Sarah Reviews… Somebody’s Daughter by Carol Wyer

Good morning! It’s so nearly the weekend and I’m bringing you my Somebody’s Daughter review. This review is coming a few weeks later than I would have liked as Somebody’s Daughter was released near the beginning of July, but slightly late is better than never so today I’m going talk to you about the latest in the Detective Natalie Ward series by Carol Wyer

Title: Somebody’s Daughter

Author: Carol Wyer

Publisher: Bookouture

Publication Date: 9^th July 2020

Format: eARC

This book was received from the publisher in return for an honest review

About The Book…

One by one the girls disappeared…

When the frail body of a teenage girl is discovered strangled in a parking lot, shards of ice form in Detective Natalie Ward’s veins. As Natalie looks at the freckles scattered on her cheeks and the pale pink lips tinged with blue, she remembers that this innocent girl is somebody’s daughter…

The girl is identified as missing teenager Amelia Saunders, who has run away from home and her controlling father. Natalie’s heart sinks further when it becomes clear that Amelia has been working on the streets, manipulated by her violent new boyfriend Tommy.

A day later, another vulnerable girl is found strangled on a park bench. Like Amelia, Katie Bray was a runaway with connections to Tommy, and Natalie is determined to find him and track down the monster attacking these scared and lonely girls.

But when a wealthy young woman is found murdered the next morning, the word ‘guilty’ scrawled on her forehead, Natalie realises that the case is more complex than she first thought. Determined to establish a connection between her three victims, Natalie wastes no time in chasing down the evidence, tracing everyone who crossed their paths. Then, a key suspect’s body turns up in the canal, a mole in Natalie’s department leaks vital information and everything seems to be against her. Can Natalie stop this clever and manipulative killer before they strike again?

What I Thought…

When a young girl runs away from home and a second girl is found dead in a car park Natalie Ward’s brand new crime unit finds itself facing its first case. Now Natalie is a DCI it’s not her running the case, it’s up to her new DI Lucy…

As ever Carol’s writing is absolutely gripping. You can’t help but be drawn into the investigation, trying to spot clues and figure out who the murderer is ahead of the team. Carol has never really shied away from the darker aspects of crime in her books, from young missing children, to mothers being killed in front of their babies but for some reason I found this book the hardest to read. Not in the sense it was a bad book by any stretch of the imagination but I felt the victim’s stories, the lives that they were living really affected me for the first time. I’ve always felt a lot of empathy for the victims in Carol’s past books but quite often the victims themselves haven’t really been living bad lives, they’ve been happy in life up until the point it’s been dramatically ended. But in this story there are a few characters that I really couldn’t help but empathise with, it was so sad that they had ended up living the lives that they were.

Now how to talk about Natalie without giving away any spoilers… Natalie is now heading up a shiny new serious crime unit which does mean with her promotion to DCI she is not as actively involved in the investigation. She is no longer the one making the day to day decisions about which leads to follow and what steps to take next. I’ll be honest I think I was struggling to get used to it as much as Natalie was herself! Luckily for me Natalie is still very involved in the case offering support to her brand DI especially as the body count increases and the media start circling along with Superintendent Tasker. I have to be honest though it’s the personal aspects of Natalie’s development in this book that really intrigued me and I’m not sure really how much I can say without giving things away! It was really interesting to read in detail about what happened between Natalie and her sister all those years ago, it’s something I’ve been wondering about ever since we discovered in the earlier books that something had happened leading to them no longer talking so it was really interesting to finally understand what was behind all of that. I’m also intrigued to discover more about what’s going on with David…

I thought it was really interesting to see Lucy step up into her new role, dealing with being the one that makes the decisions but also the different dynamic of the team. I hope that Lucy and Murray’s friendship will manage to overcome the fact that she was given the promotion over him, there were a couple of moments where I was a little disappointed with some of his feelings but at the same time I can almost understand where they are coming from.

As this is likely to be my last Natalie Ward review for a while I can’t let it pass without mentioning Mike, I’m still so firmly on Team Mike! I pleased their relationship is still going well, and I hope her relationship with Thea continues to get stronger, although I appreciate it must be difficult with everything that happened with her daughter still so raw! Natalie deserves some good in her life though so I hope they manage to make it work long term!

Final Thoughts…

I’m not sure if or when we’ll get more in the Natalie Ward series, I hope that one day we will, if not Carol I have some questions I need you to answer! What I will say is that the Natalie Ward series has been an absolute joy to read from The Birthday through to Somebody’s Daughter. Each of the seven books has captured my imagination and I’ve loved following Natalie’s journey. I hope this isn’t the very end but in the meantime I’m looking forward to meeting Carol’s latest detective in her new series next year!

The Detective Natalie Ward series on Goodreads

More Carol Wyer on SWB

About The Author…

Carol Wyer, is an award-winning author and stand up comedian who writes feel-good comedies and gripping thrillers. Her book, Grumpy Old Menopause won The People’s Book Prize Award for non-fiction 2015.

The DI Robyn Carter series has earned her acclaim as a crime writer and the first book in the series, Little Girl Lost, shot to the #2 best-selling spot on Kindle #9 best-selling audiobook on Audible, and was also a USA Today top 150 best-seller.

Carol has been interviewed on numerous radio shows discussing ”Irritable Male Syndrome’ and ‘Ageing Disgracefully’ and on BBC Breakfast television. She has had articles published in national magazines ‘Woman’s Weekly’ featured in ‘Take A Break’, ‘Choice’, ‘Yours’ and ‘Woman’s Own’ magazines and the Huffington Post.

Carol is a signed author with Bookouture (part of the Hachette Group) Canelo and Delancey Press.