Blog Tour: The Closer I Get by Paul Burston

Released: 11th July 2019

Publisher: Orenda 

Genre: Thriller

Blurb: 

Tom is a successful author, but he’s struggling to finish his novel. His main distraction is an online admirer, Evie, who simply won’t leave him alone. Evie is smart, well read and unstable; she lives with her father and her social-media friendships are not only her escape, but everything she has. When she’s hit with a restraining order, her world is turned upside down, and Tom is free to live his life again, to concentrate on writing. But things aren’t really adding up. For Tom is distracted but also addicted to his online relationships, and when they take a darker, more menacing turn, he feels powerless to change things. Because maybe he needs Evie more than he’s letting on. A compulsive, disturbingly relevant, twisty and powerful psychological thriller, The Closer I Get is also a searing commentary on the fragility and insincerity of online relationships, and the danger that can lurk just one ‘like’ away…

My Thoughts: 

If you follow my blog, you'll know that I love a psychological thriller. I also enjoy books that have anything to do with books (bookish settings, characters who have bookish jobs etc) and being an author and blogger as well, this premise just drew me in straight away. 

I liked the dual perspective, and the fact that both main characters seemed to have elements of the unreliable narrator about them. Both Tom and Evie have parts of their personalities that are unlikeable, but I was still compelled to keep reading regardless. I wanted to know what was going to happen, and anything that either of them did that was questionable just heightened the suspense of what was to come. 

There were twists throughout to keep me guessing, and while I wasn't fully thrown by all of them, that ending was so unnerving and unexpected for me. I was left with a real sense of unease and creepiness, and I thought that Paul Burston made some dark but realistic comments on the world that we live in. I can’t say much more than that - no spoilers - but suffice to say this is a gripping, tense novel that haunts you long after you put it down. 

Thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me to be on this tour as well as Orenda books for sending me a copy for review.