The Poison Tree: the addictive , twisty debut psychological thriller from the million-copy bestselling author

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These two, scarred and solitary, begin a secret affair. Louisa starts to believe she can again find the happiness she had given up on. But neither of them can outrun his violent past.

With both Louisa and Paul hiding from the past they form a relationship but how much of their former lives are they willing to reveal to each other and who is out there looking for them? Anyway. When Paul informs her with all this information, hoping that Louisa will be super happy knowing she isn't a murderer after all. Knowing she won't have to hide anymore... In Erin Kelly’s The Dark Rose, Louisa Trevelyan is living a smaller life than the one she had as a rebellious but privileged teen growing up on the outskirts of London. Then she was prone dramatics, random dabbling in esoteric sciences and brief love affairs, but twenty years later she is still hiding out from the aftermath of an affair with a passionate young musician, and a secret so dangerous that she spends her life channeling her energy and talents into garden and estate restoration. Working on a project at Kelstice Lodge, she meets Paul Seaforth, a young man taking part in a rehabilitation program for youthful offenders and waiting to give testimony as the star witness for the prosecution in the murder trial where he will he testify against the man who bullied him his entire life, his best friend. Louisa and Paul bond and start a relationship, each finding a need satisfied in the other, but their time together is threatened by both their pasts, which can’t stay hidden or forgotten for long. but - yeah- this book - a great diversion, definitely captivating, good characters. i don't know that i would encourage anyone to own it, but it would be an excellent library loaner. it is a fairly uncomplicated story about cause and effect, with some odd human behavior thrown in. just a lot of me second-guessing the characters with "why didn't she..." and "but why not simply..."Also, I didn't feel that the was a "psychological" build up for the "genre" that this book was placed in was as strong as either her last book or what I would expect from the genre. Also, her timing fell flat to me. It just really seemed to "stumble" around. Not only did characters jump around, but the timeline did as well. This can work, and I have read numerous books where the author has done this type of format masterfully, but this one did not work. Louisa became this possessive girlfriend, where the idea of Adam cheating on her haunted her dreams. And that's fair, but she should have known what kinda guy Adam was before getting into all of this. I mean, he WAS seeing a girl when she met him, remember? He dumped that girl for Louisa, who's to say he won't dump her for someone else? Martin Edwards is the 2020 recipient of the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in UK crime writing. His latest book is The Life of Crime, a history of the genre, while his latest series of novels features Rachel Savernake and is set in the 1930s. He has received the CWA Dagger in the Library, awarded by UK librarians for his body of work. He is President of the Detection Club, consultant to the British Library’s Crime Classics, and former Chair of the CWA. His contemporary whodunits include The Coffin Trail, first of eight Lake District Mysteries and shortlisted for the Theakston’s Prize for best crime novel of the year. The Arsenic Labyrinth was shortlisted for Lakeland Book of the Year. The Golden Age of Murder won the Edgar, Agatha, H.R.F. Keating and Macavity awards, while The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books also won the Macavity and was nominated for four other awards. He has also received the CWA Short Story Dagger, the CWA Margery Allingham Prize, a CWA Red Herring, and the Poirot award “for his outstanding contribution to the crime genre”. Howdunit, another award-winning book, is about 'crafting crime', which is the title of his online writing course.

He gets defensive when she tried to pry into his life, and STILL expects her to be goody two shoes girlfriend, why? These people, for various reasons, because of some trauma in childhood or whatever...they are the most important person in their own world. So, in an extreme situation you could see how that would affect and inform their decisions. So, that was where I started from, and obviously I've had the benefit of reading the whole script, so I could decide what would have happened when she was younger to have such an extreme effect on how she behaves in adult life." Louisa readily agrees. Anything to save her life, and to save the secret she has been hiding all these years. But as soon as Carl left, they sat and thought through it. Who's to say he'll stop at this. Who's to say he won't return to end their life once he got what he always wanted?

Paul was led into a life of crime by his boyhood protector, a bully named Daniel; but one night, what started as a petty theft turned into a grisly murder. Now, at nineteen, Paul must bear witness against his friend to avoid prison. Louisa's own dark secrets led her to flee a desperate infatuation gone wrong many years before. Now she spends her days steeped in history, renovating the grounds of a crumbling Elizabethan garden. But her fragile peace is shattered when she meets Paul; he's the spitting image of the one person she never thought she'd see again.

She was relieved and hurt at the same time. But this time the hurt was more. And she was done. Done with him. I liked Paul, I loved his story and I'd have actually preferred the book if it was just a more detailed story of him. He was engaging and honest and I really felt for him in his plight. It could have been expanded on so more and I felt let down by that.Till that point it was pretty much clear she might have been Adam's murderer. But the why and how were the mystery which gets solved. Apparently a family of four visit the garden to have a family time. It is from the father's perspective. It doesn't take a brain to guess who it might be.