I’m shaking as I turn the postcard over. A picture of a pretty Cotswold village. And a message: Bitter Honey, here I come.
It’s in my twin sister’s handwriting. She’s the only person who ever called me that. Except that can’t be true. Because, if it is, then whose body is buried under the patio?
She was the golden one. I was the shy, bookish one. Living in her shadow. Now I have everything I ever wanted. A stunning home on the Dorset cliffs. A handsome husband. A beautiful teenage daughter.
But my husband disappears at night. Our dog is the only member of the family that really loves me. And if my twin sister is alive, then everything I believed about my life is a lie.
Renita D’Silva loves stories both reading and creating them. Her books have been translated into several languages. Her short stories have been published in The View from Here, Bartleby Snopes, this zine, Platinum Page, Paragraph Planet, Verve among others, have been nominated for the Pushcart prize, the Best of the Net anthology, shortlisted for the LoveReading Very Short Story award and The Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and longlisted for the BBC National Short Story award. Her first psychological thriller, The Neighbours, won the Joffe Books Prize 2023.
My thoughts: This was a good twist filled read. Twin sisters Ash and Nish do everything together. Nish is the driving force, the golden girl, Ash is the quiet one, desperate to escape her sister’s shadow.
As adults they are no longer in contact, until a postcard appears. But if her sister is alive, who did she bury under the patio?
As the narrator moves through her life, we try to work out which twin she is, it seems like she’s Ash, but the diary entries and flashbacks suggest something far stranger is going on. When the final reveal takes place – you will gasp.
This is clever, filled with unreliable characters, with people who change their names, their whole lives. With sisters who should have been allowed to be themselves not half of a whole.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
💙💛 Thank you so much for being a part of this adventure x
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