Force of Nature by Jane Harper - Blog Tour & Book Review

I am thrilled to be taking part in the Blog Tour for Force of Nature by Jane Harper and my review of this gripping novel is below


Genre:  Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Publication Date:  8 February 2018
Publisher:  Little, Brown


Amazon UK:  www.amazon.co.uk
Amazon US:  www.amazon.com
Book Depository:  www.bookdepository.com

When five colleagues are forced to go on a corporate retreat in the wilderness, they reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking down the muddy path.

But one of the women doesn’t come out of the woods. And each of her companions tells a slightly different story about what happened.

Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker. In an investigation that takes him deep into isolated forest, Falk discovers secrets lurking in the mountains, and a tangled web of personal and professional friendship, suspicion, and betrayal among the hikers. But did that lead to murder?

Jane Harper's debut novel The Dry was in my top five favourite reads of 2017 so I was so looking forward to reading what she came up with next ...... and I was not disappointed at all!

Force of Nature is set in the Australian bush and has the same writing style which is so engrossing, and so easy to find yourself immersed in the story that you forget all about time, which is what I did, I read this in such a short time as I just couldn't wait to discover what happened.

Jane Harper is so adept at drawing you into the story, which starts when the four women find their way out of the wild and Federal Agent Aaron Falk (who we first met in The Dry) and his colleague need to discover what happened to the missing girl, Alice. Aaron knows Alice, she's helping him with a money laundering case, so he has a reason to want her found alive. 

Alternating with the search are chapters which go back to the start of the hike for the work colleagues as they split into gender groups and the story is mainly concentrated on the five women.  As they walk further and further into the bush the tension escalates and the women argue and disagree.

There is so much more to this story than a missing girl, people have secrets, the wilderness has secrets, and Alice had secrets of her own.  My mind was working overtime wondering what was going to happen next.

Force of Nature is paced exactly right as the atmosphere slowly builds and the mystery of what happened to Alice is finally revealed.  The twists are subtle and the writing is clever and enthralling.....and it will probably be one of my top five favourite reads of 2018 as well!

Later, the four remaining women could fully agree on only two things.  One:  No-one saw the bushland swallow up Alice Russell.  And two:  Alice had a mean streak so sharp it could cut you.

Thank you to the publishers for inviting me on to the blog tour and for giving me the opportunity to read this fantastic book!