Haven't They Grown by Sophie Hannah - #BookReview

 

" Here we are, in the wrong place: Wyddial Lane. It's a private road, as the sign unsubtly proclaims in letters larger than those spelling out its name, in a village called Hemingford Abbots. I switch off the engine, stretch my back to release the ache from two hours of driving, and wait for Ben to notice that there's no football ground in sight...

He's buried in his phone. I can't help thinking of it like that - as if he's stuck inside the machine in his hand, unable to get out. Quite happy about it too. Zannah's the same. Most teenagers are, as far as I can tell: they spend all day and half the night in lock-eyed communion with an addictive device."

All Beth has to do is drive her son to his football match, watch him play and then drive home. But the knowledge that her former best friend lives nearby is all-consuming. She can't resist. She parks opposite the house, and is still there when Flora and her children return home.

Except... something's not right.

Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three years old. Today, they look exactly the same - they haven't changed at all. How is this possible?

Beth knows it isn't - yet she also knows what she saw, and that it was real. And, having seen it, how can she forget?

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I am at a loss as to why I have not read much from this author. I have read all, except the latest, of the  new Hercule Poirot Mysteries, which I must rectify soon, but none of her other novels. I am not quite sure how she has slipped through my reading net. 

Having read Haven't They Grown I now intend to throw myself into her books with abandon. This was an amazingly different mystery to any which I have read before. I read it in a couple of sittings (it would have been only one sitting if that pesky thing called life didn't keep calling on my time) as I was completely engrossed in the story from the very beginning.

The main character, Beth, leads the reader to question the reliability of her as a narrator from the very beginning. She sees something which cannot be accurate, and I found myself asking all the same questions that she was asking. However, we come to trust Beth's instincts, and I enjoyed being on this determined journey with her.

Ms Hannah portrays all of her characters exceptionally well. In addition to Beth, her daughter, Zannah, was a wonderful character and it was a breath of fresh air to see a teenager portrayed with such mature and insightful qualities, whilst still being portrayed as an ordinary teenager who is trying to wriggle out of her exam revision.

The plot is original and contains the requisite twists and turns for this to be an exciting and immersive reading experience. As the story unfolds there are some dark undertones involved but never to the point of feeling uncomfortable. Indeed, I finished this novel full of hope and optimism for the characters. There are some important themes that the author handles with intelligence and sensitivity.

This is an excellent work which I highly recommend. I am going to order something by this author straight away. Are you a fan of her writing? What do you suggest I buy?

ISBN:978 1444776201

Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton

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About the Author: 

Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological crime fiction, published in 27 countries. In 2013, her latest novel, The Carrier, won the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards. Two of Sophie’s crime novels, The Point of Rescue and The Other Half Lives, have been adapted for television and appeared on ITV1 under the series title Case Sensitive in 2011 and 2012. In 2004, Sophie won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her suspense story The Octopus Nest, which is now published in her first collection of short stories, The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets.

Sophie has also published five collections of poetry. Her fifth, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T S Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. 

She lives with her husband and children in Cambridge, where she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. She is currently working on a new challenge for the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.

(bio courtesy of Goodreads)