Bet Your Life by Jane Casey

After nearly dying during the summer in an attempt to find out how her cousin Freya died, Jess Tennant is still getting used to how things work in Port Sentinel. While she and her mother begin to settle in after deciding to stay rather than go back to London, Jess is working out who to trust and who to avoid.

With her brief relationship with Will already over, Jess is focused on enjoying life and spending more time with her family, but when she discovers a boy from school beaten up and lying in the road after a fireworks party, her detective skills kick in yet again.

Left for dead, Seb Dawson is rushed to hospital with multiple injuries and when local Detective Dan Henderson discovers Jess was near Seb when he was found, he warns her yet again not to get involved with police work that doesn’t concern her.

As the town recovers from the shock, Jess is approached by Beth, Seb’s younger sister who asks her to find out what happened, just as she did about Freya. Despite Dan warning her off at every turn and Jess being reluctant to get involved, she agrees to try and find out what she can, but what she discovers shocks her to the core.

While she questions the locals about Seb and what kind of person he is, Jess begins to learn that he’s not the squeaky clean popular boy everyone thinks he is and when she digs deeper she finds herself in the line of fire – literally – as she gets closer to the truth.

Just as Jess thinks she’s solved the mystery and prepares to approach Dan, she learns her father has arrived in Port Sentinel determined to win her and her mother back. So as she continues to work on solving the case, she also has to deal with family drama as well as entertain her friend Ella who is visiting from London. But with Hugo smitten at first sight, she has no worries that Ella will be well looked after which allows her more time to probe into Seb’s life.

Can Jess get to the bottom of why a seemingly nice guy was left for dead without getting hurt herself? How will she cope with her father back in her life and will she make a decision of whether Ryan or Will is the one for her?

I enjoyed this book, but I have to admit that I didn’t give it the time and attention it deserved, which seems to be a common theme with me and books at the moment. I left it too long in between reading sessions meaning that I lost the momentum of the story and also had to re-cap a few times. But now that I’ve read it I would definitely recommend it and can’t wait to read the next Jess Tennant mystery when it’s released later in the year.