14.6.17

BOOK REVIEW: Blood Sisters by Jane Corry

Three little girls set off for school one sunny May morning. Within an hour, one of them is dead. Fifteen years later, Alison and Kitty are living separate lives. Kitty lives in a care home. She can't speak, and she has no memory of the accident that put her there, or her life before it.
Art teacher Alison look fine on the surface. But the surface is a lie. When a job in a prison comes up, she decides to take it- this is her chance to finally make things right.
But someone is watching Kitty and Alison. Someone who wants revenge for what happened that day. And only another life will do...

Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 464

Jane Corry's debut novel, My Husband's Wife was fantastic so I was excited to see what she would do next. Blood Sisters is just as thrilling, Corry demonstrates her knack for writing dark, tense, psychological stories.
Three little girls set off for school many years ago, one ended up dead, the other with life changing injuries and the third girl was physically unscathed but it becomes apparent that her mental trauma runs deep and still has a hold over her life in the present. Alison will never forget that walk to school with her sister Kitty. They now lead very different lives; Kitty is locked in a body that she can barely use and Alison is still struggling to come to terms with the events of her past. She thinks she can somehow make things right by taking a job as an art teacher in a prison  but this just sets off a devastating chain of events. Someone else remembers that awful day and they are watching Alison and Kitty, all they want is revenge, a life for a life.
I was surprised by just how much is going on in this book. There are so many layers and events to prise apart. You have the accident, Kitty and Alison's childhood, their relationship as sisters, Alison's father's identity, Alison's current mental state, the list goes on. But somehow Jane Corry brings all of these separate strands together and ties them up beautifully. I felt that she truly showed the complex relationship that sisters have. I have an older sister that I am very close to but I know that it is very different to a sister/brother relationship. I would have liked to have seen the story line about Alison's father explored a little more as
I was left with a few questions as to how certain events had taken place.
Blood Sisters by Jane Corry has the perfect balance, on one hand it is a fraught, psychological thriller and on the other hand it is much more emotive, taking the time to explore different relationships and behaviours.
This book would be great to take on holiday as it will completely grab your attention , you will not be able to stop turning the pages.

Many thanks to Penguin for sending me a copy of the book to review. 

1 comment:

Nadia said...

Dot, this book sounds fantastic! The perfect summer read that I can't wait to get my hands on. I'm so glad you posted about it. I'm loving psychological thrillers more and more lately and this one fits the bill perfectly :)

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