My Sister by Michelle Adams #bookreview

About My Sister

My name is Irini. I was given away.

My name is Elle. I was kept.

All her life Irini thought she was given away because her family didn't want her. What if the truth is something worse?

Two sisters. Two separate lives.

One family bound by a harrowing secret

My review of My Sister

My Sister is a dark, disturbing and uncomfortable read that I enjoyed immensely. The story is told from Irini's point of view, the stater who was given away, and it is through her eyes that we learn the truth behind what happened... and why.

So, this story is about a family which is divided, that was torn apart when Irini was given away at the age of three. Irini has very few memories about this time in her life, and even now as a grown woman she has no idea why her parents made the decision for Irini to live with her aunt, instead of them.

The novel begins when Irini receives a phone call from her estranged sister, Elle, the sister whom her parents chose to keep. From this beginning, this one phone call, I had a slow burning sense of foreboding, that something really bad was going to happen. This book is a slow burner, and deliberately done so to give the book a creepy and unsettling feeling. Although described as a psychological thriller, for me the real thrill of the book was in the slow understanding of what was happening, in he understanding of the characters and in the realisation that their relationship was toxic.

My Sister is so very hard to review without giving the plot away. It is so intricately layered, going backwards and forwards in time, allowing us to glimpse both Irini and Elle in the past and present, which helps to shed light on who they are and why they have such a destructive relationship. Some of the events that take place in the past are truly shocking, but once told, made me realise the complexity and importance of their relationship. So, instead I want to write about how this book made me feel, the way in which the characters made me feel and interacted with each other. The main emphasis is obviously the relationship between Irinii and Elle, and from the start I had the feeling that they were best kept apart. Elle was most obviously a live wire, someone who was hard to contain, and I didn't like her, although I could empathise with her. I also felt slightly the same way towards Irini. Although the protagonist of the story, she was a character who was incredibly hard to like. To be honest, it took me until the very end to get what she was all about, but I actually think that this was the point. That I had to grow to love her, in order to understand her. Having said all that, I did empathise with her, and the situations that she found herself in.

My Sister is not a light read, it is a book with so much depth and understanding about the relationship of sisters. The story is incredibly clever, and almost  a manipulative tale about the bond that sisters share. Even when they are forced to live apart, the bond is never truly broken. I really liked this refreshing spin on the subject of sisters, the clever narrative and the intricate descriptions of events taking place... and as for the ending. Well, it simply took my breath away.

My Sister is published by Headline. The kindle version published on 20 April 2017 is available to by from Amazon here. Paperback published 11 Jan, 2018.

With thanks to the publisher and Bookbridgr for a paperback review copy.

About the author

Michelle Adams grew up in the UK and now lives in Cyprus, where she works as a part-time scientist. She read her first Stephen King novel at the tender age of nine, and has been addicted to suspense fiction ever since. MY SISTER is her first novel.

Gone Without a Trace by Mary Torjussen

 About Gone Without a Trace

No one ever disappears completely...

You leave for work one morning.

Another day in your normal life.

Until you come home to discover that your boyfriend has gone.

His belongings have disappeared.

He hasn't been at work for weeks.

It's as if he never existed.

But that's not possible, is it?

And there is worse still to come.

Because just as you are searching for him

someone is also watching you.

 

My review of Gone Without a Trace

Gone Without a Trace is a psychological thriller set in the Wirral, Merseyside. I was initially drawn to this book because I grew up on the Wirral (and still have family there), plus the fact that I was fascinated by the notion that a person, a loved one, could just disappear without a trace. I wanted to know what had happened and why. This book delivered on both counts, but I'll admit that I found it an uncomfortable read.

So, the story begins when Hannah returns home from a successful work conference, wanting to celebrate with her boyfriend, Matt, but she finds that he has gone. He has taken everything that was his, leaving no trace of him, or his personality behind. He has also erased all social media accounts and his contact number from Hannah's phone. She has no way of contacting him. This sent a chill down my spine. The fact that a person could do this, that it was possible to do this, and that your normal, everyday happy existence could be obliterated, just like that.

What follows is Hannah's inner struggle to piece together what happened. Has Matt left her of his own free will? Was he threatened? Had he fallen in with the wrong crowd? Was he taken against his own free will? At first it is unclear what has happened, but slowly Hannah begins to figure out what has happened, as do we.

The characters in this novel are a complex bunch and I didn't really like any of them, but having said that, I think that this was intentional. I could be subjective, watching as an outsider. I even felt like I was watching Hannah from a distance, but in doing so I was able to take a step back and see the bigger picture. I honestly feel that I wasn't meant to get close to her.

As I have already mentioned, this is an uncomfortable read, which became even more uncomfortable after the dramatic plot twist that I honestly didn't see coming. A difficult and taboo subject is raised, and I applaud the author for her bravery in writing about such a sensitive subject. What I also liked was the fact that this novel is very much two stories. The story before and after the plot twist. It very much felt like I was reading two very different stories, but for very obvious reasons. This was a brave thing to do, but for me, it worked.

This is a slow novel to begin with, but an all consuming one all the same. The pace only really picks up about three quarters of the way through, but then there really is no letting up, as we face surprise after surprise. It's almost as if I was lulled into a false sense of security.

Gone Without a Trace is a dark and challenging book, and most definitely lives up to its psychological thriller status. The ending truly shocked me, and I still find myself thinking about Hannah and Matt. This is a hugely enjoyable read that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Gone Without a Trace, published by Headline on 23 Mar 2017 can be bought via Amazon here.

With thanks to the publisher and Bookbridgr, for my paperback copy, for review purposes.