Trust In Me by Luca Veste

 

Sara is a happily married mother of two children. Her hectic life revolves around her family and her job as a therapist. Her first session with a new client becomes a nightmare situation when the woman claims that along with her boyfriend, she murdered a man and hid the body. Every detail fits the secret Sara has been hiding for 18 years.

I found Trust In Me by Luca Veste to be an intriguing read. The opening pages hint at a huge secret, this then jumps to a family situation, a scene where there is obviously an undercurrent of tension. We very quickly learn that hidden away in the house is a dead body. The story then switches to days before the scene with the body and we learn about Sara Edwards and her day-to-day life.

Sara is a typical flustered working mother; she's the one that makes sure the family is fed, watered and packed off to school/work each morning before rushing off to work herself. Sara comes across as a little disorganised and always in a rush, however, it's obvious that she loves her family deeply and will always put them first.

The story becomes very intriguing when Sara accepts a new client, Ella. In the first session Ella is suffering from anxiety because of something she has done, a crime she has committed. Sara eventually persuades her client to tell her all the details. Ella then explains that when she was with her boyfriend they lay in wait for a young man and beat him to death then hid the body. As Sara listens she realises that the description fits with exactly what she did 18 years before.  Sara has kept this secret and wonders how a woman who is only about 25 years years old can know.

At the end of the consultation, Ella disappears. Recovering from a state of shock. Sara realises she has to track the young woman down to find out how she has discovered Sara's secret and what she wants. As Sara discovers that the details Ella has provided are fake you can feel her turmoil. She is torn between survival or finally admitting what she has done. Self-preservation for herself and her family is the overriding feeling.

I had a pretty good idea of who was responsible about a third of the way in, then changed my mind following some of the interactions. I then kept chopping and changing my mind the more I read; this indecisiveness continued for almost the rest of the book. 

By the end the story has come full-circle and the conclusion shows the formidable character Sara is when her family is threatened. We also learn how manipulative people can be to get what they want.

Trust In Me by Luca Veste will be published on 14th September 2023 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for a review copy.