Then slowly, not taking my eyes off her, I bent down and pulled a broken pink wafer biscuit from the packet. I bit into it and it tasted good.
Ready for your next unputdownable psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist? In Date Night, Libby arrives home to find her little girl alone in the house and her babysitter, Sasha, missing. Days later, Libby is arrested for Sasha’s murder…
Available NOW!
Date Night
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Returning early from a disastrous date night with my husband, I know something is wrong the moment the wheels crunch the gravel drive of our home. Inside, the TV is on and a half-eaten meal waits on the table. My heart stops when I find our little girl is alone in the house and our babysitter, Sasha, is missing…
Days later, when I’m arrested for Sasha’s murder and torn away from my perfect little family, I’ll wish I had told someone about the threatening note I received that morning.
I’ll hate myself for not finding out who the gift hidden inside my husband’s wardrobe was for.
I’ll scream from the rooftops that I’m innocent – but no one will listen.
I will realise I was completely wrong about everything that happened that night…
But will you believe me?
Twisted and absolutely unputdownable, Date Night exposes what goes on behind the closed doors of a happy home and the dangerous truths we ignore to protect the ones we love. Perfect reading for anyone totally gripped by The Wife Between Us, Friend Request or Gone Girl.
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Books by Samantha Hayes
Single Mother
The Happy Couple
Date Night
The Liar’s Wife
Tell Me A Secret
The Reunion
Available in Audio
The Happy Couple (Available in the UK and the US)
Date Night (Available in the UK and the US)
The Liar’s Wife (Available in the UK and the US)
Tell Me A Secret (Available in the UK and the US)
The Reunion (Available in the UK and the US)
A Letter From Samantha
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading Single Mother – I do hope you enjoyed it as much as I loved writing it! I’m already busy working on my next novel – another twisty psychological thriller – so if you’d like to be kept up to date about my latest releases, then please do take a few seconds to sign up to receive all the news about my books.
Sign up here!
When my dad bought me a DNA testing kit for my birthday, I was so excited to find out about my ancestry and perhaps even get to make contact with relatives I’d never met. My dad loves nothing more than poring over the family tree, and he’s gone back many generations, discovering that we have lots of connections in Scotland. So I happily sent off my DNA sample and, a few weeks later, my email pinged with the results. As an author, you can imagine that I was already exploding with so many ‘What if…’ scenarios that the results might throw up.
While my own ancestry was as I’d expected, revealing lots of distant cousins all around the world, I’d not been able to resist hitting up Google and finding out about people who’d received rather unexpected news after they’d sent off that little vial of DNA. Secret affairs had been uncovered, twins separated at birth had been reunited, and people were shocked to find out they’d been adopted, to name but a few of the surprise stories I found.
Privacy issues surrounding the information collected were tight, but what intrigued me more was, what if the DNA sample fell into the wrong hands before it even got sent off? And that’s where the idea at the core of the story came into play – Michael retrieving Mel’s DNA sample from the rubbish bin and sending it off to the lab without her knowledge. Initially, of course, his intentions were honest, but his money troubles drove him to be less than scrupulous once he made contact with Sarah.
As for the setting of the book, with the theme of families and relatives so central, all of that fell into place. I didn’t want Mel to simply inherit cash – that would have been too easy. Rather, I wanted her whole life to be turned upside down, to drop her into a threatening and strange new world that, of course, initially seemed like a dream come true.
It so happened that my grandparents once owned a small hotel many years ago and, while it wasn’t on the South Coast, the inspiration for Moreton Inn came from their slightly ‘quirky’ establishment. I even made the name very loosely similar! My grandparents loved this old hotel and, as a young child, I have my own memories of running around the endless corridors (and probably getting in the way!).
One regular customer, in particular, has stuck in my mind all these years and, while he was a man rather than a woman, he inspired the character behind Sarah. I have no idea of his name, but I do remember an almost ghostly character being at the hotel and appearing in places I didn’t expect – and I don’t recall him saying a word, ever! If he wasn’t wandering around, he was sitting in the bar with a pint and, truth is, he scared me. But he gave me the idea behind Sarah’s silence and what it might mean.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a psychological thriller without real and present threats for the main character. Which is why, as a feisty, hard-working single mum determined to protect her daughter, Mel had to face her biggest fear yet – her past. Speaking out and escaping abuse is tough enough, but often the hardest escape to make is from the fear that follows. What if it happens again? What if I’m not strong enough to protect those I love most? Combine this with the ‘nothing is quite as it seems’ that I just love in psychological thrillers, and I had poor Mel spinning in circles from threats both new and old.
So that’s just a little snapshot of how Single Mother came about and, if you enjoyed meeting Mel and my other characters, it would mean so much if you could leave a brief online review. I really appreciate reading the feedback, and it’s a great way for other readers to choose their next book.
