Blood Like Mine

IN A NUTSHELL
'Blood Like Mine' was a gripping story, cleverly told, that combined a serial killer narrative with a horror narrative and gave both a few twists while delivering an emotional story about the love between a mother and her daughter. It was a story that kept surprising me without making me feel that the narrative was doing gymnastics.

Blood Like Mine’ (2024) came as a complete surprise to me. I liked the cover and picked it up as something for my wife and I to listen to on a long car drive. It was so compelling that we kept listening to it after the drive was over. We were wrapped up in the people and we needed to know how the story ended.

I think this is a story that it’s best to go into blind, knowing only that it’s a show more powerful blend of crime thriller and horror novel, with a strong focus on the personalities of the people involved. The relationship between the fugitive mother and daughter is close, complex and convincing. The FBI man pursuing them is self-destructive and hard to like.

The plot uses familiar tropes from the serial killer and horror genres but makes them feel fresh by changing who I cheered for (HINT - it wasn’t the FBI guy). The plot didn’t go where I thought it would, even after I’d fully understood the situation that the mother and daughter were in. It kept me on the edge of my seat to the last page.

Perhaps what surprised me most about it was how engaged I became with the mother and daughter as I learned more about them and what they'd been through.

If you're looking for a genre read with a difference then I recommend listening to the audiobook of 'Blood Like Mine' narrated by Elizabeth Rodgers and Michael Braun. It will be ten hours well spent. show less

I find reading a Stuart Neville book both exciting, exhilarating, exasperating and frightening. His characters don’t appear to have an easy life, and this agony is laid bare on the printed page and I felt every word. I must also mention, at this stage, the dazzling DCI Serena Flanagan books, and Neville’s portrayal of life on the edge with Serena balancing home and work and not always successfully. However I hear you say, and quite rightly so, we are here to discuss and review the author’s latest work of angst: Blood like Mine. My goodness this is a 400 page work of some brilliance, as Stuart aptly and expertly balances a police thriller with horror undertones that becomes evident after a number of chapters.
Rebecca Carter and her show more daughter Monica, known as Moonflower, are on the run throughout the United States from what or whom gradually becomes clear. We learn that Rebecca will do anything to keep Moonflower safe including killing or sacrificing herself. Meanwhile special agent Marc Donner has spent the last 2 years trying to identify and apprehend a serial killer who strikes with regularity and leaves no trace or clues at the scene of the crime. Donner is a troubled soul, he has become obsessed with the apprehension of this individual to the detriment of the love of his wife and children.
This novel was never going to have a happy ending, as the two sets of players attempt to achieve their individual goals, the tension and the pain is written across every page. I truly found it hard to put this book down, Stuart Neville had me hooked from page one. I hoped that mother and daughter would be safe but as the chapters flew by I began to doubt. Donner, a cop with a mission, was on a self-destruct course and only he had the power to turn this around for surely the love of his wife and young children would prove more important…or would it?
If you are going to read one thriller spiced with horror this year I heartily recommend Blood Like Mine, It is a brilliant, addictive read from one of Northern Ireland’s finest authors. show less

Rebecca and her daughter Moonflower are on the run, because Rebecca is desperate to keep Moonflower alive, while an FBI agent is chasing a serial killer of child predators. Any ounce of genre savvy will tell you the situation. The most inexplicable thing to me was that the FBI agent was disbelieved and blamed for the resulting deaths, when he wasn’t even spouting X-Files theories, just identifying an obvious suspect. There could have been narrative fixes, but instead it just annoyed me.

I hadn't heard anything about this, but it's a great horror on the run tale. An inspiring mother-daughter relationship, and a monster trying to break thru the surface.

I was really excited to read this book and I think it met my expectations. I thought the storyline was interesting and I found myself wondering how it would all end up. I’m surprised it’s going to be a trilogy as I’m not sure where you would go with these books but I’m interested to see. The writing was done well and I was definitely hooked. Overall it was a good read.