Twisted River by Siobhan MacDonald
PLOT: 3/5
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 3/5
ENDING: 3/5
COVER ARTWORK: 3/5
READING EXPERIENCE: 4/5
OVERALL SCORE: 3/5
This was an interesting and enjoyable psychological suspense novel and the plot is not one I’ve read before and deals with an international house swap between two families from Ireland and America. The story is told in third person from multiple viewpoints from both families, the O’Briens and the Harveys.
Without giving anything away, the book seemed to be going in one direction and then threw up several red herrings and twists that I didn’t see coming and I changed my mind about who the killer was several times, though I did see the final revelation coming, but maybe that was just me. This was a shame as the book was very readable and the characters were complex, fleshed out and believable in that their motivations were grounded in believable situations and real problems and the kind of things that many families go through – except for murder, of course!
The pace was very quick and the multiple plot strands zipped along in a clear way despite the amount of narrators and Siobhan MacDonald did a good job of writing convincingly from both a female and male perspective. The book is also very descriptive without slowing down the plot and the American and Irish locations come alive in such detail that the writer surely must be familiar with them in real life. There was also plenty of suspense, particularly in the second half of the novel as the story developed.
The conclusion was exciting but also plausible and not too over the top, as some of this kind of domestic thriller can be. The whole thing was very enjoyable to read and at 256 pages it certainly didn’t overstay its welcome. I will certainly be looking forward to whatever Siobhan MacDonald writes next.
I would like to thank NetGalley for the book which was provided in return for a fair review.
