BLOG TOUR: The Fear by C.L. Taylor

THE

FEAR

c.l. Taylor

The million copy Sunday Times bestseller returns with a taut, compelling psychological thriller that will have you glued to the edge of your seat.

Sometimes your first love won’t let you go…

Lou Wandsworth is used to being headline news as, aged fourteen, she ran away to France with her 31-year-old teacher, Mike Hughes.

Now 32, Lou’s life is in tatters – and she resolves to return home to confront Mike for the damage he has caused. But she soon finds that Mike is unchanged, and is focussing his attention on 13-year-old Chloe Meadows.

Determined to make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself, Lou decides to take matters into her own hands. But Mike is a predator of the worst kind, and as she tries to bring him to justice, it’s clear that Lou could once again become his prey…

About the author: C.L. Taylor lives in Bristol with her partner and son. She started writing fiction in 2005 and her short stories have won several awards and have been published by a variety of literary and women’s magazines.

In 2014, The Bookseller named C.L. Taylor as one of the year’s Bestselling Adult Fiction Debut Authors for The Accident. The Lie and The Missing were Sunday Times top 10 bestsellers in paperback, and both books hit the #1 spot on the Kindle bestseller list. She has sold 1 million books to date.

Praise for C.L. Taylor

‘A gripping, disturbing read’

HELLO MAGAZINE

‘An enjoyable rollercoaster of a suspense novel with multiple twists’

DAILY MAIL

‘A terrific page-turner’

WOMAN & HOME

‘C.L. Taylor is my go-to author for psychological thrillers with heart and soul. Another storming page-turner from one of the UK's brightest talents.’

MARK EDWARDS

‘Grabs you by the metaphorical throat right from the start and doesn’t let up until the end.’

HEAT MAGAZINE

‘[A] headlong psychological thriller…the tension is well-sustained.’

SUNDAY TIMES

‘The Fear is a compulsive read, that forces the reader to consider just how far they would go to protect themselves and those around them. I could not put this book down!’

EMMA KAVANAGH

Dark and disturbing: this is a book I will remember for a long time.’

RACHEL ABBOTT

‘Fans of C.L. Taylor are in for a treat. The Fear is her best yet.’

CLARE MACKINTOSH

‘Absorbing and disturbing.’

ALEX MARWOOD

'C.L. Taylor is a class act and The Escape is gem of a book.'

SIMON TOYNE

‘C.L. Taylor draws her characters with precision and locks their fates together with incredible skill’

JEREMY VINE

Extract

    Chloe looks at her phone. 7.45 p.m. and she’s only got 17% battery life left. Where is Mike? It’s been over an hour since she called him to pick her up. He said he’d be straight there. So where is he? He knows she’s too scared to go home and face her dad. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him about the weird woman who stopped her on her way to school and called him a paedophile. He’d sounded angry then. Was that a mistake? Mike always told her that they shouldn’t have secrets from each other.

    She shivers, despite her blazer, and runs her hands up and down her arms. The sun is still in the sky, hovering above the houses on the other side of the park, but the light and heat are fading. Other than Chloe, there’s just one lone dog walker doing loops with his terrier. If Mike turns up now he’ll have to park down the street because the gate to the car park has been lowered. Maybe there’s been an emergency. Or a delivery he forgot about. Or maybe he doesn’t care. Doubt gnaws at Chloe’s heart. She wants to believe that he loves her, but there are some days, like today, when she struggles. She’s thirteen years old. She’s not good-looking and she’d rather die than wear a swimming costume in public. None of the boys at school fancy her. She’s not clever. She’s not funny and she can’t do banter. Mike told her it was her ‘sweetness of spirit’ that made him fall in love with her, whatever that means. He’s said a lot of nice things to her over the last couple of months. She’s had more compliments than she’s had her entire life.

Claire's Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Fear is a gripping, emotional, psychological thriller. As a teenager, Lou ran away with her karate teacher Mike, and not surprisingly it didn't work out as there was a lot more to Mike than meets the eye. Fast forward to the present and Lou discovers that Mike is grooming thirteen-year-old Chloe and Lou is determined to stop him.

Wow, this book was hard to put down, yet hard to read at the same time. Being the mother of a girl very close in age to Chloe really made this story harder for me. The writing style is wonderful, and really brings out all the feelings for the reader.

A highly recommended read.