Blurb:
At the age of sixteen, Danny was sent to prison for committing a violent and brutal crime. Eight years later he is released, determined to put his disturbing past behind him. He wants to lead a normal, decent life, with the friends who stuck by him and his teenage sweetheart Lucy. Life is complicated enough, and he soon realises the past has not finished with him yet. His loved ones have all been damaged in different ways by his crime, a nosy reporter is desperate to hear the whole sordid story, and someone else does not think he has been punished enough. As a sinister hate campaign starts to target him and the people he loves, Danny is forced to face the reality of the decision he made eight years ago. Who is out to get him, and what do they want? This Is The Day is the sequel to The Boy With The Thorn In His Side.
My Review:
Having loved The Boy with the Thorn in His Side, I was dying to read this sequel that tells even more of this dark and emotional story. Although This Is The Day feels less nostalgic than the first book, due to it being set eight years later, I still loved it just as much.
This book begins where the first book ends. Danny has paid for his crime and done time in prison, so now he can get back to living his life with his friends and family, or can he? Someone has got it in for him and has started targeting his friends. Now on a mission to find out who it is, this book takes the characters on a trip down memory lane, as well as forcing them to face emotional and physical challenges, sometimes pushing them to their very limits, to get the answers they need.
I found this book to be yet another at times tense and emotionally charged story. Most of the characters are believable and likeable, except for the odd exceptions where if you didn’t dislike them, I would be worried about you as a person. Yet again, I found this hard to put down, as I devoured each word, eager to find out what was going to happen next.
It was great getting to catch up with the characters I had got to know and grown to love so much in the first book. After starting this sequel, they really felt like old friends of mine, and I was eager to discover what they had been up to in the time we’d been apart and what the future held for them. These are friends who will do anything for each other. What great friends to have.
This author is great at portraying gritty, dark and thought-provoking situations, and is wonderful at creating flawed, yet lovable and believable characters. I can’t wait to read more by this author.
5 Stars
Where to find this book:
LittleMissNoSleep Daydreams of Books 
Great review! I’ve never read The Boy With the Thorn in his Side but this review makes me want to check out this duology! Do you know if this is the end in the series?
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You’ve reminded me that I should add a link to book one in this blog post. I knew there was something I’d forgotten. The first book was originally written in two parts, so is very long, and therefore great value for money 😉 I’m not sure if this is the last book, but whereas the first book left you needing more, this one ended in a way where I felt content with the conclusion. I’ve just bought three other books by this author, as I really love her writing style 🙂
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Wow good to know! The author sounds great but I haven’t read anything by them so far, I’ll totally have to check that out.
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Oh yes, if you like the sound of the books from my reviews, I definitely recommend you check out their books. I haven’t read it yet, but they have a book available to pre-order called This Is Nowhere and it’s at the bargain price of just 78p on Amazon Kindle 🙂
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