Book Review: THE WRONG GIRL by Laura Wilson

Title: The Wrong Girl
Author: Laura Wilson
Publisher: Hachette Australia Quercus
Read: July 2015



Synopsis (Goodreads):

In 2006, three-year-old Phoebe Piper went missing on a family holiday. Despite massive publicity and a long investigation, no trace of her was ever found.

Seven years later, Molly Jackson, aged ten and recently uprooted to a Norfolk village, finds her great uncle Dan dead in his bed. Molly remembers nothing of her early years, but she's been sure for ages that she is Phoebe. Everything in her life points to it and now, finally, she has proof.

Dan's death brings his hippie sister Janice back to Norfolk where she's re-united with Molly's mother Suze, the daughter she gave up for adoption decades earlier. Janice discovers that a former lover, Joe Vincent, lives nearby. Joe was a rock star who, at the height of his fame, turned his back on public life.

As she is drawn back into the past, Janice begins to wonder if Dan's death and Joe's reputation as a reclusive acid casualty are quite what they appear...

And then Molly disappears.

My thoughts:

When Janice gets the news that her estranged brother Dan has died, she returns to her childhood home to find out that Suzie, the baby girl she was forced to give up for adoption 44 years ago, has made contact with Dan and has been living with him for several months. She also finds out that she is a grandmother to 10-year old Molly, a somewhat reserved and distrustful child, who is convinced that she is Phoebe Piper, a girl the same age who went missing seven years before. Molly is so certain of her secret identity that she keeps a scrapbook of newspaper articles related to Phoebe’s disappearance and longs to be reunited with the Piper family, of whom she claims to have fond early childhood memories. Her theory is partly based on the fact that she looks uncannily like the pictures of what Phoebe would look like today, and that she has always felt that Suzie, the woman who calls herself her mother, has little in common with her. Besides, there are no baby photos of Molly, which surely proves that she must be adopted. A ribbon found in her “Uncle Dan’s” room, which she believes is connected to little Phoebe’s disappearance, makes Molly hide her knowledge from those around her, until she can make plans on how to be reunited with her “true family” again.

Meanwhile, Janice and Suzie struggle to connect after a lifetime apart with untold family secrets and dynamics standing between them. Then one day Molly disappears, a dead man is found in the woods near Dan’s house and Janice starts wondering about the circumstances of Dan’s death. Trying to find Molly, she must face old family skeletons and find out the truth before it is too late.

I loved the premise of The Wrong Girl but initially found it very slow and had difficulty engaging with the main characters, who seemed like a group of oddballs thrown in together without much emotional connection. It wasn’t until 54% into the book that the pace picked up, the different strands all came together to form a web and I was hooked by the storyline. Whilst I am still not sure whether I actually liked any of the characters, the story was intriguing as old family secrets were revealed and the circumstances of Janice’s past unfolded. As for suspense, the book did not really deliver for me, except intrigue about the strange dynamics of dysfunctional families and the effects on a young child (Molly). I felt very moved by the scene involving Phoebe’s mother (no spoilers) and Janice’s efforts to make amends to the child she gave up all those years ago. An interesting read for those seeking something outside your average family drama.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: IN THE QUIET by Eliza Henry-Jones

Title: In the Quiet
Author: Eliza Henry-Jones
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
Read: July 2015




Synopsis (Goodreads):

A moving, sweet and uplifting novel of love, grief and the heartache of letting go, from a wonderful new Australian author.

Cate Carlton has recently died, yet she is able to linger on, watching her three young children and her husband as they come to terms with their life without her on their rural horse property. As the months pass and her children grow, they cope in different ways, drawn closer and pulled apart by their shared loss. And all Cate can do is watch on helplessly, seeing their grief, how much they miss her and how - heartbreakingly - they begin to heal. Gradually unfolding to reveal Cate's life, her marriage, and the unhappy secret she shared with one of her children, In the Quiet is compelling, simple, tender, true - heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure.

My thoughts:

In the Quiet is a touching story told through the eyes of Cate, a young mother and wife killed under tragic circumstances and yet able to remain near her family in a kind of ethereal dreamlike state, watching them from the afterlife  yet unable to make her presence felt. As Cate watches her teenage children’s journey through grief and their coming of age without her, she manages to gradually piece together the circumstances surrounding her own death and reconcile the past.  

I picked up this book both with curiosity and trepidation, having lost my own mother at the same age Jessa is in the book when Cate is killed and therefore expecting it to reawaken a lot of old buried emotions. However, whilst I enjoyed the rural setting and related to aspects of Cate’s family’s journey through the grieving process, I felt it difficult to emotionally engage with the character of Cate herself. Although Cate talks about her pain and frustration about having to watch her family suffer, these emotions somehow did not come through for me and I would have liked to see a bit more passion, anger, pain. Yet Cate seemed a rather passive observer, watching her children and husband from a safe distance.

