Over My Shoulder

Wow, this is Patricia Dixon's best yet. A complete change from her earlier romance novels, this is a dark and gripping story of how lovely Freya becomes manipulated and controlled by Kane.

Freya's character is portrayed to be a normal working young woman of the 1990s. She has a very real personality, the sort of girl we could have worked with and from a family we could know of. She meets Kane whilst at work and quickly becomes quite besotted by him, even though she has a steady boyfriend. She's not a saint, she has her faults, but is at heart a kind and caring person. Right from the beginning of their relationship Kane is a manipulator and engineers meetings with Freya until their relationship takes off, just as he had planned it. Kane is a complex character and is well portrayed to be a truly nasty piece of work – one who is able to morph from being a fairly affable person to a controlling, manipulative and later, a sinister and cruel person. As Freya and Kane's relationship grows, Kane's depravity flourishes. He has a beautiful and kind young woman by his side, one who would do anything for him, but his cruel side surfaces when least expected, and as Freya becomes more isolated from her friends and family, her traumatic life becomes insufferable. There are some very humorous areas too, and being set in 1990s Manchester it's of the northern variety. One of the parties Freya and Kane attend is like a scene from Rita, Sue & Bob Too!!!

Much of the early and middle part of the book is set in 1990s Manchester and we see a real reflection of how times have changed in such a short time, the lack of technology, few mobile phones and attitudes of the police. Later, we move forward to the present day to conclude the story in a nail bitingly tense final few chapters. It is truly a gripping and shocking story from start to finish and just shows how easy it is to fall in with the wrong people.

This book covers lots of issues which might shock some readers, so be warned there is some violence and domestic abuse. Patricia Dixon has written sympathetically and emotionally about some very difficult issues and I think she's done a great job of giving realism to a fictional story.

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I was asked to be an early reader of this book and feel very privileged to have seen the story grow and change. Fourteen months after the first spark of an idea, several edits, a cut of around 50 pages, and a few tears along the way, we now have a very gripping, tight plot which I feel rivals the 'Behind Closed Doors' style psychological books. Very well worth reading and there's even a cameo of me in the final chapters!

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