Close My Eyes - Sophie McKenzie

Title: Close My Eyes
Author: Sophie McKenzie
Genre: Suspense
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 400
Date read: April, 2013

It's been eight years since Gen Loxley lost her daughter, Beth: eight years of grief in which nothing's really moved forward, for all that her husband, Art, wills it to. Gen, once a writer of novels, has settled in to a life of half-hearted teaching, while Art makes his name and their fortune - and pressures her into trying IVF once again. For Gen, it seems a cruel act of replacement; life without Beth is unthinkable, unbearable - but still it goes on. And then a woman arrives on Gen's doorstep, saying the very thing she longs to hear: that her daughter was not stillborn, but was spirited away as a healthy child, and is out there, waiting to be found...So why is Art reluctant to get involved? To save his wife from further hurt? Or something much more sinister? What is the truth about Beth Loxley?

Very unputdownable, and if it hadn't been for the epilogue I might even have given it a fifth star, but I didn't care for the epilogue at all, and it kinda ruined the rest of the book for me.

But ignoring the epilogue this is the psychological thriller genre when it's best. A woman knowing something is wrong, but being made to question herself and even her own sanity by everybody around her as she tries to figure out what is wrong. For a time I worried whether Sophie McKenzie could work out a decent ending, but she actually managed quite nicely on that account.

There were parts I didn't find completely realistic, but fortunately it was more a vague unease than actually asking me to suspend my disbelief altogether. I still don't really see something like this happening IRL though.

A thrilling book. I just wish she hadn't added (or I hadn't read) the last 2 pages.