ARC Review: The Wicked Sister by Karen Dionne

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I received an ARC of this book via Little, Brown Book Group (UK) and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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Description

She thought she’d buried the past. But what if it’s been hunting her this whole time?

For a decade and a half, Rachel Cunningham has chosen to lock herself away in a psychiatric facility, tortured by gaps in her memory and the certainty that she is responsible for her parents’ deaths. But when she learns new details about their murders, Rachel returns,  in a quest for answers, to the place where she once felt safest: her family’s sprawling log cabin in the remote forests of Michigan.

As Rachel begins to uncover what really happened on the day her parents were murdered, she learns – as her mother did years earlier – that home can be a place of unspeakable evil, and that the bond she shares with her sister might be the most poisonous of all.

My thoughts

Up until I requested – and was approved to read – this ARC, Karen Dionne wasn’t a writer I had ever read (or heard of), so I wasn’t sure what to expect with The Wicked Sister. What I got was a thrilling read about family, fractured relationships and figuring out the truth.

Like Nothing Can Hurt You, The Wicked Sister wasn’t a genre of book I usually read but – that being said – I really enjoyed it. Dionne not only introduced us to compelling characters, she also described the landscape in such a captivating, vibrant. I’ve never been to Michigan but, as the narrative unfolded, I felt as if I was in a familiar place.

I liked how Dionne wrote her characters. Rachel was strange, but also kind and incredibly determined, and the moments in Jenny’s narrative between Jenny and Rachel made my heart swell at times. Then you had Jenny’s narrative in the past, which was equally interesting, and it enabled me to piece together the story (both obvious bits and things I hadn’t thought of initially).

My only problem with this book was the ending. After the thrilling cat-and-mouse between the two sisters, and the mystery of who the aforementioned ‘wicked sister’ is, I kind of felt like things – though they ended a lot better, and nicer, than I anticipated – fizzled out at the end. The excitement that had gripped me from the first page just wasn’t there at the end.

Regardless, The Wicked Sister was a thrilling read full of twists and turns, as well as moments that shocked and excited (and sometimes completely freaked me out!), and I would be interested to read more of Dionne’s works in the future.

As with all my other ARC reviews, I want to thank NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group (UK) for the ARC.

The Wicked Sister will be published on 4th August 2020.

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