Day: October 25, 2020

I enjoyed this author’s Someone Else’s Daughter, so I was looking forward to this one. It’s safe to say that this was a very different read from the previous book I read.

I will say that I feel the author improved her writing style. In the first book there were linguistic choices that were inaccurate. I didn’t find any of those here, which enabled me to enjoy the story without being jarred out of it.

I’ll also give the author credit for helping me realize something about my own reading preferences. I now know that unreliable narrators are not my favorite type (most of the time), mainly because I like to be off-balance on my own terms, not due to a character’s fallibility.

That being said, it’s a very interesting premise. Evie’s dad goes missing and then is found dead (that’s not a spoiler). As a result, her brother, Ethan, returns to town. He’s been gone for 20 years…in prison for allegedly killing Evie’s boyfriend, Michael.

Or did he.

Evie has amnesia centered around the events of that time, so her memories are unreliable. Actually, it’s more than that. She has full on blackouts where she’s in the present, but not really. From the descriptions, it sounds like she goes fairly catatonic.

It soon becomes apparent that the people around her are contributing to her confusion, sometimes in nefarious ways. She soon doesn’t know who to trust, whose recollections are accurate, and what actually happened to Michael.

I will say that I had a feeling as to what had happened and why the characters took the actions that they did. But I also think that some readers will not see it coming or might think that the resolution is something different.

I liked that the author wrote it in such a way that it could reach different styles of reader (if that makes sense). I’m one of those who likes to try to outguess the author. I know others are simply along for the ride the author takes them on. Both are okay, and both styles of reader will find this book engaging.  

Author Bio:

Jennifer Harvey is a Scottish writer now living in The Netherlands. She is the author of three novels. Her short stories have been published in numerous literary magazines in the US and the UK, such as Bare Fiction, Litro Online, Carve Magazine, Folio, and The Lonely Crowd.

She has been shortlisted for various short story prizes including the Bristol Prize, the University of Sunderland Short Story Award and the Bridport Prize. Her radio dramas have won prizes and commendations from the BBC World Service. She has been longlisted twice for the Bath Novel Award.