I didn’t know much about Caroline Mitchell prior to reading The
Silent Twin other than the fact she follows me on twitter and writes books,
but I’m certainly very much aware of the skill she has with words now! When I
received the copy of The Silent Twin from Bookouture, I was quick
to whack it onto my kindle and give it a whirl, a) because I absolutely love a
good psychological thriller and b) avoiding French literature that I actually
HAVE to read is becoming a daily occurrence. I’m incredibly glad I did because
this book is FANTASTIC and I thoroughly enjoyed reading every single word of
it.
I was absolutely hooked from the word go as far as this book is
concerned and I found myself loving and getting pretty quickly attached
to the protagonist, Jennifer Knight, in spite of the fact I hadn’t read the two
previous books in the series. We learn that a family of four has been torn
apart when one of the children- in fact, one of a set of twins, Abigail- goes
missing without a trace. Her twin sister, Olivia, quite literally refuses to
speak and her mother has, quite frankly, gone off the rails. I found myself
absolutely infuriated with Joanna and couldn’t for the life of me understand
how she was able to keep her emotions so in check. She really doesn’t give the
impression that she is a mother going through the most unthinkable, horrendous
thing you could imagine. On the other hand, her dad Nick is the definition of
the devastated father who will do absolutely anything to work out what has
happened to his little girl. The book uses flashback journal entries and
different character perspectives to unravel a mystery that left my heart
pounding and my brain whirring.
Joanna’s writing style is quick paced, descriptive and is one that
definitely keeps a reader’s interest- there was never a moment where I found it
difficult to plod through the book. In fact, I had to force myself to go to bed
at 2am because I knew my 8am alarm would be disgustingly painful otherwise. I
was absolutely thrilled to discover that I worked out what was going on
and who the perpetrator of the crime was and with the exception of one teeny
tiny detail (which we’ll ignore…) I worked out the entire reasoning behind it
as well. I won’t give anything away because you really should read this one for
yourself but it’s BIG. I wasn’t really too keen on the whole paranormal aspect
of the novel but that seems to be a recurring storyline in Mitchell’s series of
books involving this particular character and is more a question of my own
tastes as opposed to it affecting the storyline in a negative way.
The book as a whole made me incredibly conscious of the alarming number
of children who go missing on a yearly basis. Caroline points out the number
herself in the book- 140,000 a year- and this sends absolute chills through
every part of my being. I’m definitely going to give the other books in the
series a go when I have the chance and can’t wait to see what Caroline will
have to offer in the coming years! Definitely an author to get excited about.
5/5.
