is sent to live with foster families. But, what happened to the real Aimee - the girl Ciara replaced???!!!Aimee has a stalker. It started a couple of years ago, not long after she & Ben met. It started with emails. But, then the woman personally delivered a series of handwritten cards. The stalker always wrote the same thing - "I know who you are." But, when the police check the IP address, they discover they're coming from her own laptop. Which is cRaZy. Why would she send herself emails???!!!Things are not adding up & initially the police think she did away with her husband. But, the police quickly learn that someone has gone to alot of trouble to set her up. Why would someone go to such lengths to do this to her? Whoever it is, is still out there.This is a conplex, dark & twisted tale. You don't know who to trust. When you discover WHO is determined to frame her & ruin her, it all makes perfect sense. But, I think, you'll be shocked to learn WHO it is.

"Sometimes it only takes one person to believe in you to change your life forever. Sometimes it only takes one person not believing in you to destroy it. Humans are a highly sensitive species.".How would I describe this book? It's not even hard, my brain goes to one word: EW. The twist brought such an 'ew-factor'! In fact, the entire book was full of ew-factors. This won't make sense if you haven't read it yet, but I'll never be able to look at McDonald's Happy Meals or hamsters in the same way... *shudder*.I KNOW WHO YOU ARE is a very twisty psychological thriller. It is fast-paced and definitely keeps you wanting to read more. The issues, for me, were in the believability of it all, the prose, and the ending (which I won't spoil, but EW). I just had a difficult time believing the characters would actually do the things they did. (Like what was up with John Sinclair and all the polaroids... that never DEVELOPED into more) In addition, much of the writing was ramblings - ramblings in what seemed to be a subconscious state that added NOTHING to the plot. It felt like Feeney read a ton of John Green before writing this book and decided to wax poetic while also being psychologically trippy..I really enjoyed SOMETIMES I LIE, but this one missed the mark for me. Just too much 'yak'-factor, plot holes, and irrelevant pages of text. I'd recommend reading other thrillers before this one...

Disappointing. I loved Feeney's first novel and was eagerly awaiting her second. Wished I had saved my money. Never felt invested in any of the characters and plodded my way to the end hoping for the novel to draw me in. Never happened. Not enough character development. Action occurs quickly before the reader can develop an investment in Aimee. Confused about a lot of things that I feel the writer should have included. Kept asking myself Why did that happen? Why did Aimee do that? Or why didn't Aimee do that? Gaps that should have been filled but never were. Ending was almost silly. No real believable context for why all of this happened or how the "killer" knew or could carry out such a complicated plot. Also no comeuppance for Aimee? Must be some terrible detectives in England and Ireland. A let down.

Having read Alice Feeney's initial book, 'Sometimes I Lie', and thought that it was a pretty decent first offering, I proceeded with the second; what a let down! The book is the equivalent of a second rate 'B movie' and I don't think I have ever come across so many distracting metaphors, the book drowns in them! Do look out for an awful 're-working' of the Oscar Wilde quote 'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars'.The writing is inconsistent, it is good in places but overall quite clunky, the build up is long, the ending is ridiculous and overworked; it's a pastiche of many familiar movie endings. There is a fairly obvious and clumsy clue to the identity of the 'bad guy' well before the end.A book is an investment in time and to be 'rewarded' with such a poor ending is very disappointing; to include a metaphor, this author's stock has definitely fallen!I do think that this author may have potential, but in my view this book does not showcase her talents.Conclusion - don't waste your time or money.Note to the author - pare it down, sometimes less is more.

How did this get good reviews? From the way it was written to the unbelievably silly plot it is really bad. It is billed as a page turner with a twist, sadly not. Badly written with unbelievable characters. The whole story line is lacking in any kind of authenticity The end is ridiculous.

WOW Finally finished this book last night; it's taken ages. Wanted to toss it aside and forget about it several times. It's the most annoying, contrived and stupid story, I've read in years. There are plot holes galore: information missing or doesn't add up, and meanders all over the place. Disliked every one of the characters; nothing to make me feel good about them or the story. The plot/story was convoluted throughout, and very difficult to follow or make sense of. The writing’s not bad in terms of grammar, punctuation or spelling etc. but is nothing special. The 'who done it' bored me to tears. I'd have to say finally, that it should come with a **Severe WARNING**, as it contains sibling Incest, Child Abuse and Transvestism. It made me feel sick when Incest reared its ugly head – without warning - almost at the end of the book. This story thrusts sexual deviance in your face in a sneaky, awful way. And not only Incest and Child Abuse but Transvestism; which was creepy, unreal and confusing as heck. Had I known it contained either of the three, I'd never have bought it. I have to assume they were in the story just to SHOCK the reader. Well I'm shocked, OK. And for that reason I'll give it 1* as it's hard to write a book, even a trashy one like this. I wouldn't recommend it. I'll never read another book by this Author.

