Watching Edie by Camilla Way
| Watching Edie by Camilla Way | |
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| Category: Thrillers | |
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Reviewer: Zoe Page
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| Summary: A psychological thriller that makes you doubt everything you have come to learn, this is a haunting read. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 304 | Date: July 2016 |
| Publisher: Harper Collins | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0008159016 | |
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Edie and Heather are two old friends who haven't kept in touch as they left their teenage years behind, but a chance encounter brings Heather back just when Edie most needs a friend. It's so welcome, this return, that she's happy to accept the coincidence and not think too hard about the events that may have brought the two girls back together. From long lost friend to established confidant, Heather seamlessly reintegrates herself into Edie's life, but are things as rosy as they seem, or does one of the girls have a big secret they're trying to forget?
We switch time quite easily, from when the girls were young to the modern day. In the past, Heather is narrating and in the present it's Edie who's talking. This put such an interesting spin on it, because as a reader I will usually side with the main character unless explicitly told otherwise, and here we had sweet, innocent young Heather and slightly less well behaved Edie when they were teens, but all these years later it's nice, normal Edie and now Heather is the loose cannon. It added a brilliant element of uncertainty; it couldn't be the case that both scenarios were right because it was so improbable, so just which one of them is seeing the world clearly?
If you whack the words “psychological thriller” on a book, you'll find I'm inexplicably drawn to it. Occasionally such books will let me down, but not this one! The story builds beautifully, twisting and turning as secrets from the past crash down around revelations from the present. In the end I did find myself beginning to side more with one of the girls, but it was only a temporary state as the story unfolds right until the very last page, leaving you open-mouthed and doubting everything you've just been told to be true.
Set in a part of London I know well (I regularly frequent the site where the featured maternity unit is located) this is a gritty story about life in the capital when you're not on the coveted “London weighting”, i.e. a salary to keep up with the costs of life there. Things haven't gone especially well for either girl, and their comfortable enough home lives as children are now a thing of the past. And I'm pretty sure the last thing you want when life is already on the tough side is a long lost school friend back in your life, no matter how pleasant and helpful they seem.
I enjoyed every page of this book and have been recommending it widely since I finished it. It's not so much scary as it is creepy, and it had me on the edge of my seat for the 2 short days it took me to finish.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending us a copy to review. We would also recommend the fabulous You Sent Me A Letter by Lucy Dawson.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Watching Edie by Camilla Way at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Watching Edie by Camilla Way at Amazon.com.
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