Review: Until Death by Ali Knight (4/5)

Wednesday 9 July 2014
Marriage is a prison for Kelly.

Her controlling and manipulative husband Christos videos her in the house, has her followed and tracks her every move. She may be desperate to leave, but she's not stupid. If she runs, he'll make sure she never sees her children again.

Christos has a mistress, Sylvie, keen to pander to his every whim and even keener to step into Kelly's shoes, should she ever vacate them. Kelly thinks it's stalemate for their twisted threesome, but one of Christos's container ships is about to dock in London with a secret cargo that will change all their lives forever. 

If Kelly is to escape, it will be in a way she never imagined, and people will get hurt...


Books like these remind me why I should not read reviews until after finishing a book for myself. With a 3.18 average rating on Goodreads for Until Death it makes me go into the book expecting it to be bad when that absolutely was not the case. Instead what I got was a book which kept me guessing and kept me turning its pages. I would perhaps agree with other reviewers that the plot at times was a bit complicated but I'm glad I stuck with it to the end as it was a very enjoyable read.

Opening with our main character Kelly seeking a divorce, she is told by her solicitor to go home and tell her husband Christos (who we learn is having an affair with Sylvie) that she wants a divorce. Easy enough to say but almost impossible to carry out as Kelly is a prisoner in her own home. Christos is an evil individual who wants to know where Kelly is at all times by having her followed and videos her in their own home. Most people who have never been in this situation always say how the person should leave, but until faced with that situation ourselves it is almost impossible to say how a person should behave and you definitely feel sympathy for Kelly throughout the book and extreme hatred for Christos.

With books set primarily in London I always get excited in the hope that the author can bring the city to life and almost make it a character in itself. Ali Knight has definitely managed that and I had no trouble visualizing the scenes and places she was describing. Kelly's home is basically a prison, but its location was intriguing to me - a penthouse next to the St Pancras clock tower. So I Googled it, and you can stay in the actual clock tower for a bargain price (for London anyway), the only problem seems to be availability. It wasn't only this though, the whole book screamed London, the whole book played out very vividly in my mind it was like I was watching it on a screen rather than inside my head.

Running alongside this we have the plot of something being found in one of Christos's shipping containers. Of course to elaborate would ruin the story but this helped break the story up and add another dynamic rather than just reading about Kelly trying to escape. I felt this part of the story was well researched by the author. Ali has created characters that for me feel very real, characters you root for throughout the book and ones that you think about long after you've finished reading. And for me books just don't come much better than that, ones that involve you in the story and have you feeling genuine and real emotions. I'll definitely be reading more from this author in the future.

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