Hello! Today I’m pleased to welcome you to JuliaPalooza for my stop on the Blog Tour for Flowers for the Dead by Barbara Copperthwaite, which is available now:
Amazon | Apple | Kobo | Google | Goodreads
Check out the synopsis below, then read on for an intriguing extract…
About the book
He sees her. The one. The sunglasses don’t fool anyone, she is clearly upset, her nose and lips swollen from crying. They are two lost souls and he knows his love can help her. After all, she is not the first girl he has followed home…
Adam is the perfect boyfriend. He pays attention, he buys flowers. He knows everything about Laura and looks after her every need. He cooks, he cleans – he even does the dishes without being asked.
But Laura has never met Adam. Still grieving after a devastating car crash that killed her family, she’s forgetful and struggling to pull her life together. She’d be horrified to know the depth of this unsettling fantasy in which she is the star. But there’s no denying the chill she feels every time she finds another elaborate bouquet on her doorstep, or wakes in the night sensing she is not alone.
Adam has been watching her every move, and now it’s time to act. Except, there’s one little detail he’s missed: Laura has been watching him too.
After everything she’s been through, Laura’s ready to fight back and stop being the victim in her own life story. But in Adam’s world, there are no happy endings…
An unputdownable thriller guaranteed to have you sleeping with the light on and questioning everything you think you know about serial-killer thrillers! Perfect for fans of You by Caroline Kepnes, My Lovely Wife by Samantha Dowling and The One by John Marrs.
CHAPTER ONE
Daffodils: Unrequited Love
February 2014
Breathing, feet and bassline pound together as one as Julie reaches the end of the cul-de-sac and jogs onto the scrubland. The music is already loud but ‘Lost & Not Found’ is her favourite Chase & Status tune, so she fumbles for the volume and pushes it up further, even as she urges her legs to go faster, making her jet-black ponytail bob up and down like crazy.
Running is the one thing she can always rely on to relax and invigorate her, although over the last few months she has completely abandoned it. She has needed all her energy to hold onto her sanity instead. This is her first day back running, and although she doesn’t want to push herself too hard she finds the sense of freedom exhilarating.
It has been a couple of weeks now since anything weird has happened, so clearly the antidepressants are working. Things hadn’t been the same ever since Julie had been under threat of redundancy at work. The stress of it all had really affected her. She had been tense, angry and forgetful, walking into a room to do the ironing to find it had already been done, but having no memory of it; discovering she had already bought more milk when she would have sworn she had run out. Little things, but they had got to her.
The final straw had come when she had started crying on the train home after a particularly hard day in the office. No, not crying; that implied a few scattered tears she might have been able to hide behind her long hair extensions. This had been a full-on sob-fest, complete with runny nose, which she had been helpless to stop. Mortifying. The worst thing had been her fellow commuters staring resolutely anywhere but at her, praying silently that she would pull herself together.
The good thing about hitting rock bottom was that it had forced Julie to seek help. She had immediately been signed off work for a month, given medication and put on the waiting list for counselling. At her GP’s suggestion she had also gone away on an impromptu holiday, booking it on a whim late one night and jetting off first thing the very next morning for a fortnight on the Greek island of Kos.
There was a slight setback when she had come home yesterday to a load of nettles some idiot had dumped on her porch. Hysteria had bubbled beneath the surface for a moment, as flowers and plants had been a big theme of her forgetfulness for some odd reason. Just as the doctor had taught her, though, she had slowed her breathing, concentrating on it hard until the irrational fear passed.
It had been her doctor’s idea that she start running again, too – one of his best. Now, she allows herself to be lost in the pounding music, to free her body to move in time with the beat. This area of scrubland is full of hummocks and holes hidden beneath the long grass, so she has to take care as she runs, watching where she puts her feet. She doesn’t have to concentrate too hard though, knowing them almost off by heart, and she can’t help smiling; she feels lighter than she has in weeks. Already there is a glow of sweat on her dark skin…”
If you’re intrigued, you can grab a copy of Barbara Copperthwaite’s Flowers for the Dead here: Amazon | Apple | Kobo | Google | Goodreads
About the author
Barbara is the Amazon and USA Today bestselling author of psychological thrillers INVISIBLE, FLOWERS FOR THE DEAD, THE DARKEST LIES, and HER LAST SECRET. More importantly, she loves cakes, wildlife photography and, last but definitely not least, her two dogs, Scamp and Buddy (who force her to throw tennis balls for them for hours).
Having spent over twenty years as a national newspaper and magazine journalist, Barbara has interviewed the real victims of crime – and also those who have carried those crimes out. She is fascinated by creating realistic, complex characters, and taking them apart before the readers’ eyes in order to discover just how much it takes to push a person over a line. When not writing feverishly, she is often found hiding behind a camera, taking wildlife photographs. Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Website
About the Blog Tour
Please check out the rest of the great blog posts on the tour for Flowers for the Dead:
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