I am counting down the weeks to Christmas by sharing my top blog posts for the year. Today I’m sharing my most viewed blog post for April.
Top Blog Post for April is…
The Disappearance by Annabel Kantaria
About this book..
In a family built on lies, who can you trust?
Audrey Bailey will never forget the moment she met Ralph Templeton in the sweltering heat of a Bombay café. Her lonely life over, she was soon married with two small children. But things in the Templeton household were never quite what they seemed.
Now approaching 70, and increasingly a burden on the children she’s never felt close to, Audrey plans a once-in-a-lifetime cruise around the Greek isles. Forcing twins Lexi and John along for the ride, the Templetons set sail as a party of three – but only two will return.
On the night of her birthday, Audrey goes missing…hours after she breaks the news that the twins stand to inherit a fortune after her death. As the search of the ship widens, so does the list of suspects – and with dark clues emerging about Audrey’s early life, the twins begin to question if they can even trust one another…
My review..
Well well well…..this has been an unexpected pleasure! A “couldn’t put it down” book! Having picked it up earlier to read a few chapters I can honestly say that apart from a few necessity breaks, I did not let go of this beautifully written story of family secrets and betrayals set in 1970s India and present day Cornwall, oh and with a few Greek Islands thrown in for good measure!
The opening of this book is quite a shocker as we are told that the captain of a cruise ship is abandoning the search for a passenger who has been lost overboard. That passenger is Audrey Templeton who was on a cruise of the Greek Islands with her adult twin children to celebrate her 70th birthday. We then go back in time to 1970 to meet Audrey who, having lost both of her parents within a short space of time, is on board a boat bound for India where her parents were married and her friend Janet now lives. Once there she meets a dark and mysterious man, a gorgeous stranger, in a coffee bar and within 6 months they are married. Their new life together in India is changed forever by an horrific incident and they return to London.
This is the authors 2nd book and she has certainly upped her game this time! I loved Audrey, I really felt an emotional connection to this young woman living in a foreign country with a controlling husband and twins that she struggled to make a connection with. You could see how their upbringing had made the twins the adults they became by the authors skilfully plotted insights and with Peter, their detached but controlling father, very much a figure in the background but pulling all the strings. I loved the relationship Audrey had with Lexi but her connection with John was much more interesting in terms of seeing how family secrets affect those we love. And again it makes us think about the old “nurture versus nature” argument, surely twins will have the same morals if they have been brought up together exactly the same? I do so love a dysfunctional family drama and involving twins (an intriguing subject for me that I am always drawn to!) certainly took this to another level of enjoyment.
The plot was very easy to follow due to the use of chapters with dates and times or before/after headings which worked well and kept up the tension on a countdown to “the disappearance”. As I said before, once you start reading the chapters seem to fly by! One of the reasons I read books like this is that I love to be surprised and I am constantly searching for that next OMG moment. I thought I had got it all worked out here but one part of the plot came with a bit of a “lightbulb” moment that I hadn’t expected and the book then went on to a perfectly handled conclusion. This is now an author I will actively seek out in the future as she has certainly proved she can write an intriguing travel inspired suspense with believable characters. Loved it.
I received a copy of this book via netgalley in return for an unbiased review.
Publication date 21st April 2016
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