The Accident by C.L. TaylorMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Time taken to read - 1 day
Publisher - Avon Books
Pages - 404
Source - ARC from Avon
Blurb from Goodreads
The person you trust most may only be telling you half the story …
Fast-paced, suspenseful, this is a book with more twists than a helter-skelter that will keep you reading late into the night. Perfect for fans of Before I Go to Sleep and Gone Girl.
Sue Jackson has the perfect family but when her teenage daughter Charlotte deliberately steps in front of a bus and ends up in a coma she is forced to face a very dark reality.
Retracing her daughter’s steps she finds a horrifying entry in Charlotte’s diary and is forced to head deep into Charlotte’s private world. In her hunt for evidence, Sue begins to mistrust everyone close to her daughter and she’s forced to look further, into the depths of her own past.
There is a lot that Sue doesn’t know about Charlotte’s life. But then there’s a lot that Charlotte doesn’t know about Sue’s...
My Review
We open up the first chapter in a hospital room, Charlotte is in a coma, she is 15. Her mum and dad are in the room, mum is talking to her, trying to understand why she would do such a thing, trying to get a response. The next chapter throws back to when Charlotte's mum, Sue, many years before and gives us an insight into her life and why she is the way she is at present day. The tale rotates from present day and Sue trying to get to the bottom of why her daughter felt she had to step in front of a bus. Why everyone who cared about her daughter seems to be keeping a wide berth and what was really happening in her daughters life in the run up to the incident. Will Sue find the answers and will it help understand what has happened to her daughter?
This is a fantastic debut novel. The present day is just a distraught mother trying to do what she can for her daughter who is in a coma and she can't understand why or what happened. We flip back and forth to Sue's past, a relationship that was horrific, scary, controlling, abuse and violent to say the least. This gives us an insight into why she behaves as she does and why her husband reacts how he does toward her. The present story is a lot of why and the mum doing detective work, questioning everyone in Charlotte's life. The past is pretty chilling and makes for very compelling reading. Her then partner is a manipulative genius and if you have ever been in a relationship like that or saw someone you love in one, you can't help but see how easy it is for people to be caught up in it. Also how quickly and devastating a relationship like that can be and the impact it can have in the years to come.
I found it hard to put down and raced through it in a day. I can't do a spoiler review, I hate them, however a few of my reasons for it not being a 5 star is looking at it overall and the conclusion of the story and the speed of the end. It is a fantastic read, I would recommend to anyone and I would definitely read this author again, 4/5 for me this time. Thank you so much to Avon for sending me an ARC of this in exchange for an honest review. You can get a copy of this yourself, from any good retailer from the 10th of April, 2014.
Hi Lainy,
ReplyDeleteThis story sounds familiar, so I am sure I have it on my Kindle somewhere as a NetGalley freebie, although I can't lay my hands on it just now!
I am also already following Cally on Twitter, so that's a bit of a giveaway, although that may be just because, coming from Bristol as she does, Cally is an author who is quite local to me and I always try to support local talent.
Anyway, thanks for the tantalising review, this sounds like a completely engrossing storyline and I am already wondering what secrets both mother and daughter harbour and more importantly, does dad know about any of this?
I am hoping that this one surfaces to the top of my pile very soon.
Have a great weekend (the weather looks quite grotty down here in Somerset).
Yvonne
The plot does sound very interesting. The idea of people who we think that we know well having experiences that may shock us is indeed great material for fiction.
ReplyDeleteI do not like rushed plots so I think that I would likely be a little disappointed at the end too.
Sounds very good Lainy and with good character development. It sounds like the going back and forth really gives an idea as to why Charlotte did what she did.
ReplyDelete