Blood Like Ours by Stuart Neville

 

Rebecca Carter wakes in a strange place to discover her daughter, Moonflower, is missing. Her only concern is to find her daughter before someone else does.

I believe Blood Like Ours by Stuart Neville is to be part of a trilogy. If you haven't read the first book in the series, Blood Like Mine (my spoiler-free review is here), I'd stop reading right now and rectify that. This really is a book where you need to know what happened previously, particularly as the action picks up almost immediately after the ending of the first book.

The aftermath of the first book has left an FBI agent dead, and Rebecca is not only separated from her daughter, but her worst fear has come true. Survival and finding Moonflower are the only concerns driving her. Miles away, Moonflower has found two brothers who sympathise with her plight and are willing to help her. All the while, the partner of the FBI agent who was killed is determined to track the mother and daughter down.

This is a book that is filled with moral ambiguity. What is essentially a battle between good and evil, we discover that there are spectrums within both camps. Rebecca is consumed by guilt for letting her daughter down and for the actions she is forced to take simply to survive. Likewise, FBI agent Sarah McGrath is struggling to come to terms with the death of her partner and is determined to punish the people responsible. It is impossible not to feel sympathy for both women.

For Moonflower, lost and alone, there is a ray of hope when she encounters brothers Jacob and Will. The pair understands her plight and offer her a place of sanctuary. You can understand Moonflower's hesitation. Her mother has spent years telling her never to trust anyone, and suddenly she finds two people, and possibly more, who understand her.

The action is non-stop as all three threads converge, leading to a cataclysmic showdown. The only questions are who to trust and who will survive?

Blood Like Ours by Stuart Neville will be published on 28th August 2025 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for a review copy.

Author Details

Stuart Neville's debut novel, The Twelve (published in the USA as The Ghosts of Belfast), won the Mystery/Thriller category of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was picked as one of the top crime novels of 2009 by both the New York Times and the LA Times. He has since published ten more critically acclaimed books, two of which were under the pen name Haylen Beck, and a collection of short stories. He has been shortlisted for several awards, including the MWA Edgar Award for Best Novel, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, the Barry, Macavity, and Dilys awards, and the Irish Book Awards Crime Novel of the Year.