I love first lines of books, as they’ll often set the tone, or catch the imagination, and Queen of Grime is not disappointing when it comes to catching your imagination.

Helen Forbes, the author, draws you in straight away with a rather creepy scene, and soon you find out that Erin, the main character, has the nickname Queen of Grime, as she cleans up after traumatic scenes.

Queen of Grime introduces you to various characters, and at first, these chapters feel like parallel stories, until more and more links are established. Queen of Grime not only tells you Erin and her daughter Jess’ story, there’s her cousin Kirsten, a successful lawyer with many stories to tell, there are friends, like Gladys who sounds larger than life and her horrible son Johnny. There are a lot of people involved in Queen of Grime, but as they’re all so different, it wasn’t hard or confusing at all, it just kept me wondering when and how their stories would meet.

Queen of Grime is all about truth, lies, abuse and long memories. Erin has a secret, and even after all these years, it looks like the truth is finally catching up. But there’s Kirsten with her own set of secrets, and those are coming out as well. Queen of Grime has plenty of drama and relationship woes filling its pages!

I enjoyed seeing the story coming together and was pleased to see the drama speeding up and the fear and danger increasing with each page. Some of the scenes were a little too 18+ for my liking, but the twists and turns at the end are gripping.

Queen of Grime ends nicely and tidily, just the way I like it, with enough people left standing to make another story possible or even likely. After all, we still don’t know Matthew well, and there’s something hiding there. Being closer to Kirsten by the end of the story, does that mean her ideas of a calm year ahead are already looking bleak?

Queen of Grime is honest about the characters, and I love how people can show unexpected sides to themselves and the way they react when in danger. I loved Kirsten as a character, as there was so much to her and her connections.

Queen of Grime has some rather graphic descriptions of Erin’s job, but Helen managed to keep it quite light, and not too gory, which is not easy, as it comes with Erin’s job after all.

I was given a copy via Reading Between the Lines but was under no pressure or obligation to write a favourable review.