Expected: 25 June 2020
Lucy Harper has a talent for invention…
She was nine years old when her brother vanished in the woods near home. As the only witness, Lucy’s story of that night became crucial to the police investigation. Thirty years on, her brother’s whereabouts are still unknown.
Now Lucy is a bestselling thriller writer. Her talent for invention has given her fame, fortune, and an army of adoring fans. But her husband, Dan, has started keeping secrets of his own, and a sudden change of scene forces Lucy to confront some dark, unwelcome memories. Then Dan goes missing and Lucy’s past and present begin to collide. Did she kill her husband? Would she remember if she did?
Finally, Lucy Harper is going to tell us the truth.
The review
I found this a somewhat unusual read. Chapters alternate between the current day, narrated by main character Lucy, and past events narrated by a mysterious third person. Initially these past chapters don’t quite make sense but as the book progresses it later becomes clear that these pages are not exactly what they seem.
Lucy is a natural born storyteller with a tendency to live in a dream world - traits which have secured her a career as a best-selling author of crime fiction but also makes her the ultimate unreliable narrator. I really couldn’t decide throughout whether Lucy was a blatant liar or just an inventive storyteller. Was she a murderer or a victim?
One of the other characters, and what made this an unusual read, is Eliza the fictional star of Lucy’s novels and childhood imaginary friend. The idea that a writer may live with their characters, talk to them, see them is a lovely romantic notion and something that I can relate to as a reader - the feeling that a much-loved character is actually someone you know in real life. But, this ‘notion’ was taken a bit far with adult Lucy still seeing and speaking to Eliza continuously and even on occasions seemingly taking over Lucy’s actions. At one point there was even the suggestion that Eliza may be ‘the murderer’.
I wondered if the author was questioning Lucy’s mental health but that wasn’t the case so perhaps it was more about challenging perceptions of reality. As Lucy herself says: “I had sometimes studied my own reflection, to see if I could detect madness there. It wasn’t something I did all the time, only when I’d become worried that my storytelling and my imagination were not assets, but a danger to me. Now, looking at James, I understood that it wasn’t easy to see madness, to know whether someone was afflicted by it or not. It wasn’t written on people’s faces permanently. Instead, madness was something that sometimes swam to the surface.” So, I’m still not sure what was intended but I just didn’t really get the Eliza angle if I’m honest.
Anyway told through the current and past narratives there are two strands to this story; the disappearance of Lucy’s brother when she was nine years old and also the disappearance of her husband Dan some thirty years later. As such I was totally expecting these two strands to be related in some way and so whilst Dan’s disappearance was pleasingly unexpected it was also oddly disappointing. What’s more, whilst some people like to draw their own conclusions, I’m someone who likes things neatly tied up and that didn’t happen with Lucy’s brother's story which was left largely unresolved.
On the plus side this was still a really enjoyable and easy read with short snappy chapters which also helped build the tension and urgency. I also particularly loved the very real insight into life as an author from the demanding yearly schedules to the challenge of balancing creativity and marketability for a successful franchise.
A former art historian and photographer, Gilly Macmillan is the internationally bestselling author of five novels. Follow @GillyMacmillan or find out more at www.gillymacmillan.com
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