When a family holiday turns tragic and a member of their party is found dead it seems an adverse reaction to over the counter medicines is the culprit, that or a faulty batch having being bought.
That’s what everyone thinks, including the police. Everyone that is but Emily. She thinks it’s murder and is convinced she knows who is responsible and why. Unfortunately, no one but her ex-boyfriend wants to believe her, not even her fiancé Jed.
If anything, it’s Jed’s reaction that pushes her to try and find out the truth. He is steadfast in his disbelief, though as the prime suspect is a member of his family it’s maybe no wonder. The more Emily digs, though, the more it looks like she is right and the more she finds herself in danger.
I’m being a little vague here because the death at the beginning was a nice twist and I don’t want to give it away. It’s one of the first of many, some more believable than others, that kept me on my toes and turning pages. It wasn’t what I expected and I liked that. I also liked the story itself, though there were a few places where I think it dragged a bit, getting bogged down in details of Emily’s life I didn’t need.
Emily is the main character and tells the story of what is happening in the present in her own voice. She’s likeable if a little woolly on her decision making at times – I can’t see why she would be with Jed in a month of Sundays for example, and well written. We get alternate glimpses of the past through chapters on her and her siblings’ childhood and also through a potentially unreliable narrator – thirteen year old Dee Dee’s video diary. They show not everything is as rosy in her life as Emily thought it was.
Dee Dee comes across as a “typical” confused teen, Jed a stereotypical older man with control issues. Unlike Emily, they weren’t as fleshed out and neither were the other main characters (Emily’s brother and sister who are actually pretty important to the story). I would have liked to care for them more but I didn’t get the chance and that did leave me a little frustrated as I got to the end.
Saying that, I still enjoyed the book. It wasn’t the best written I’ve ever read and, like I mentioned, it did get lost in details sometimes, but it was a good story and kept me interested. The ending wasn’t one I saw coming and was actually a little sad. Everything was tied up nicely but not everyone got the answers they wanted. Because of this, I would say I liked but didn’t love the book – there is something here though that I think readers of crime fiction will enjoy.
Emma