I enjoyed Alice Feeney's first book, 'Sometimes I Lie' massively, so I was thrilled to get to read an advance copy of this book, via the Pigeonhole, with installments delivered to me every day for the past 10 days.The first 70% of the book absolutely lived up to expectations, with the author's fast, pacey storytelling drawing you in to a very dark story indeed. The heartbreaking circumstances around young Aimee growing up were riveting. Without spoiling anything for future readers there was some truly gruesome stuff in there.Unfortunately, as the book drew to a close I was finding it harder to believe what was happening, with some characters more like a parody than real people eg the detective and the journalist. It spoiled my enjoyment of the book a little as it seemed a perfect storm of too many characters with something against the main protagonist, with events unfolding in a way that I could not quite get behind.That said, if you are a fan of the genre of thrillers with unusual twist, I'm sure you will enjoy it. It's probably a great easy holiday read - had I had the book in it's entirety I would probably have finished this in a day (and therefore been a bit less judgemental) as the author writes so well. All in all, it was always going to be so hard to top 'Sometimes I lie' - she almost did it (but not quite for me).

Mid-list actress and thirty-six-year-old, Aimee Sinclair, returns to her Notting Hill home to discover her journalist husband of two years, Ben Bailey, nowhere to be found and his mobile, wallet and car keys lying on the living room table following a brutal argument the previous night. As drama queen Aimee makes clear in the opening paragraphs, “lying is what I do for a living” and she is best at “becoming someone else”, marking her out as yet another unreliable narrator. Added to that she also drinks and was wrongly diagnosed with transient amnesia as a child, a fact that is still on her medical history. When the police immediately suspect Aimee after she initially fails to disclose the previous nights bust up, she tells of the stalker who has been plaguing her life and delivering menacing missives, each inscribed with the chilling words, ‘I Know Who You Are’. Could her stalker be behind Ben’s disappearance? When Aimee and supercilious investigator, DI Alex Croft, discover the withdrawal of the sizeable balance of the couples joint account it makes Aimee realise that the truth is far more complex and has the potential to wreak havoc in her life. Is Aimee being gaslighted and framed by her controlling husband who never wanted her to act, or is there a third party behind the scenes plotting the actresses downfall?Whilst Aimee continues to film her latest screen effort, entitled ‘Sometimes I Kill’ with hunky co-star, Jack Anderson, amid sniping actresses, a global agent and over zealous journalists alike, her own investigative efforts plod along and fail to really engage or build much momentum. For the most part her narrative feels heavily padded and meanders along without making any serious inroads until significantly further into the story making it feel rather insubstantial. Needless to say, I failed to connect with Aimee or have much sympathy for her self-obsessed and overwrought narrative. As she lays out her anxieties and makes clear the masks she wears to hide her real self from the world, the readers initial sympathy quickly wanes and it is the compelling and moving parallel narrative, charting the life of five-year-old Clara, born to an impoverished family in Galway in 1997 that kept me reading.Distraught following her father’s insistence that her mothers death in childbirth is Clara’s fault she runs away and falls prey to an unstable and pretty sinister woman called Maggie, who transplants her to life in Essex as a ready-made replacement for the daughter her and bookmaker, John Sinclair, lost. Coming to terms with her new domestic situation, Ciara’s plight is shown in flashbacks through the eyes of a child, making clear her harrowing ordeal at the mercy of two undesirable individuals. There is never any secret made of that fact that kidnapped Ciara went on to become Aimee and how is came about see’s Alice Feeney take readers on a wild ride!The story broaches some pretty grim topics and contains a number of potential topics that some readers will find unpalatable, however, Aimee’s present day narrative is heavy on the melodrama and make the novel all too far-fetched and incredible to ever really take it all too seriously! Likewise the denouement is utterly impossible to swallow and proves a real bum note to a mildly entertaining story. It is the past narrative and the back story of Aimee as young Ciara that impresses and part of the reason why Alice Feeney’s sensationalist thriller feels so uneven is the difference in calibre of the writing and well crafted characters in the two individual narratives. Whilst there is twist upon twist which all ratchets up the tension ahead of an explosive finale and the pace accelerates, I had guessed the final reveal well ahead of time and when it came to be it was so glaring unbelievable that I had to laugh!Dark and very twisted with a questionable conclusion, but the hollow present day narrative devalues the entire novel. Although objectively the storyline should be a masterclass in keeping the reader guessing and tying up every loose end, it failed to convince me.