My review

This is a novel about secrets, secrets which ruin the family of its happiness, and the aftermath of its effects are felt forever. 

A family which had everything: successful father, a beautiful mother, and two daughters; a family which seemed perfect from outside had secrets rumbling and simmering in its very core. And when those secrets reached a boiling point, an outburst led to an overflow of emotions and everything is destroyed, and life as they knew it, changes forever. This is the gist of the story

What raises this story from ordinary to extraordinary is the author Barbara Copperthwaite’s writing. She starts her book with an incident happening at Christmas day and goes back eight days in the past to tell us what really happens in the Thomas family, behind closed doors. She does jump to the present Christmas day in between chapters and that kept the intrigue and the river of suspense flowing through the entire book. 

What really happened to the Thomas family?? 

I was lulled by the author’s writing, with her giving me the background, the secrets, the family life, that when the ending hit me, I reeled with shock. It was WHAM, straight to the head, so unexpected. My heart literally stopped when I was reading the last few chapters, and I could not put the book down till I finished.

Barbara has etched each character so well that they appear almost real as the book goes on. The greed of a cheating husband, the unseeing wife who lives with blinkers on, the eldest daughter getting cyber-bullied and unable to confide in her family and the younger daughter confiding in her soft toy and finding her comfort reading books, hiding in the cupboard.  Each character made me feel a different emotion: frustration for the daughter who could not confide in the mother, anger at the mother for not really seeing the truth, hate for the husband who has everything but still wanted more, and extreme pathos for the child who hid in cupboard when life got difficult. I like such books which can make me feel deep emotions for the characters. 

And the ending was mind blowing.. 

There are few niggles

There are 102 chapters in this book, I was aghast, a long book, but luckily the chapters go fast and book is easy to finish especially as the suspense builds up

I really did not understand the character of the mother, what really made her so not connected to her family, not connected to her daughters. I did not find any valid reason for her behaviour. 

But in saying this, I enjoyed this book immensely and I am still going back to Amazon, to check out Barbara Copperthwaite’s other books. 

I especially liked that she dedicated this book to Ellen, her big sister. 

My rating : 4 stars

About the Author

A Barbara is the Amazon and USA Today bestselling author of psychological thrillers INVISIBLE, FLOWERS FOR THE DEAD, and THE DARKEST LIES. Her latest book is HER LAST SECRET. Much of her success is thanks to her twenty-odd years’ experience as a national newspaper and magazine journalist. She’s interviewed the real victims of crime – and also those who have carried those crimes out. Thanks to people sharing their stories with her, she knows the emotional impact of violence and wrong-doing. That’s why her novels are dark, realistic and tackle not just the crime but its repercussions. When not writing feverishly, she is often found hiding behind a camera, taking wildlife photographs

Book blurb 

Everyone thinks the Thomases are the perfect family: grand London house, gorgeous kids. They don’t know wife Dominique is a paranoid wreck. They don’t know husband Ben is trapped in a web of deceit. They don’t know daughter Ruby lives in fear of the next abusive text.

But someone knows all their secrets.

Can the lies that bind them tear them apart? 

Product Details 

Publication date : 13th October 2017

Publisher : Bookouture 

Language : English 

Available on Amazon

  Thriller with a twisted end