Print Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial | Dafina (August 5, 2025)
From Goodreads.com: You’ve known her all your life. Or have you?
Tasha and her older sister Alice may look alike, but they couldn’t be more different. Tasha’s married with two children and still lives in their hometown near Bristol. Alice is a high-flying scientist who travels the world with her equally successful husband.
Yet each sister would trust the other with her life.
When Tasha and her husband Aaron need a break and Alice offers to stay in their home with the kids, Tasha knows her family is in safe hands.
She couldn’t be more wrong.
The call from home is devastating. Alice and her husband Kyle have been attacked, leaving Alice in intensive care and Kyle dead. Rushing to the hospital, Tasha finds the police trying to piece events together. She can’t think why anyone would attack her sister.
Then the note arrives, addressed to Tasha:
It was supposed to be you . . .
Every family has secrets. Some more deadly than others.
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My Rating: 3 stars out of 5
To be honest, I found the writing style for this one to be a bit odd. Each chapter is supposedly told from a different narrator, yet the entire story is written in the third person which took a bit of getting used to. It was also difficult in some places because all of the characters seemed to be exactly the same. To the point that not only was it was hard to tell Alice and Tasha apart, it was also hard to tell the sisters apart from their mother. I could only tell their husbands apart because of the fact that one of them was soon dead. I definitely wish they would have been fleshed out better, maybe we could have seen more of Alice's supposed genius as opposed to her sister instead of just being told that she dressed better and had a bigger and better looking house.
Then when I look at the plot, I found it to be more of a family drama than a thriller. I wouldn't even classify this one as a domestic thriller because it seems like all of the thrilling aspects (the attack on Alice, the murder of her husband and then the death of one of the townsfolk) seemed to take a backseat to the possible discovery of the missing sister (and even that wasn't approached with the kind of intensity that I would have expected).
Which leads me to the ending. Sadly, I can't say too much without giving away spoilers, but I will say that I think the outcome was stupidly outlandish. Especially given the details that came before, and how certain characters had been affected by choices made in the past.
Now, to be fair, this was a fast paced novel that I was able to finish in about a day and a half. I just wish I could say it was because I was glued to the pages, but sadly that wasn't the case. I had an idea of where things might go and I wanted to see if I was right (I wasn't entirely, but the twist wasn't all that shocking to me either as when I looked back all of the clues were right there hiding in plain sight).
That being said, I do believe this novel will appeal to those who just want to read something to pass the time without having to think too deeply into the story being told.
DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.
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