The Cove by LJ Ross

A colleague bought me The Cove by LJ Ross for my 50th birthday. My colleague is a real bookworm like me, so I knew I would enjoy it. LJ Ross is a prolific writer of thrillers, but The Cove is the first of her novels I have read.

Gabi Adams works in publishing in London. She is engaged, she has great friends and a job she loves. Then late one night, she is pushed into the path of an underground train by ‘The Tube Killer’. He has already killed two women and Gabi is his third victim – but Gabi survives. Left to deal with the physical and mental scars of that horrendous night, Gabi realises she can no longer stay in London and do the job she loves.

An advert for a bookshop manager’s job in a remote part of Cornwall catches her eye and it’s not long before she’s heading off to start a new life. In Cornwall, Gabi finds paradise – beautiful views, a beautiful home, an interesting job and a community of people who care for her.

Until she sees something terrifying one night… Gabi’s friends aren’t sure whether to believe her. Could her own experiences be playing tricks on her? But someone doesn’t want her in the tiny rural community and they are going to make life very difficult for her.

The Cove is an easy and enjoyable read. It is like cosy crime, but the psychological thriller version. Is cosy psychological thriller a thing? The descriptions of the little Cornish community are so vivid and paint a really beautiful picture. At times, it hardly feels like a thriller at all. It is a slow burner and the scary Cornish stuff starts relatively late on in the book. I noticed a clue to one of the twists fairly early on, but there were a couple more twists at the end which reminded me this isn’t just a nice book about a young woman starting a new life in Cornwall…

If you like your thrillers a bit less scary or if you really love Cornwall, like I do, I would definitely recommend The Cove.