Blurb:
She’s not there to save her friend.
She’s there to silence her.
When nurse Laura arrives at her old best friend’s deathbed, it’s not out of compassion – it’s out of fear. Her enigmatic Sadie is dying, and with her last breath, she might destroy everything.
Sixteen years ago, tragedy tore their group of nursing students apart. And Laura has spent every moment since then ensuring the truth never sees the light of day.
But as Sadie fades, the past refuses to stay buried. And Laura is about to learn: The dying don’t always go quietly.
And some confessions are worth killing for.
My Review:
This is a dark and compelling slow-burner about two friends, Laura and Sadie. It’s told in a split time-line between ‘then’ – the 1990’s when the women meet at a nurses training college, and ‘now’ – when Sadie is dying and her daughter, Elsie has come to find the now estranged Laura, begging her to come back and nurse her mother who has been constantly asking for her.
Everything about this book creeps along with a sense of unease. I haven’t read anything else by this author, so I have no clue if this is just a method he’s used for this book but it’s so, so clever. It quite literally manipulates the reader into wanting to read more, while making them feel completely uncomfortable at the same time. Not a single character is written to be likeable in any way and nothing about their lives, whether in the past or the present every seems joyful or happy. Even their experience training to become nurses is explored as a dark, unenjoyable time in their lives where the hospital itself acts as an encroaching, dank, dingy jailer. It’s deliciously awful!
We soon discover that Laura in the early days is clearly escaping something and has come to London to become invisible. She’s enthralled by the older, more experienced Sadie who lives a mysterious and bohemian lifestyle and slowly but surely the two become close. However, it’s an intense, unbalanced relationship. What follows will lead to their undoing, and by the time Elsie comes to find Laura, they have not had contact for many years.
The split timeline worked well. I found myself racing through, wanting to find out what had happened ‘then’ that led to the end of their friendship and the reason that Laura was so on edge about what secrets Sadie might reveal. The ‘now’ chapters read like a ‘locked room’ thriller – as much as Laura wants to leave her current situation, she’s compelled to stay so that she can control what Sadie might say. So she’s stuck in this house that holds so many obviously bad memories, desperate to leave but unable to!
If you’re a lover of tense and atmospheric slow-burning psychological thrillers, then this is a must-read! Chris Bridges ticks all the boxes, including an unreliable narrator and lots of disturbing, dark characters.
Thank you to Compulsive Readers for the blog tour.
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