{"id":1082,"date":"2013-07-26T18:20:17","date_gmt":"2013-07-27T00:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1082"},"modified":"2013-07-26T18:20:17","modified_gmt":"2013-07-27T00:20:17","slug":"sophie-mckenzie-close-my-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/sophie-mckenzie-close-my-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophie McKenzie: Close My Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On a recent train trip to Chicago, with the expected Amtrak delays, I had plenty of time to read, and in fact finished this whole novel on the ride.\u00a0 It was an absolute inhale \u2013 I couldn\u2019t put it down, and half way through my trip started rationing the pages so I wouldn\u2019t finish too quickly. To me a great book recommendation is: when you are reading this book, you are looking at the dwindling number of pages left and saying \u201coh, no.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\"closemyeyes\"<\/a>This novel fits in nicely with some recent, creepy thrillers like Gillian Flynn\u2019s Gone Girl, <\/i>S.J. Watson\u2019s Before I Go to Sleep, <\/i>Elizabeth Haynes\u2019 Into the Darkest Corner, <\/i>and the great S.J. Bolton\u2019s Dead Scared.\u00a0 <\/i>So, you are forewarned.<\/p>\n

McKenzie is a well known British YA writer, with several books to her credit, and one skill that carries over nicely to an adult mystery from a YA novel is the necessity for storytelling drive.\u00a0 While this is a very fine novel, it\u2019s not a meandering thinkpiece \u2013 it\u2019s a terrific story, with lots of great twists and cliffhangers.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost Victorian.<\/p>\n

The central premise, as is the case for many good novels, is a simple one.\u00a0 Main character Gen (or Geniver) Loxley is devastated by the stillbirth of her baby, now eight years ago.\u00a0 She and her husband, Art, a very successful financier, are trying and trying to get pregnant again with no success.\u00a0 It\u2019s made Gen forget about her formerly blossoming writing career and made her a somewhat difficult and distant partner to her husband, Art, who seems more than understanding.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re stuck in life, you need a kick start.\u00a0 This wouldn\u2019t be an interesting novel without one, and Gen gets hers in the form of a strange woman turning up at her door one morning, telling her her baby isn\u2019t dead.\u00a0 She\u2019s (for it was a little girl named Beth) alive.\u00a0 Gen has a dual reaction: she thinks it can\u2019t be true, and she thinks it can.\u00a0 Art is happy to point out to her all the reasons it couldn\u2019t be.\u00a0 When Gen meets an old friend of Art\u2019s at his birthday party, he encourages her to check it out for her own peace of mind.\u00a0 No-one else in Gen\u2019s life is giving her that kind of advice \u2013 in fact, all of them, from her best friend to her husband to her perfect sister in law, Morgan \u2013 are all more or less telling her she\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n

With the desperation of the obsessed, she latches on to Art\u2019s friend, Lorcan, and does begin to investigate, and she starts to discover clues that suggest maybe she isn\u2019t<\/i> crazy.\u00a0 You\u2019re with her on the ride.\u00a0 Your dawning belief in Gen grows as the novel progresses, but to tell too much more of this twisty plot would be to give too much away.\u00a0 Let\u2019s just say once you start reading you won\u2019t be able to stop.\u00a0 This is a terrific first adult effort from a writer who hopefully will be telling eager readers many more stories in the years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a recent train trip to Chicago, with the expected Amtrak delays, I had plenty of time to read, and in fact finished this whole novel on the ride.\u00a0 It was an absolute inhale \u2013 I couldn\u2019t put it down, and half way through my trip started rationing the pages so I wouldn\u2019t finish too … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-psychological"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1084,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions\/1084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}