Anything For Her by G.J. Minett

Anything For Her by G.J. Minett
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A devilish psychological thriller from the widely loved GJ Minett, for fans of The Girl Before and Lie with Me.

You'd do anything for the one that got away . . . wouldn't you?

When Billy Orr returns home to spend time with his dying sister, he bumps into his ex-girlfriend Aimi, the love of his life. He might not have seen her in eleven years, but Billy's never forgotten her. He'd do anything for her then, and he'd do anything for her now.

When Aimi tells him that she wants to escape her abusive husband, Billy agrees to help her fake her own death. But is she still the Aimi that Billy remembers from all those years ago?

Once Aimi disappears, Billy has to face the possibility that perhaps she had different reasons for disappearing - reasons that might be more dangerous than she's led him to believe . . .

Sometimes trusting the one you love is the wrong thing to do.

This was a bit disappointing in my view, I was intrigued with the title and the blurb but unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations. I didn't like the way it was written and the characters were so one dimensional, no real opportunity to make a real connection with them or feel as if the time invested in reading the novel was worth the effort. I don't really like 3rd person narratives for the reason that it is hard to form relationships with the characters but I also felt he fell short on dialogue as well. His characters didn't have a lot to say and it was hard to make judgements about them because of this.

It was very slow and nothing much happens until almost halfway through the book, it also was set in three different time lines that had the reader skipping from 2002, 2015 and 2016 never really sure which character we were with and that had the effect of losing momentum. Because of this I must confess to skim reading a lot of the time.

It was a good idea but I felt there were missed opportunities to flesh out characters and allow the reader to form their own conclusions and 'buy' into the story from the beginning, as such, for me at least, I didn't really feel any suspense or real drama in the telling.

Billy, the main character was complex and had obvious psychological issues but he came across as a bit weird and creepy so I couldn't really warm to him anyway, the only character I liked was his sister Mia but again missed opportunities to develop her character or her relationship with Billy.

Sorry because I didn't like the style and couldn't really get into this book I just didn't care towards the end what was happening and sadly can only give this a 2 star rating.