What would you do if you were given a window to a life your mother led that you’d never heard of? Could you ignore the scant information if your mother had just died and your father refuses to discuss the past? This is the situation Kali finds herself in as the eldest daughter to Elena she is sent to find her birth certificate by her younger sister, and in Kali’s eyes, her mother’s favourite daughter Alice. The birth certificate is elusive but in amongst her mother’s things she finds reference to a life spent in Canada and postcards from a woman called Susanna Gillespie.
Kali is suffering, the day before she received the phone call to say her mother was dying, she’d realised that her marriage to Doug was over, in a dark place with unresolved issues with her mother that rippled out to include her father and Alice she isn’t ready to return home to face her husband and on a whim travels from London to Vancouver on a search of her ancestors and Susanna Gillespie, a well-known artist. Kali’s visit to Vancouver throws up more questions than it answers and she moves onto the remote Spring Tide Island where she meets up with Susanna who knew her mother in the days when she was researching Orca’s by tracking them and listening to the way they communicate which lends a neat parallel to this story about families and the ties that bind them.
The description of the setting is amazing with beautiful and terrifying of a place where nature rules with storms and the sea giving a menacing background to the encounter with Susannah. The characters are realistic although not particularly likeable at times but understandably so, as the story gets darker and more terrifying. The book would have been more engaging if some of the repetition had been reduced which although I’m sure was written to underline the reluctance of everyone around Kali to give up their secrets just became a little annoying, especially in a book of 569 pages. The descriptions of the orcas, the excitement of finding and researching the pods was extremely well-researched but again could have been condensed especially as Elena’s character also suffered from repetitive thinking, however when the action kicks in you may well find yourself on the edge of your seat like I did.
If you like your mysteries to have a personal element then this book about family secrets certainly has a different, if quite scary, backdrop, which included some fascinating information about the amazing orcas that are designed to live in the sea and not tanks for entertainment. Although quite sad in places on reflection this tale told illustrates the power of a mother’s love for her child as Kali goes to extraordinary lengths to protect her child.
Great review! I loved this book and the tragedy that the mother faces in the search for the truth. it really got me thinking about the fate of the orcas too – I can see it as a film for sure.
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Sounds good – I like these edge-of-the-seat type of books.
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The ending had me holding my breath in places and it’s not easy to read if you’re about to pass out 😉
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This sounds interesting and certainly something that I’d read. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you Rebecca.
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Thanks as ever for the excellent review, Cleo. I agree with you that 569 pages is a bit long. And I’m always for cutting down on repetition. That said though, it certainly sounds like an absorbing read.
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Margot- – I loved the setting, the storyline and the orcas but the section in the middle where there was resistance to giving up the secrets got a wee bit tedious because of the repetition.
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I’ve wondered about this one and I do like the idea of the story and the setting, so I’ll be looking out for a copy.
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The setting was amazing, and I did like the premise of tracking the Orcas which was very informative and didn’t cross the line to becoming a research dump. I hope you enjoy it if you find a copy, my 50p was well spent!
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569 and repetition! Two words that have saved my TBR on this occasion – thank you! 😉
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See I’m nothing if not fair… I sort of got the author’s intention with the repetition but… too much!
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Ooh this book looks great! Especially the setting and characters, I also thought it was so sweet that she wants to protect her child.
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