See You Soon by NC Marshall.
Synopsis… “When Emily receives an e-mail from her estranged childhood friend, Ali, she instantly looks forward to reading what it has to say. She hasn’t seen or heard from Ali in a very long time and hopes that they can begin to rekindle the perfect friendship they once had. But when Emily opens the e-mail, she finds it isn’t the friendly message she had hoped for. Instead, it is a desperate plea for help from Ali to tell Emily she could be in danger. Growing increasingly concerned for Ali’s safety, Emily is forced to return to the seaside town where she and Ali had grown up. The same town that she had fled from over fifteen years ago, when she had sworn she would never return. Once back there, Emily is quickly thrown into a game of cat and mouse, where she must follow the clues to help her old friend. But time is against her and she is constantly looking over her shoulder. It appears Emily isn’t alone, and must hurry before her past finally tracks her down…”
Overall rating 3.5 out of 5 stars.
My review…
I’m a little bit unsure how I felt about this one, and whilst it certainly had some aspects that I wouldn’t have anticipated, other parts were just awful and so I went down the middle (ish) with my rating.
Our main character, Emily, I really liked, I felt her personality shone through and I loved how open and honest she was with the reader. And I loved how she was pulled back to her childhood home and that began to unravel lots of little stories within it.
On the flip side, it did frustrate me how we would go off on a tangent, just at the moment something big had happened and we wanted to know how it would continue.
The other characters though (and there were only a few) didn’t get the same courtesy and we were left wondering about Mark and Tom and even Ali herself who the story was focused around were a mystery.
Some aspects of the story were just plain stupid, the way Ali just assumed (as if she’s psychic) that Emily would be at a certain place so she could drop off a note there?! And the mysterious relationship that Ali had, which ended up being someone completely different to the trail that had been laid so you had absolutely no chance of guessing that one right!
The ending ruined this book for me though, I could see what the author was trying to do and that’s what hurt me the most.
It would have been the most amazing twist had we actually known who the person was. Part of a suspense/mystery novel is trying to guess who the murderer is or who-dunnit and then when it’s someone completely out of the blue who we’ve never met before it feels like a waste of time. Which is exactly how I felt with this book.
On the whole, I feel this book had a real promise to it. The premise was good and if only the author had spent a little bit more time on the important details and less on others I feel it could have been an excellent read.
Em xxx
What Em's Reading 