wordsofclover's Reviews (2.16k)

We are back for another, and final, Aisling book and retuning to New York where Aisling has just answered her door to an unlikely guest. This book sees Aisling mke some big decisions about her future, and as always support her friends as they go through their own milestones.

I was skeptic about this book as I was really unhappy about the return of that character in the last book - I hadn't enjoyed the storyline of them getting back in touch and it borderline felt like emotional cheating. It's very obvious what decisions Aisling is going to make and yes, it was hard to see her leave NYC behind for a return to BGB. Now Aisling is Aisling - she was never going to live in New York for the rest of her life but I would have liked to have seen her make a bit more of a go of it, and stay a bit longer.

In saying all of that, there is something about all of these characters from Aisling, John, mammy, Majella, Sadhb and even Una Hatton that is so lovely and heartwarming and I loved when Aisling back in the heart of things while still being able to balance her corporate life in Dublin. I was worried about what would happen with the relationship because surely it's been tried and failed (twice) before but the character growth and maturity was really there this time and it did feel like a new start for them, and in many ways it was a new John and for the first time ever, I actually liked him!

The pregnancy storyline has Majella gets another big blowout bash for her baby shower and Aisling's own struggles with her own journey really hit me this time - the miscarriage section of the book was done really well, not holding anything back or brushing it under the rug but showing the gory side without being too much, the pain and the grief for both man and woman.

I feel sad leaving this gang behind as I enjoy reading about everything going on in BGB!

In this gripping thriller, we follow the lives of several people who were high profile criminals - convicted of horrific crimes as children or teens - and now after serving their sentence, are living as free people again under new names and the watchful eye of the strained probation services. But someone is leaking information to the victims’ families and one by one, the criminals are being hunted down and made to pay for their crimes. 

 

This was a very good audiobook listen - it’s very dark at times with some descriptions of horrible past crimes towards vulnerable people, as well as current depictions of violence or other bad behavior that is stomach-turning. However, I thought this book was really good at posing the question of what does justice really mean, especially for people who lost loved ones and feel the perpetrators got away too easily. It also highlights the incredible train that probation services are under trying to look after these people, who often make that job very hard, and how men and women are put in unsafe situations during a duty of care and potentially not treated very well by there employers if something goes wrong. Not to mention that for so many young criminals, failure of care in the home (and the failure of government authorities to step in ) is such a big factor into why they turn to crime or violence in the first place. 

 

I enjoyed this and I did like the inclusion of Emily (and potentially Courtney?) as an example of a person who really has changed their life around and out of all the criminals we read from, deserved that chance the most. 

 

One of my only gripes with this book is that I definitely think it was too long, gripping as it was things did begin to wane for a me a little bit near the end and I was ready for the story to hurry up and get to the conclusion.