If She Did It – Jessica Treadway

Psychological Thriller
3*s

Hanna Schutt was brutally attacked while lying in her bed three years before the story starts. That night her husband Joe died in the same attack. Rud Petty, the boyfriend of their youngest daughter Dawn, was imprisoned for the attack but now he is being allowed an appeal on the grounds that Hanna had nodded her assent that he was the person responsible while being taken to hospital, the only problem is her memory was damaged in the attack and she no longer remembers anything from that night.

The title of the book relates to the main question: was Dawn involved in any way with the brutal attack on her parents? Hanna has always defended her daughter from any such accusation but with the appeal coming up she has agreed to try to recover her memory of the attack certain that Dawn knew nothing.

There were elements that I really liked in this tale, part of the background to the mother daughter relationship is that Dawn had a lazy eye which in part was why she was bullied at school. Not being anywhere near as accomplished as her elder sister Iris, she struggled socially and was incredibly close to Hanna right up until the point she met Rud. There were other elements that frustrated me. This story is narrated by Hanna and whether by design or lack of good editing, she goes off at tangents all the time. At one point she is ruminating over Dawn getting a job and just this point resulted in several pages of remembering her first job, why she had to get it, what it was, an unfortunate event that happened while engaged in said job etc. All of this took away from the underlying tension by breaking up the storyline.

None of the characters in this book are particularly appealing, Hanna comes across as a little bit gullible although during the book she does at least become more self-aware. While the author does her best to rouse sympathy for Dawn, for me the endless repetition of events, such as the disagreement over whether surgery for the eye would help her, diluted the efforts made. Iris came across as a bit of a prig, not the nicest big sister during the girl’s childhood but all par for the course in sibling rivalry but her actions as an adult simply didn’t ring true.

Even though I found parts of this book annoying by the last third I was turning the pages at some speed as the premise is really good. Although I’m nothing like Hanna, certainly in respect of her naiveté, I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone copes with even the faintest possibility that their child could be a party to such a brutal act. As happens with Hanna in this story I’m sure you couldn’t help but question what had gone before, doubted the choices you made and even made excuses over your own, and your child’s behaviour.

I’d like to thank the publishers, Little Brown Book Group UK who allowed me to read a copy of this book for review purposes. Readers in the US may have read this under the title Lacy Eye. If She Did It was published on 10 March 2015.

This Week In Books (April 29)

Hosted by Lypsyy Lost & Found my Wednesday post gives you a taste of what I am reading this week. A similar meme is run by Taking on a World of Words

I am currently reading The Duke, His Secret Wife and The Missing Corpse by Piu Marie Eatwell

You can read the blurb and opening paragraph in yesterday’s post

I have recently finished If She Did It by Jessica Treadway

Blurb

What if you began to suspect your child of an unspeakable crime?
When Dawn introduces her family to her new boyfriend, Rud, they hide their unsettled feelings because they’re glad that Dawn, always an awkward child, seems to have finally blossomed.
Then Dawn’s parents are savagely beaten in their own bed, and though Hanna survives, Rud stands trial for Joe’s murder. Claiming her boyfriend’s innocence, Dawn initially estranges herself from everyone she knows, but when Rud wins an appeal, Dawn returns home saying she wants to support her mother.
Hanna knows that if she could only remember the details of that traumatic night, she could ensure her husband’s murderer remains in jail. But Hanna hadn’t realised that those memories may cause her to question everything she thought she knew about her daughter… NetGalley

My review will follow soon

Next I am planning on reading What She Left by T.R. Richmond

Blurb

Who is Alice Salmon? Student. Journalist. Daughter. Lover of late nights, hater of deadlines.
That girl who drowned last year.
Gone doesn’t mean forgotten.
Everyone’s life leaves a trace behind.
But it’s never the whole story.
“I will stand up and ask myself who I am. I do that a lot. I’ll look in the mirror. Reassure myself, scare myself, like myself, hate myself. My name is Alice Salmon.”
When Alice Salmon died last year, the ripples from her tragic drowning could be felt in the news, on the internet, and in the hearts of those closest to her. However, the man who knows her best isn’t family or a friend. His name is Professor Jeremy Cooke, an academic fixated on piecing together Alice’s existence. Cooke knows that faithfully recreating Alice, through her diaries, text messages, and online presence, has become all-consuming. But he does not know how deep his search will take him into this shocking story of love, loss and obsession where everyone – including himself – has something to hide . . . Amazon

Have you read any of these? What did you think?

