“We all keep secrets from each other, all the time, and we kid ourselves that they are tiny ones, that they don’t matter, right up until the moment that we are found out and we realise it matters very much”

Never Alone is the sixth novel by British author, Elizabeth Haynes. Sarah Carpenter is nervous. Aiden Beck is about to arrive. During their heady university days they had a fling that ended abruptly when Aiden headed off to Asia. Jim Carpenter picked up the pieces of Sarah, they married and had two children.

But now Sarah is alone: Jim’s sudden death left her a widow; her son Louis has his own life and a job that keeps him busy; her daughter Kitty is at university in Manchester; it’s just Sarah and her two dogs in an isolated farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors.

And Aiden is back: he needs a place to stay and Sarah has a vacant cottage. But does she really know this man who’s been gone over twenty years? Where has he been? Does he even have a job? And will Sarah be able to hide the attraction that never really went away?

Also making a reappearance is a friend of her son’s, Will Brewer. Sarah feels a bit sorry for this young man with his troubled past, and finds it awkward to refuse his request for a place to stay. Sophie, Sarah’s only friend in the village, married to the serially unfaithful George, has quite a different reaction. Oh, and it’s the middle of winter, and a heavy snowfall, the kind that closes roads and stops trains running, is predicted.

This sets the scene for this cleverly constructed psychological thriller. The story is carried by three narratives: Sarah’s perspective is presented in the third person; Aiden’s side of things is told in the second person, a little strange, but somehow it works; these two narratives are clearly marked and mostly alternate throughout the book; then there is an ambiguous and rather chilling narrative, usually only a page long, in italics, that appears occasionally during the story.

Haynes gives the reader a thoroughly believable plot with twists and red herrings, and a build-up of tension that explodes into a heart-thumping climax. Her characters are ordinary people with very human flaws and, in one case, a rather unusual occupation. This is a page-turner that will have readers who are new to Haynes work seeking out her earlier novels. Her fans will not be disappointed. A brilliant read!