“ADAM WILL DO ANYTHING TO MAKE YOU HAPPY. EVEN IF IT KILLS YOU.
Adam Bourne is a serial killer who thinks he is a saviour. When he murders young women and cuts off their lips, he believes he has done it to make them happy.
How did he become warped from the sensitive four-year-old who adored his gran and the fairy tales she read to him? What turned him into a monster who stalks his victims? And what is he trying to say with the bouquets he sends?
When he meets Laura Weir, Adam weaves a fairy tale romance around them. A tale she has no idea she is part of. As he hatches his twisted plan for their fairy tale ending, can anyone stop him before he creates the ultimate sacrifice to love?

This is a stonking read and if you haven’t read it, why haven’t you read it??  You really are missing out!  It’s a clever book as it made me feel things I didn’t necessarily want to feel, such as a fondness for a warped and twisted serial killer.  There aren’t many fictional psychopaths who prompt that kind of emotion in readers.  There aren’t many fictional psychopaths like Adam…

Adam Bourne is looking for love.  His approach to finding the lady of his dreams differs to his peers though.  Rather than meeting someone in a bar or giving online dating a go, Adam likes to follow a lady home (no matter where that home is, even Inverness isn’t too far for Adam!), break in to her house and install cameras so he can watch from afar, thus learning everything he needs to know.  When she’s out he’ll pop round and do the washing up, maybe get some food in…he’s looking after his lady and that’s what a gentleman does, right?  Except some of his ladies need saving.  How does the saying go, ‘if you love something, set it free’.  So that’s exactly what Adam does, by choking the life out of them and cutting off their lips…

I adore this book.  I had heard great things so had high expectations.  It met each and every one of them and threw in a little extra for good measure.

I sympathised with Adam and felt quite sorry for him at points.  Rather than disliking him, I disliked what created the killer within him, his revolting mother, Sara.  She made my skin crawl.  I think being a mother myself made me despise her even more.  How any woman could do what she did, I don’t know!  As the book progressed though I began to dislike Adam more and more.

There are flashbacks throughout the book which gradually fill in Adam’s back story, bringing you closer and closer to the present.  These really added to the story for me as they cover his relationship with his grandmother, his desperate need to learn about love and, of course, his previous kills.

All in all this is a superb read and I will be downloading Invisible by Barbara Copperthwaite once I’ve finished this review!  If I were able to write a book, this is the book I would want to write.

Five out of five stars.

Thanks to Barbara Copperthwaite and THE Book Club on Facebook for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Flowers for the Dead by Barbara Copperthwaite was published in the UK by BLC Publications on 21st September 2016 and is available in paperback and eBook formats | amazon.co.uk | amazon.com