What have you found to read this week?

See what I’ve been reading in 2015 here

Stacking The Shelves (April 25)

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you’re adding to your shelves, be it buying or borrowing. From ‘real’ books you’ve purchased, a book you’ve borrowed, a book you’ve been given or an e-book they can all be shared!

Oh dear, I feel that I ought to stand up and say ‘My name is Cleopatra and I am a bookaholic’ because for some reason I seem to have been on a NetGalley binge and all those lovely publishers out there enable me by approving my requests! Well here goes:

I have a copy of The Drowned Boy by Karin Fossum, an author I first ‘met’ last year by reading The Murder of Harriet Krohn, a quietly brilliant book. This is the eleventh in the Inspector Sejer series so I hope that it works as a stand-alone and isn’t so good that I feel I have to purchase the previous ten!

Blurb

He’d just learnt to walk,’ she said. ‘He was sitting playing on his blanket, then all of a sudden he was gone.’
A 16-month-old boy is found drowned in a pond right by his home. Chief Inspector Sejer is called to the scene as there is something troubling about the mother’s story. As even her own family turns against her, Sejer is determined to get to the truth. NetGalley

The Drowned Boy will be published on 4 June 2015

I also have a copy of In a Dark Dark Wood by Ruth Ware, a book that is due to be published on 30 July 2015.

Blurb

Someone’s getting married. Someone’s getting murdered.
In a dark, dark wood
Nora hasn’t seen Clare for ten years. Not since Nora walked out of school one day and never went back.
There was a dark, dark house
Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen do arrives. Is this a chance for Nora to finally put her past behind her?
And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark room
But something goes wrong. Very wrong.
And in the dark, dark room…. NetGalley

… and I have a copy of If She Did It by Jessica Treadway which was published on 10 March 2015

Blurb

What if you began to suspect your child of an unspeakable crime?
When Dawn introduces her family to her new boyfriend, Rud, they hide their unsettled feelings because they’re glad that Dawn, always an awkward child, seems to have finally blossomed.
Then Dawn’s parents are savagely beaten in their own bed, and though Hanna survives, Rud stands trial for Joe’s murder. Claiming her boyfriend’s innocence, Dawn initially estranges herself from everyone she knows, but when Rud wins an appeal, Dawn returns home saying she wants to support her mother.
Hanna knows that if she could only remember the details of that traumatic night, she could ensure her husband’s murderer remains in jail. But Hanna hadn’t realised that those memories may cause her to question everything she thought she knew about her daughter… NetGalley

I lay the blame for requesting this next book firmly at Lady Fancifull’s door as she wrote such a brilliant review of The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald and mentioned two other favourite books of mine; 84 Charing Cross Road and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, that I simply couldn’t resist requesting a copy for myself!

Blurb

Warning: once you let books into your life, the most unexpected things can happen…
Sara is 28 and has never been outside Sweden – except in the (many) books she reads. When her elderly penfriend Amy invites her to come and visit her in Broken Wheel, Iowa, Sara decides it’s time. But when she arrives, there’s a twist waiting for her – Amy has died. Finding herself utterly alone in a dead woman’s house in the middle of nowhere was not the holiday Sara had in mind.
But Sara discovers she is not exactly alone. For here in this town so broken it’s almost beyond repair are all the people she’s come to know through Amy’s letters: poor George, fierce Grace, buttoned-up Caroline and Amy’s guarded nephew Tom.
Sara quickly realises that Broken Wheel is in desperate need of some adventure, a dose of self-help and perhaps a little romance, too. In short, this is a town in need of a bookshop. NetGalley

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is due to be published on 18 June 2015

Finally Mel Sherratt contacted me to see if I wanted a copy of Only The Brave, well there was only one answer to that question! This is the third in the Allie Shenton series and I certainly can’t stop now.

Blurb

When one of the notorious Johnson brothers is murdered and a bag of money goes missing, a deadly game of cat and mouse is set in motion.
DS Allie Shenton and her team are called in to catch the killer, but the suspects are double-crossing each other and Allie has little time to untangle the web of lies.
As she delves deeper into the case, things take a personal turn when Allie realises she is being stalked by the very same person who attacked her sister seventeen years ago and left her for dead.
Set over forty-eight tension-filled hours, Only the Brave is the latest gut-churning police procedural from acclaimed author Mel Sherratt. NetGalley

Only The Brave is due to be published 26 May 2015

Any of these take your fancy? What have you found to read this week? Please do share in the comments below