Review ~ Blog Tour ~ Wilderness by B E Jones

It’s easy to die out there. It’s easy to kill too.

Two weeks, 1,500 miles, three opportunities for her husband to save his own life.
It isn’t about his survival – it’s about hers.
Shattered by the discovery of her husband’s affair, Liv knows they need to leave the chaos of New York to try to save their marriage. Maybe the roadtrip that they’d always planned, exploring America’s national parks, just the two of them, would help heal the wounds.
But what Liv hasn’t told her husband is that she has set him three challenges. Three opportunities to prove he’s really sorry and worthy of her forgiveness.
If he fails? Well, it’s dangerous out there. There are so many ways to die in the wilderness. And if it’s easy to die, then it’s easy to kill too.
If their marriage can’t survive, he can’t either.

Review

I would like to thank the author, publisher and blog tour organiser for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Having listened to the author take part in a panel last year at the Cardiff Book festival, I was excited to be given the opportunity to review one of her novels. Wilderness is a superb psychological thriller, with a deeply flawed lead character, pitch perfect storyline and tension that oozes off the pages as you read.

There were there reasons why I loved it so much, the story being the main one. From the point it started it read like a dream and given my rather frazzled mind at the moment that was very important.

The story is essentially about Liv whose husband has cheated on her, setting him the challenge of proving his worthiness to not only remain married to her, but stay alive. Now this seems quite straightforward, but the cleverness of the novel is the way B E Jones gives the story layers of detail and it becomes as much a story about Liv’s survival as it does Will’s. More than once the writer fooled me and took the storyline down a different ARC than I was expecting, an utter delight as I then found it impossible to put down.

She created the perfect setting to, from the dry almost alien landscape of the Grand Canyon, to the frantic tempo of New York. The changes in location, gave the novel an edginess and palatable sense of oppression. For example when set in the Grand Canyon, the heat and danger posed by the cliff edges, ramped up the threat to Will’s very survival.

Then there is the Liv herself, not a simple one dimensional women treated badly by her man, for she is so much more than this. Not for her the divorce courts, her mind so seemingly tortured by it own demons  making it almost impossible to simply walk away from Will. She has traits of a psychopath, her past is clouded with clues to her reactions and she is so complex you can’t shift her from your mind, for days after the book comes to an end. So complex that you can’t help but sympathise with her pain, yet paradoxically find her scary and yet utterly fascinating.

I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending this book and giving it a well  deserved five stars.

You can purchase this novel from Amazon UK, Amazon US, Waterstones

About the author

Beverley Jones was born in the Rhondda Valleys, South Wales, and started her ‘life of crime’ as a reporter on The Western Mail before moving into TV news with BBC Wales Today.
She covered all aspects of crime reporting before switching sides as a press officer for South Wales police, dealing with the media in criminal investigations, security operations and emergency planning.
Now a freelance writer she channels these experiences of ‘true crime,’ and the murkier side of human nature, into her dark, psychological thrillers set in and around South Wales.
Wilderness, her sixth crime novel follows the release of Halfway by Little Brown in 2018.
Bev’s previous releases, Where She Went, The Lies You Tell, Make Him Pay and Fear The Dark are also available from Little Brown as e books.

You can follow the author on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and her Website.