Holly has just landed her dream job, which should make life a lot easier than it has been, and Jeff is heading for his first ever work interview after months of unemployment. They end up sitting next to each other. On board customer service assistant Naz dreams of better things as he collects rubbish from the passengers. And among the others travelling are Nick with his young family who are driving him crazy; pensioner Meg and her partner setting off on a walking holiday and facing an uncertain future; Caroline, run ragged by the competing demands of her stroppy teenage children and her demented mother; and Rhona, unhappy at work and desperate to get home to her small daughter. And in the middle of the carriage sits Saheel, carrying a deadly rucksack...

Review: This is the first book I have read by Cath Staincliffe and I am completely in awe with her tense and compelling writing. Once I started reading The Silence Between Breaths, I just couldn't put it down. She presented us with 8 characters and in a few pages, she managed to tell us their own stories. When we met them, they had nothing in common but that was about to change. I felt like I really got to know these characters, their dreams and their fears and I couldn't help but care for them, at least for most of them as some of the characters were impossible to like. 

I actually hadn't read the blurb before reading the book so I had no idea what was going to happen (something that is hinted in the blurb). Once I realised what was actually happening, I kept reading with bated breath. I think it had been a while since a book had made me feel so tense. I could really feel what all the characters were feeling.

This is a really difficult story to read. I had to stop and breath more than once while reading it. But it's definitely a story worth reading. I found it really interesting to read about these characters and how being at the wrong place at the wrong moment changed their lives forever. This will be a book difficult to forget, especially when you think about how this could happen to anyone. I am curious now to discover more stories by Cath Staincliffe. 

Rating: 5 stars

I would like to thank the publisher for sending me a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Blurb: When a skeleton is discovered, wrapped in a blanket, in the hidden crypt of a deconsecrated church, everyone is convinced the bones must be those of Conor Devitt, a local man who went missing on his wedding day six years previously. But the post mortem reveals otherwise.

Solicitor Benedicta 'Ben' O'Keeffe is acting for the owners of the church, and although an unwelcome face from her past makes her reluctant to get involved initially, when Conor's brother dies in strange circumstances shortly after coming to see her, she finds herself drawn in to the mystery. Whose is the skeleton in the crypt and how did it get there? Is Conor Devitt still alive, and if so is there a link? What happened on the morning of his wedding to make him disappear?

Negotiating between the official investigation, headed up by the handsome but surly Sergeant Tom Molloy, and obstructive locals with secrets of their own, Ben unravels layers of personal and political history to get to the truth of what happened six years before.

Blurb: 1955. When Mirabelle Bevan is rescued from a fire at her home on the Brighton seafront she's lucky to escape unharmed - but the blaze takes the life of her neighbour, Dougie Beaumont, a dashing and successful racing driver living in the flat above. It soon becomes clear that this was arson, raising questions about the young man's death that Mirabelle can't resist investigating further. With her curiosity piqued and on the trail of a potential killer she finds herself taking on the mysterious world of Fleet Street with its long lunches and dodgy deals as well as the glamorous motor racing world at Goodwood.

It gradually becomes clear to Mirabelle that Dougie Beaumont's life was not as above-board as it first seemed and that this talented man had many secrets, hidden when he was alive by his international lifestyle where he was constantly on the move. Then, when a second shocking murder takes place, Mirabelle's pursuit is frustrated first by Dougie's well-connected and suspicious family and then by the official investigation - led by her would-be lover Superintendent McGregor. With the help of her colleague at McGuigan & McGuigan Debt Recovery, Vesta, and some of her ex-intelligence service connections, Mirabelle discovers the dark secrets of the glamorous racing driver have ramifications far beyond the English coastline.