“Bad ideas are sometimes necessary.” It sounds so much like an excuse, it’s such an addict thing to say, that it makes my skin crawl.”

Sophie counts the days, the weeks, the months that she’s been drug-free. Not your average image of a drug addict Sophie is a young woman who fell into an addiction for painkillers. Four months ago her best friend Mina was murdered, people say it was adrug deal gone wrong. Sophie knows the truth. There was no drug deal and there was no accident, Mina was murdered and she has to get people to believe her before the killer comes for her next.

All hail Tess Sharpe. I have to say that after reading this novel I was absolutely hooked, I wanted to read it about five times over because it had just been so magnificently written. Who can be believed, who can be trusted? No one knows in this gritty thriller novel if you loved Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls then you’ll adore Far From You. I’ve been thrusting copies into my friends hands since I read it because each chapter takes you somewhere you didn’t think it would.

Sophie and Mina are really interesting characters and the meaning of best friends. When Mina is murdered and Sophie wakes up next to her body, only knowing this is where Mina needed to be she knows that she’s in trouble. After she passes out again the police find drugs in her pocket. No one will listen to her not her parents, not the police, not anyone and if no one is going to help she’s going to have to follow Mina’s clues herself and hopefully Mina’s killer.

I love a thriller with decent twists and turns that no one can see coming, I cannot ruin it but the ending is something else that, out of everyone I’ve spoken to, no one can see coming. I did have some small worries about getting stuck into this book and the character of Sophie mainly because I didn’t want her portrayed badly because in the first few pages I really did fall in love with her and completely understand what she was going through.

There are also some very interesting relationships as you go through the novel, there are very little clues that I can give without unraveling the plot but just as you think, ok I know what’s going on here Sharpe throws another curveball and you’re back where you started and eager for more. I stayed up a lot later than I should have reading this book and can 100% say that I didn’t regret it.

It’s no surprise that I’m giving Far From You 5 stars *****. Tess Sharpe is a fantastic writer and after finding out that this is also a debut I was even more excited to see what she has coming next. A breathtaking and fast paced read that any thriller fan will love, although one word of advice don’t start reading it when you have something important to do the next day because staying up all night reading is highly likely.

Review by Chloe Metzger