Loyalty: The brand new novel from the bestselling author

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Another romp through the East End of London / Essex world of gangster families and the urban crime realities they live in. This tale centres round a completely ‘straight’ law abiding, naïve and inexperienced, but infatuated and brow-beaten at home by a domineering mother, teenager marrying one of the most deadly criminals of his generation. I hated everything about this book. The characters, several generations of an Essex crime family, are all deeply unpleasant and carry out one atrocity after another. They're superficially glossy and care more about flashy cars and designer kitchens than about anything else. They're gangsters who are considered all right as, whatever else they do, they love their old Mum. There are trigger points that deal with chid abuse, sexual and physical, rape, violence towards women, drug taking and if you flinch at the C word be prepared to flinch a lot Aiden O'Hara has always looked out for his family, ever since he was a wee laddie. His mother has something of a reputation and many children to different fathers. Aiden is fiercely protective and soon makes himself a name with the local face. Drugs, prostitution and murder are all things Aiden finds himself caught up in but it pays the bills and keeps his family safe. However as Aiden's reputation grows his arrogance and unpredictability grows with it turning Aiden from protector to a possible danger to his family and business.

I had an idea of what I was letting myself in for reading BETRAYAL. Martina Cole has this magic of being able to create characters and families, all with their own different traits, but blend together really well. I also love how most of her books are generational and you get to see multi generations of the same family and watch them grow as the decades pass. The actual reveal is comical beyond belief and it simply felt as though Martina had run out of any ideas on how to actually finish the book.

Short, snappy chapters keep the pace of the story moving so not to get bored. This wasn’t an issue for me - I prefer shorter chapters. I find that I retain more of the story that way and don’t get bogged down with unnecessary content. It’s unflinching in its portrayal of the characters we meet, and we meet some disgusting, evil, perverted ones who literally have below zero morals and then some

I hate to say this but I didn't love this book like normal. I'm gutted to not enjoy it as much because I love Martina, but something just didn't work for me here. I liked the characters and I thought the plot was interesting but in my opinion, there was a spark missing.Aiden O'Hara is the oldest, loves his mum but knows she attracts the wrong sort of guys so he has to watch over his family.

Mám rada príbehy z mafiánskeho prostredia. Ten svet ma niečím fascinuje. A Martina Cole mi jeden taký priniesla, i keď nebolo to celkom to, čo som očakávala. Príbeh bol totiž viac zameraný na rodinné vzťahy ako tie mafiánske, našťastie v ňom ale nechýbali rôzne mafiánske praktiky. Although I can appreciate the true nature of the plot and darker side of gang life I didn’t like the writing style. I found Coles writing extremely repetitive and predictable. As with Cole’s previous books, the chapters are fairly short and the style and flow of writing is easy to follow but it’s really just the same old stories and characters. A serial killer is in town and the race is on for DCI Kate Burrows. Stop the killer before more innocent girls die... The plot was too simple for a suspense/thriller novel. There were so many little off-shoots that the plot could have taken that would have been mildly interesting and suspenseful. Unfortunately, the author took none of these and we were left with the unfulfilled hope that the story would become complex and live up to what it was marketed as.Not sure what anyone else has been reading, but there was no suspense, no drama, and anyone should be able to work out who the perpetrator is by about half way through the book. Martina has the skill of creating characters that drive you crazy. Love and hate are so close in emotion and I felt this a lot with Aidan. I loved the way he fought from a young age to provide for his family as essentially the man of the house, to make a name for himself and ensure that his family was taken care of. What I didn’t like were how the power slowly starts to corrupt him and with that comes unsavoury behaviour towards both his girlfriend and his family. I am convinced that the author assumes all of her readers are idiots. She described her characters an infuriating number of times. By chapter 10, you've already got the idea that Phil is a good-looking, but soul-less and cruel bastard. Instead of just leaving you with a few descriptions here and there of him, adding details to his character every now and then, she describes him in pretty much the same language every other chapter. People don't want to be told he's a complete jerk by every other character in the book, they want to see it in action! She did this for every character. It was horrible. This is the first novel I have read from Martina cole and I have been looking forward to getting round to her! .. The story itself was really good! I loved the plot, I loved that it was a detective Nov because they are my go to reads,. I loved that i had no idea who the serial killer was throughout. Which I why I gave it 4 stars!!

This brings me on to my final point. The misogyny. This book is rife with it. Women in this book are only written as respectable on the condition that they do not wear makeup, are not sexually active beyond a rigid set of perimeters, and definitely do not have a facebook account. The vast majority of young women in this book are slated as disgusting wrongdoers who have made a huge mistake that will tarnish their name for the rest of their lives if, god forbid, they have consensual sexual involvement with a boy of the same age. The protagonist is disgusted with these girls' application of makeup as if these two are even correlated? It makes no sense what is inferred from these and related aspects in the girls lives, the views (along with the language) were archaic and did not fit; useless in the present day and the present book. Whoa! Have I read a different novel that this one users rated 3 stars with? This book is horrible! I managed to read 25% of this book and decided that it's not getting better.This book is probably the worst book I've ever read. Literally. I read "The Graft" when I was a teenager and I thought it was alright, so when I did a book swap with this book, I thought it would be an easy read, but okay. It was worth the wait & I didn't see the twists & turns coming & getting to the end made me emotional for some reason.