I was so thrilled to be offered the opportunity to participate in the blog tour for one of the fastest-rising talents in the thriller-writing world today! Jess Kitching just gets better and better, and her latest offering, Lucky Number 11, released this past weekend is sure to race up the bestseller charts.
Blurb:
When Hannah Allen was fourteen years old, she was abducted by an elusive serial killer, Peter Harris. Intended to be his eleventh victim, she was his only survivor.
Ten years later, therapy and friendship have helped Hannah overcome the trauma of her past.
But then a body is found. A body bearing eerily similar injuries to Peter’s victims, complete with the numerical brand he forced upon his captives.
Soon it becomes clear that somewhere, someone is continuing Peter’s work.
Somewhere, someone wants Hannah dead.
My Review:
Does one ever fully recover from a trauma as huge as the one that Hannah suffered? My guess would be ‘no’. But Hannah is determined that she is going to live her life as a Survivor, and not as a Victim. 10 years on from the event that changed her life forever, she’s now 24, living with a kind, caring boyfriend and working at a low-key job that she enjoys. Most of the people in her life now don’t even know what happened to her years ago, and she’s very happy to keep it that way.
Hannah is content with the unassuming life she’s created, far from the limelight she was previously in as the only survivor of a serial killer who had murdered 10 people before intending to make her his 11th victim. Her life has meaning and purpose through her work with the Sisterhood of Support group, where she’s become close to other women who have also been through traumatic and violent events.
But Hannah’s quiet life is brought to a grinding halt when a body is discovered showing clear signs that someone is using a very similar modus operandi to the one that brought life as she knew it to an end all those years ago. Everyone around her tries to reassure her that she’s safe, but as the body count rises, it becomes clear that the killer is moving closer and closer and that Hannah is their end-goal.
What a well-written, well-paced book! Jess Kitching takes a bunch of hard-hitting topics and deals with them all sensitively and tactfully: survivor guilt, jealousy, trauma, anger, helplessness, fear, depression and empowerment. She gives a human face to the much-maligned police force in the form of Conrad, who still carries around the guilt from all those years ago, when he was unable to catch the killer in time to save so many lives, and prevent Hannah from suffering what she did. It’s a reminder that cops are human too! They are not stoic blocks of concrete and become deeply affected by the cases they work on. They become part of the narrative of both victims and survivors and their lives are forever woven together.
I can’t wait to see what’s next from Jess Kitching. She’s currently one of the most exciting voices in the thriller genre and I highly recommend this book! Thank you to Kingsley Publishers for the early review copy.
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