Review - The Magpies by Mark Edwards

Flipping heck! Talk about being a nervous wreck!

Jamie and Kirsty are madly in love and looking forward to moving in together into their dream home where their future looks so promising, and their hopes and dreams to marry and start a family can come to fruition.   

When they meet the other residents of the flats, they all seem really nice and they strike up a friendship with Lucy and Chris, the couple in the basement who they get on particularly well with.

But things are not always as they seem, and when they start to find bizarre and horrific things happening to them and their friends, they seem to be the target of a horrific campaign which frightens the living daylights out of them(and me too!) . 

Should they give in and move out to get away or stay and try to survive this nasty, viscious attack and not let their neighbours get the better of them? 

The book started off really nicely following the life of Jamie and Kirsty as they move into their new flat and start their exciting new life together.  The first few things that happened made me wonder who it actually was that was doing them and whether they were just coincidences even.  My blood pressure and heart rate started to increase as the incidents got worse.

I started the book on Monday night around 10pm when I went to bed and at 1am I was still saying to myself "just one more chapter".  At around 1.15am when I dropped my IPad onto my lap as I was starting to doze, I realised it was probably time that I stopped reading!  I realised I'd done the right thing when I had to get up at 6.30am!   The following night I read only a couple of chapters because I was so shattered, but last night I just couldn't keep away!

OMG! My heart was pounding! I was totally and utterly transfixed by the terrible things that were happening to this lovely couple that I felt I knew so well and I found myself wanting to shout out at them to warn them of danger!  I could not, at any stage of the book, predict what would happen next.  Even to the last few pages I still had no clue whatsoever how this book was going to end.  When I read the last few lines, I heard a huge sigh of relief and then realised that it was mine!

I never thought you could ever get the same effect in a book that you would get in a film, but this book made me feel as scared as I did when I originally watched the amazing films Fatal Attraction and Jagged Edge and found the writing at least in the same class as the writing of these films if not better.  If I could have hidden behind a cushion and read at the same time, I would!  The heart-stopping moments that Mark wrote were purely brilliant.  It has also made me never, ever, to want to live in a flat!  Not in this lifetime! No way! I think this book has affected me for life.

I think that if any TV producers get the chance to read this book, they'll be ringing Mark up to buy the TV rights at least if not film! It would transfer SO well, although I'm not sure if my heart is strong enough!   If it only gets to stay as a book, then readers will get the chance to read a spectacularly gripping novel, full of intrigue, mystery, fear and suspense.

Mark Edwards is the No.1 bestselling author of CATCH YOUR DEATH and KILLING CUPID, co-written with Louise Voss. He lives in Wolverhampton, UK, with his young family and works as a freelance copywriter and marketer.

Find out more about Mark at www.vossandedwards.com  

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You can buy this book on Amazon UK