Title: Take Me In
Author: Sabine Durrant
Narrators: Rory Kinnear, Morven Christie
Read: July 2018
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
Book Description:
A hot beach. A young family on holiday. A fatal moment of
inattention...
And now Dave Jepsom is in their lives. Dave Jepsom, with his muscles, his pale eyes, his
expressionless face.
He saved their child. How can they ever repay him?
Especially as what he seems to want in return is everything.
He's in the streets they walk down. He's at the office where
they work. He's at their front door, leaning on the bell...
If only they could go back. Back to when the lies were still
hidden. Before the holiday, before the beach, before the moment that changed
everything.
Before Dave.
But it's never how it starts that matters. It's always how
it ends.
My musings:
I loved Durrant’s last book, Lie With Me, so Take Me in was
one of my most anticipated new releases of 2018. Again, we have a really
intriguing premise here: couple Marcus and Tessa are on holidays in Greece when
their young son, Josh, falls into the ocean whilst his parents are distracted.
It is only thanks to the rapid actions of a bystander, Dave Jepsom, that the
boy is saved from drowning. Although Marcus and Tessa are grateful to the
stranger for his intervention, they become wary of him when he makes repeat
appearances in their lives once back in England. Soon Dave becomes a sinister
spectre in their lives and a constant reminder of their guilt and inadequacies –
ultimately bringing this little family to the brink of disaster.
I loved the idea of the story, which unfolds through both
the POVs of Marcus and Tessa, a well-off successful couple who at first glance
seem to have it all. It’s not until the story progresses that we learn that
their marriage is far from perfect. Durrant has a knack for delivering flawed,
somewhat unlikeable characters that still manage to extract some empathy from
my cold, cold heart, even though neither Marcus not Tessa could hold a candle
to Paul Morris from Lie With Me, and I admit feeling quite frustrated with them
on several occasions. Here we have two people who seem to have it all, and yet
they are basking in constant dissatisfaction and self-centredness. Little Josh
really has to take a backward seat as his parents bumble from one disastrous
decision to another, each so wrapped up in their own misery that they have
little time for playing happy families. And then there is Dave Jepsom, who
inserts himself in their lives like a big fat cuckoo in another’s nest,
hovering in the shadows like a menacing premise that seems to pre-empt their
unravelling. Like Marcus and Tessa, I was constantly wondering if Dave could
really be responsible for all the misfortune that befell them, or whether it
was all in their imagination. Hero or villain? Friend or foe?
With this brilliant premise I am somewhat disappointed that
the book ultimately did not fully deliver for me. There was so much potential
for this story to be truly chilling and heart-poundingly tense, but it never
seemed to exploit all the possibilities the author hints at. It is difficult to
describe my feelings without giving away parts of the plot that may spoil
things for other readers, but I can say that I felt that too much time was
spent on intricate details of Tessa and Marcus’ everyday lives (and Marcus’
work), and not enough on the chilling spectre of Dave hovering in the
peripheries. There were a couple of moments when I thought that the book would
finally get to the point (e.g when Tessa calls Maureen and finds out some chilling
facts about Dave) and utilise this aspect to ratchet up tension, but it never fully
got there. Considering the finale of Lie
With Me, I was breathlessly waiting for the final reveal to throw me a big
curveball, but found that I could see its trajectory from a mile off, and it
ultimately disappointed. To be totally honest, I felt that the ending didn’t
fit at all, and left me feeling dissatisfied, with many questions left
unanswered.
Summary:
In summary, and after much soul-searching, I sadly concede
that despite Durrant’s writing style (which I still love), Take Me In was ultimately
disappointing for me. I felt that this book had so much more potential to be
great, but the narrative got lost in translation somewhere along the way and
turned out to be more of a casual stroll around the block than the
heart-pounding thrill ride it could have been. Whilst I enjoyed Durrant’s keen
observations of a modern, middle-class marriage and the smoke and mirrors of
suburban life, including the couple’s friends (who were as unlikeable and
deceitful as the couple themselves), it ultimately read more like a
relationship drama than a heart pounding psychological thriller. I still liked
the story, but I did not love it as much as I thought I would.
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