Several people I know had previously read the book and all spoke about it being a powerful experience. Step by step, I could see the signs, I knew before, reading this book made me think more and realise more. I’m by no means saying that someone who is controlling will commit murder but it is still incredibly harmful for the victim and they might not even know it.

What you think you would do is go in all guns blazing, get everyone to see sense, remove your daughter from the relationship and then it’s all over. Part case study, part social commentary and part memoir of a woman dealing with domestic homicide, ‘In Control’ shows that there are clear signs when a relationship is about to turn violent – we’ve just been trained not to see them. A must read for anyone who wants to know more about coercive control, how it works and how to use the time line can be useful in preventing further violence (which can lead to murder).It implores readers to look for ‘red flags’ in past relationships, as well as the likelihood that somebody will repeat this behaviour. I read this book because I have been in relationships with sociopaths and I clearly saw that their behaviour is a societal issue. Even our legal system legitimises the idea that people who hurt or kill their partners have snapped and lost control, committed a 'crime of passion'. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Jane does a fabulous job of highlighting control ways we can all sometimes contribute to victim shaming and forces us all to take accountability in our approach of the victims of such debilitating, unsettling and trauma fuelled abuse.

It took me a long time to read as some of the material is pretty heavy going and needs some 'away from the book' processing. The behaviour of Ellie's mother and baby Teddie's mother were exactly the same, and equally incomprehensible, until you read this book. Drawing on disciplines including psychology, sociology and law, she talks to victims, their families and killers, putting together pieces to the puzzle of how these relationships can end in murder and bringing to light the reasons why - for so many of us - there is no such thing as the safety of one's own home.The clues are very often there in what the person says about themselves and maybe more importantly what other people say about them. In her new book, In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder, she lays out the eight stages of a domestic homicide timeline that flag up the potential for the coercively controlling to kill. honestly, this might be one of the only non-fiction books I would reread over and over again and it’s already one of my favourite books of the year. And if I think you’re the type, my radar will be more finely tuned to other behaviours I have to look out for. For example, when Lenny first met Marcie, he immediately took control, telling her where to sit in the bar and insisting that he would pay for her drinks.