The Date by Louise Jensen

The Blurb

One night can change everything. ‘I know it as soon as I wake up and open my eyes... Something is wrong.’ Her Saturday night started normally. Recently separated from her husband, Ali has been persuaded by her friends to go on a date with a new man. She is ready, she is nervous, she is excited. She is about to take a step into her new future. By Sunday morning, Ali’s life is unrecognisable. She wakes, and she knows that something is wrong. She is home, she is alone, she is hurt and she has no memory of what happened to her. Worse still, when she looks in the mirror, Ali doesn’t recognise the face staring back at her... From the no. 1 bestselling author of The Sister, The Gift and The Surrogate, The Date is a gripping page-turner that will keep you awake until the early hours. Perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train and Before I Go To Sleep.

About Louise Jensen

Louise Jensen is a Global No.1 Bestselling author of psychological thrillers The Sister, The Gift & The Surrogate. To date Louise has sold approaching a million books and her novels have been sold for translation to nineteen territories, as well as being featured on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestseller’s List. Louise was nominated for the Goodreads Debut Author of 2016 Award. Louise lives with her husband, children, madcap dog and a rather naughty cat in Northamptonshire. She loves to hear from readers and writers and can be found at www.louisejensen.co.uk, where she regularly blogs flash fiction and writing tips.

My Review

I have read all of Louise Jensen's books from her first release, The Sister which was at an outstanding level of excellence most of us aspiring writers can only dream to achieve. She has continued to grow, and in this case with The Date, has used her talents to raise awareness of a condition, I for one have never heard of, prosopagnosia or face blindness. As a reader I really connected with the lead character Ali Taylor and stepped into her terrifying world of this dreadful condition where everybody's face looks the same and she is unable to differentiate between any faces including her husband, family and herself. That is a nightmare in itself, but the nightmare really begins following the date, as the book is titled. Abandoned by her husband who inexplicably does not want her anymore, Ali is persuaded by her friend to sign up to an online dating agency. She does not remember the date, meeting Ewan, but is stalked, threatened and terrorised by him following unexplained injuries she received on that fateful evening. It seems her date is dead set on revenge against her, for some alleged murderous act. As the story unfolds, Ali delves deep into her past to try and put pieces of jigsaw together to find out just what this is all about, which is no easy task by any means for the best of us. But imagine how hard that is when you cannot recognise the few people you can trust and more to the point who you can't trust. Highly recommend that this is a book for anyone devotee of the psychological thriller genre.