Luca VesteYou Never Said Goodbye: A Novel

Sam's father has been attacked and is dying, someone is trying to kill him, and his father's last words are to tell Sam that his mother, who died 20 years ago, is actually alive. Following a clue from his father and a bewildering conversation with his mother's childhood best friend, Sam takes a plane to America, determined to find out the truth about his family.This book has some interesting and surprising twists and turns, and I really like that. Veste does a good job of presenting multiple red herrings, and i found myself going back-and-forth about what was the real story of the death of Sam's mother.Similarly, Sam changes his mind multiple times throughout the story. While that is realistic, it is wearing for the reader. I would prefer for the character to change his mind but not pivot to different plans in every other chapter. Sam undercuts himself several times by switching up his goals while on his hunt for the truth. One minute he thinks his mom is alive and the next he is convinced she is dead.The flashbacks of his mother as a teen and later a young adult, trapped in an abusive relationship, are extremely well done. Veste does a great job of showing the internal turmoil of an abused woman who realizes too late that her partner isn't going to stop or change. Only the intervention of her childhood best friend can save her, but it comes at the cost of always looking over her shoulder.The one major objection I have to this book is Sam's incredible luck in getting away from killers. Two professional killers are stalking him. They attack him several times, but Sam always escapes. Sam, who has no training, has never shot a gun, and is scared out of his wits, somehow manages to best these men. I'll give you once, but not the several times it happens in the book. That totally broke the suspension of disbelief for me, and I found myself just finishing the book to see what the truth was around his mother's disappearance.

✨Contains Spoilers✨The amount of characters in the fist few pages through me off a little, but as the story progresses, it starts to make sense. I felt like the book flowed well and i enjoyed the writing but some of it felt too far fetched. The amount of times Sam was able to escape from professional hitmen, quite a few times, without any training. From learning his father, who he lost contact with, is dying to finding out his mother, that has presumably been dead for the last twenty-five years, might be still alive, going back to his father’s house to only be attacked, then traveling to the states to find answers just had me questioning everything. Only find out the reason why people were looking for his mom, and willing to kill to find her, was because she killed her ex fiancé’s/psychopathic/control freak sister, just to get away from him. Not a bad story, just seemed to be missing something.

What a gritty, intense, high octane read that left my mind spinning. Not knowing which way was up, down, left, or right. It was a sprint from the beginning straight through until the end. There was no let up, I held my breath for prolonged periods of time. Until I finally figured out what was going on and the reasons behind it.Sam has lived in a fog for the past twenty-five years after the night of the horrific accident that took his mother and younger brother from him. His father never fully recovered from their loss, finding solace within a bottle. Pushing Sam away and leaving him to believe that he was the reason his younger brother died. When Sam receives a call saying his father is on his deathbed. His father's last words leave him cold and confused. Could his mother still be alive? As a series of events begins to unfold and the body count mounts, Sam is left chasing a ghost.What fast paced roller coaster ride. I am still recovering from the whiplash and working out all the smaller details. Luca Veste quickly grabs your attention with detailed characters and a fast-moving plot. Thank you to Luca Veste and Sourcebooks for this incredible read.

YOU NEVER SAID GOODBYEBy: Luca VesteYOU NEVER SAID GOODBYE by Luca Veste, a new author for me, quickly became my favorite author. I enjoyed the writing style, and I thought the story was great. I really enjoyed my reading experience.I love it when a book reels you in from the very beginning and continues to engage you throughout the read. This certainly did just that. Sam and his family were involved in a fatal car crash that took the lives of him mother and sibling, while his father carried the grief horribly and moved away. Twenty years later, his father tells him as his last words – your mother is alive.What happens next is a propulsive thriller I had to know what is going on. Fast paced and thriller readers will really enjoy this one and should not miss.I am now going back to Luca Veste’s backlist to enjoy all the other books.

This is the first book that I have read from this author and I would be open to reading more from him. I felt that the entire plot had a kind of been there, done that vibe. You have a really bad guy that has henchmen that mess up constantly to keep the plot moving on. I really liked this book until somewhere are the 70% mark and it just seemed like the book just kept dragging on excessively. I wish there would have been more of the mother's storyline and a build up prior to the car accident. I think this really would have added some much needed texture to this book. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley. This one was ok.

This was a new author for me, and I definitely enjoyed the book. It's hard to review without giving spoilers. Secrets, lies, grief and twists are all part of this story. If you like mystery and suspense check out, You Never Said Goodbye.

When we first meet Sam it's clear that he didn't have the best of relationships with his dad and they'd been a estranged for a while but despite this he doesn't hesitate to drop everything to go and visit him when he receives a call to say he's in hospital following an attack at home. On visiting his father he receives some shocking news that turns everything he thought he knew about his life on its head.We soon discover that Sam and his father moved back to the UK when he was a child following an accident that killed his mother and little brother but a death bed confession from his father tells him that his mother Laurie is still alive and in hiding. But from who? Not surprisingly Sam is stunned as to what happened that fateful day and why his family was torn apart without any contact over the years so he decides to head to the US to try and find her for himself to get answers little knowing the danger that he would soon find himself in.I will admit that I needed to keep my wits about me to keep track of the different characters that we encounter as the story progresses as it's soon apparent that just as his dad was paid a visit, the same people are now following Sam's every move. The story flows between the past and present as snippets of information are revealed which enables the reader to try to piece together events from the past which led to the current day situation.We do get some narrative from Laurie's viewpoint which does provide us readers with a little more insight than Sam has as to why events played out the way they did. We see how her life was like before she met David, Sam's father, and what led to them going on the run and just who has been on a mission looking for her ever since.You Never Said Goodbye was a tense read from start to finish and I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on. It's probably a bit cliche to say that this would make a great film, but this clearly would as there's intrigue, mystery and action aplenty as the story progresses.

I've followed Luca's work from his debut Murphy and Rossi book and always look forward to them, although I really still miss Murphy and Rossi, the detective duo based in Luca's home city of Liverpool, and, in a series of stand-alones since, he's never bettered those stories. This doesn't do anything to alter that trend, in what I'm sure is his hardback debut, with rocketed cover price to match. Besides being rather outlandish - Brit lands in America and contends with a succession of all pretty samey violent threats to his life within days as he tries to get the bottom of a family secret - it contains a host of Americanisms, e.g. faucet, trunk, windshield which really irritated me. Perhaps I'm too fond of and familiar with his earlier works set on home ground and his publishers have hopes of him being an international hit, in which case best if luck to him, but I've always believed the best works involve writers concentrating on what they know and have always disliked the idea of British Isles authors lapsing into American terms as if they are imitating the style of their US counterparts. I doubt it would work the other way round if an American writer set a story in the UK. Luca writes well and the action scenes are well described, but there are too many in too short a space of time and I'd really have preferred more character development at a more gradual pace.

Liked his Liverpool set police procedural but since he stopped writing them his output has been patchy, this book is a bit of both. The characters are quite good and it maintains the mystery until nearly the end with a nice “oh” moment but the “then and now” structure repeats plot lines and should have been left to the “now” story though “then” does show the “why” but even that could have been inserted in the “now”. The number of times Tom saves the day gets a bit silly as do the incompetent toughs allowing Sam to escape their guns without a shot being fired. The writing is patchy as everyone sounds British, how could Sam afford what he does and the same goes for the rest apart from Anthony? and all of the plot happens without police involvement except a mention at the end, they are gullible too! The book has been compared to Coben and Barclay but it is too flabby for that to be true.

I like this author and though I enjoyed this book I didn’t feel it was the best I had read.

Very good book recommend it.