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Some might think that William Radford IV is a lucky man, aged 65 with a new 22 year old wife, but others might think that it’s Keisha who has hit the jackpot, a waitress from a Peckham high rise in a London nightclub, she’s married an old and very wealthy American businessman in Savannah, Georgia. She’s the fourth wife after the death of his William’s previous wife Eleanor. Whichever way you look at it, and believe me everyone in Savannah’s social circles are talking about it and have their own opinions, it tends to be the men who are drooling at William’s stunning new bride, while their wives aren’t quite as pleased. She’s young, she’s pretty and she’s black; she doesn’t belong there. That gender division of opinion applies to William’s business partner Jason Maddox and his wife Marcie, but it brings other complications. Jason has been hoping that William might spend a bit more time in Europe before coming back to retire with his new plaything and leave him in charge of the business. ...

Sarah Pinborough has a varied back catalogue in a number of genres, from YA fiction to horror, fantasy and science-fiction, but her recent move to HarperCollins has seen her work head in perhaps more of conventional mainstream psychological thriller direction. There were genre elements to her previous novel Behind Her Eyes however which didn’t please everyone, but the book proved to be a popular bestseller. Her latest novel Cross Her Heart however is very much on more conventional ground in the very popular female paranoia/male aggression thriller genre. Even within that however, Pinborough demonstrates familiar qualities that elevate this above the crowd, but there is also another Pinborough characteristic that is a little more problematic with Cross Her Heart , and that’s a tendency to go somewhat over the top with unconvincing twists, revelations and resolutions. Even if it does feel rather conventional in its three-part, three-act structure, Cross Her Heart at least starts out p...

Sarah Pinborough is a versatile and imaginative writer, working through crime, horror and sci-fi (notably in her Dog-Faced Gods trilogy) and as a YA author under the name of Sarah Silverwood. A lot of what is great about Pinborough's writing comes through in her latest novel 13 Minutes , a YA crime thriller. There's no SF or horror here, but in other ways, namely in its depiction of the attitudes and behaviour of modern teenagers, it's a very scary place indeed. There are dangers enough for any 16-year old girl in the world, and Natasha Howland, the most popular and beautiful girl at school, has been lucky enough to survive what appears to have been an attempt on her life. Found in a freezing river, her body functions have slowed down enough for her to be revived after being technically dead for thirteen minutes. When she is revived however, Tasha doesn't remember how she ended up in the river, but her perspective on the world seems to have changed slightly. Her relati...