Whilst not the emotional roller coaster I had expected, In the Quiet was an enjoyable, unusual story about family, death and the afterlife, and I loved the rural Victorian setting.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: THE WOMAN BEFORE ME by Ruth Dugdall

Title: The Woman Before Me
Author: Ruth Dugdall
Publisher: Legend Press
Read: July 2015



Synopsis (Goodreads):

'They came for me, just like I knew they would. Luke had been dead for just three days.' Rose Wilks life is shattered when her newborn baby Joel is admitted to intensive care. Emma Hatcher has all that Rose lacks. Beauty. A loving husband. A healthy son. Until tragedy strikes and Rose is the only suspect. Now, having spent nearly five years behind bars, Rose is just weeks away from freedom. Her probation officer Cate must decide whether Rose is remorseful for Luke's death, or whether she remains a threat to society. As Cate is drawn in, she begins to doubt her own judgement. Where is the line between love and obsession, can justice be served and, if so... by what means? 

My thoughts:

Cate Austin is a new probation officer at a women's prison, assigned with the case of Rose Wilks, a woman serving a six year sentence for allegedly causing  the death of her friend’s four-months old son in a house fire. After having served four years of her sentence, it is up to Cate to recommend whether she should be eligible for parole. Investigating the background of the events leading up to little Luke’s death, Cate becomes emotionally involved in Rose’s tragic life story.  With an unhappy childhood behind her, Rose’s search for love and acceptance leads her into an equally unhappy relationship with a man who is still pining for his ex-wife – a woman he freely admits he still loves and would leave Rose for in a heartbeat. When Rose falls pregnant she thinks she has finally achieved her dream of having a family and some hold over her partner Jason. But her baby is born prematurely, and later dies. Whilst Emma, Jason’s ex-wife, has just given birth to a healthy baby boy. When the two women’s paths cross, tragedy inevitably follows. But Rose has always denied any involvement in the child’s death – so who is telling the truth, and who is lying?

I admit that it took me some time to get into the story, as I found the topic and the characters equally disturbing. However, Rose’s story quickly drew me in and wouldn’t let me go, even long after I had finished reading the book. As much as I disliked Rose initially, I felt so terribly sad for her – born into a miserable family her life is lonely and sad as she is searching for love and acceptance from those around her. Her relationship with Jason is so dysfunctional that it made me cringe, and when she falls pregnant it is clear that this cannot end well. Told both from Cate’s perspective as well as from Rose’s “Black Book” entries (a type of diary she writes addressed to her partner), the story gradually unfolds to lead up to its tragic finale. The ending came as a shock and surprise, and I had not seen it coming.

All in all, the book kept me captivated till the end, and I found it equally suspenseful and strangely addictive, if disturbing. I can’t say I liked it (both the story and the characters were  too dark and twisted for that), but recommend it as an intriguing, clever, thought provoking read. Dugdall obviously knows the prison system well and perfectly captures its atmosphere as well as its characters. Recommended to anyone who enjoys a suspense story with a different twist and unusual protagonists.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: WE NEVER ASKED FOR WINGS by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Title: We Never Asked for Wings
Author: Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Read: June 2015
Expected publication: 18 August 2015



Synopsis (Goodreads):

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Language of Flowers comes her much-anticipated new novel about young love, hard choices, and hope against all odds.

For fourteen years, Letty Espinosa has worked three jobs around San Francisco to make ends meet while her mother raised her children—Alex, now fifteen, and Luna, six—in their tiny apartment on a forgotten spit of wetlands near the bay. But now Letty’s parents are returning to Mexico, and Letty must step up and become a mother for the first time in her life.

Navigating this new terrain is challenging for Letty, especially as Luna desperately misses her grandparents and Alex, who is falling in love with a classmate, is unwilling to give his mother a chance. Letty comes up with a plan to help the family escape the dangerous neighborhood and heartbreaking injustice that have marked their lives, but one wrong move could jeopardize everything she’s worked for and her family’s fragile hopes for the future.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh blends gorgeous prose with compelling themes of motherhood, undocumented immigration, and the American Dream in a powerful and prescient story about family.

My thoughts:

I loved Diffenbaugh’s novel “The Language of Flowers” and was very excited to receive a preview copy of her new book “We Never Asked for Wings” on Netgalley.

At 16 years of age, Letty Espinosa  had everything going for her – young, pretty and smart with a handsome boyfriend who loved her, only the sky was the limit. Then she fell pregnant, and all her hopes and dreams were suddenly dashed. Now a 33-year old single mother of two working several menial jobs to bring in money for her family, she has been living a somewhat irresponsible  life of a single woman whilst her mother has been raising her two children. When her mother decides to return to Mexico to join her husband in their country of origin, Letty  is suddenly faced with the responsibility of being a mother – a role she realises she knows very little about. The journey is not an easy one, as both Letty and her children struggle to adapt and make ends meet.

With  “We Never Asked for Wings”, Diffenbaugh has again produced a moving story of redemption and reclaiming one’s life in the midst of adversity – in this case Letty is slowly reclaiming her rightful place as her children’s mother, learning the meaning of unconditional love and responsibility and what it means to be a parent. And whilst the journey is not an easy one and Letty makes a lot of mistakes, there is always an undercurrent of hope and good intentions.

Whilst flowers were the purveyors of symbolism and a means of communication in her earlier novel, Diffenbaugh uses birds and their migrational habits as parallels to the struggles her characters endure in her latest novel. Since migrants and their issues feature strongly in the novel, the bird analogy works really well here.

“We Never Asked for Wings” is a heartwarming and moving tale of motherhood, second chances and families – with a coming-of-age story thrown into the mix. I really enjoyed Diffenbaugh’s latest book  and look forward to reading more from this author in future.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.