And if you’re on social media, then do feel free to join me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or pay a visit to my website where you’ll find details of all my other books and a little bit about me.
Meantime, keep well and I’m looking forward to sharing my next book with you.
Sam x
www.samanthahayes.co.uk
The Happy Couple
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Me and Will. Will and Me. A perfect match. He said he would always be there for me, but it’s been a year since he drained his coffee, walked out the front door and vanished.
Did he leave me? Or did something terrible happen? I’m scared someone finally found out about what happened on the drive home that night…
I lie awake at night trawling the internet for rental properties, desperate for an escape. Until I see my husband’s gorgeous face smiling back at me from a photograph on the fireplace in someone else’s home, and something inside of me snaps.
At the house, I find no trace of him and the woman who lives there has no idea who I am. But I’m certain she’s hiding something behind the locked door upstairs. I know that if I want answers, I have to stay.
You might think that what’s inside that room is the answer to all my questions and the end of all my pain. But it’s only the beginning…
Nail-biting and completely gripping, The Happy Couple will make you question how well you really know the ones you love. Perfect reading for anyone who adored The Wife Between Us, The Girl on The Train or Gone Girl.
The Liar’s Wife
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When Ella wakes up in hospital following a hit and run incident, she is scared and confused. Close to tears, her eyes fall on a get-well-soon card on the window sill and the nurse reassures her that her loving husband will be back soon.
Absolutely love twisty and unputdownable psychological thrillers like Girl on the Train, The Wife Between Us and Gone Girl? Then you will be totally hooked by this jaw-dropping novel about the dangerous secrets behind a perfect marriage.
Tell Me A Secret
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Tell her all your secrets and she’ll tell you all her lies…
Everything in Lorna’s life runs like clockwork, from her 6 a.m. morning run to the strict 60-minute counselling sessions she gives. It’s the only way she can deal with the terrible secret she carries.
When a new client arrives for his first appointment, Lorna feels her perfect life unravel in a matter of seconds. It’s Andrew, the man she’s spent the last year desperately trying to forget. It seems he can’t forget her either…
Against her better judgement she anonymously contacts him on a dating site. Messaging him could mean the end of her marriage and her career, but she needs to know if his motives are genuine.
When Andrew is found dead in his home, grief quickly turns to fear when messages from him continue to arrive on Lorna’s phone. Somebody knows her secret and wants to use it to destroy everything she has.
Will she risk her family and her sanity to keep her secret? Will she risk her life…?
If you love twisty psychological thrillers that get under your skin, like The Girl on the Train, I Let You Go or anything by Louise Jensen, you’ll be utterly blown away by the jaw-dropping lies in Tell Me A Secret.
The Reunion
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They were all there the day your sister went missing… Who is lying? Who is next?
THEN – In charge of her little sister at the beach, Claire allowed Eleanor to walk to the shop alone to buy an ice cream. Placing a coin into her hand, Claire told her to be quick, knowing how much she wanted the freedom.
Eleanor never came back.
NOW – The time has finally come to sell the family farm and Claire is organising a reunion of her dearest friends, the same friends who were present the day her sister went missing.
When another girl disappears, long-buried secrets begin to surface. One of the group hides the darkest secret of them all…
If you love Sue Fortin, Gillian Flynn and The Girl on the Train, this psychological thriller packed full of twists and turns will be impossible to put down.
Acknowledgements
Every time I write a book, I feel so lucky to be working with such a special and talented team. Massive thanks as ever to my amazing editor Jessie Botterill for everything you do with your red pen magic wand! The whole team at Bookouture is a joy to work with, so have some huge heartfelt thanks from me! Big thanks to Sarah Hardy, Kim Nash and Noelle Holten for shouting out to the world about my books, as well as Janette Currie for copy-editing, Jenny Page for proofing, and Lauren Finger for bringing everything together so seamlessly. Equally as big thanks go to my agent Oli Munson, and the whole gang at A.M. Heath.
A special mention and thank you to all the bloggers and reviewers who are so dedicated to reading, taking the time to share their thoughts and spread the word about my thrillers before and after they’ve been published. I appreciate it all – the tags on Instagram and Twitter, the blog posts and tours, the messages and kind words of support.
And as ever, thanks to you, my readers, for spending a few hours with my characters. There’d be no point doing it without you, and I hope to see you again between the pages of my next book very soon.
Last, but not least, much love to my dear family, Ben, Polly and Lucy, Avril and Paul, Graham and Marina, and Joe – one of whom is always having their ear bent about a plot twist, whether it’s in a book or real life!
Sam xx
Published by Bookouture in 2021
An imprint of Storyfire Ltd.
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.bookouture.com
Copyright © Samantha Hayes, 2021
Samantha Hayes has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-83888-838-1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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