* * * *
A battle over a man
who can’t remember, between two women who are both hiding the
truth.
This novel is billed
as a romantic thriller and it is, but it’s much better than that
billing might suggest.
Two female
protagonists clash over a man who’s lost his memory, and the story
is seen through the eyes of each woman in turn, but knowing their
thoughts leads the reader to both share and try and choose between
their mistaken conclusions. The reader is actually given all the
information needed to work out what is really going on; the author
relies on our cultural conditioning to make the plot twists shocking
rather than predictable and this works so well that I am sure the
lessons won’t be wasted.
The story reaches a
shocking climax on the North York Moors (accurately depicted as cold,
wet and squidgy underfoot rather than romantic) which results in
something resembling an Icelandic Happy Ending in which everyone
decides to live with the bad things that have happened rather than
involve the authorities. But the story does not end there, and goes
on to explore the consequences of this and the actual ending really
is a shock!
My four star
recommendation is because the bridge between those two final shocks
is not quite as good as it could be. But in general this is a much
better novel than I expected it to be, given the way it was presented
and it was only a couple of slightly clumsy pages away from five
stars.
My Husband’s
Secret by Karen Clarke is published by HQ on the 30th of
June 2022.
