I love physical books, so it is disappointing that my first “read” is actually a book I listened to! Over the last couple of years I have become an audio book convert; I still prefer sitting down with a paperback, but Audible makes for a solid walking companion, especially on those dull days when you really need to do your steps for the day!
From Sheridan Le Fanu and Edgar Allen Poe to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, the locked-room mystery, or “impossible crime” mystery has enthralled readers and continues to do so. The reader is confronted with a conundrum and sufficient clues with which to solve a murder. What seems impossible can be answered by a rational explanation, but only if you can keep your wits about you.
“Isolated on their private island in Cornwall, the Darker family have come together for the first time in over a decade. When the tide comes in, they'll be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. When the tide goes back out, nothing will ever be the same again. Nothing – because one of the family is a killer . . .
As the leaves of autumn fall, Daisy
Darker arrives at her grandmother’s house for eightieth birthday celebrations.
Seaglass, the Darker’s ancestral home, is a crumbling Cornish house perched
upon its own tiny private island.
Every member of the family has their
secrets. Nana, alone for so long. Daisy's absent father, Frank. Her
cold-hearted mother, Nancy. Her siblings, Rose and Lily, and her niece, Trixie,
full of questions and without a father of her own. Daisy has never had an easy
relationship with her family, but some secrets are much darker than others.
This will be a gathering that some of them won't remember.”
Reading the blurb, I was excited to read this novel. If
you’re a fan of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” this book will
resonate with you as there are many similarities that scream “Agatha Christie.”
It’s not just the Cornish Island setting and the fact that events take place
during a dark, stormy night, but the fact that there is a poem used as an
epigraph weaving throughout the course of the novel.
The novels of Christie worked because modern technology didn’t exist, so Feeney has cleverly orchestrated her novel to being set on a tiny island with little to no reception for mobile phones and no means of escape until the tide turns. As the tension ramps up, you can imagine how isolated the characters are, and how long time seems to drag for the tide to turn to take them to safety.
The Darker’s are a dysfunctional family harbouring many
secrets and they have spent years avoiding each other. Beatrice Darker (nana)
is a celebrated children’s author who lives in the ancestral home Seaglass. Halloween
is approaching and so is Nana’s 80th birthday…so she has brought the
family together for one last time at her remote crumbling gothic pile, housed
on a tiny tidal island, for a celebration of her life, and for what she believes
is her last birthday, if a fortune teller is to be believed.
The story is told through the eyes of the titular character
Daisy Darker, both current events and the family backstory. The Darker family
really are an unpleasant bunch; thoroughly unlikeable and dull people, however,
Daisy’s flashbacks allow you to understand the family dynamics. Each incident
reveals how members of the family felt about each other, especially the
relationship between the three Darker sisters. Unfortunately, these memories
that Daisy relate to the audience are very one-dimensional and tediously show
that siblings tend to squabble! I felt there were several questions that remained
to be answered which could flesh out the characters. I didn’t understand WHY
Lily was so cruel towards Daisy. Perhaps if I understood her character, I could
show her more empathy rather than instant dislike.
“Daisy Darker’s family were as dark as dark
could be,
when one of them died, all of them lied and
pretended not to see…”
Daisy Darker’s nana was the oldest but least
wise,
the woman’s will made them all feel ill, which
was why she had to die…”
I did enjoy listening to this novel, despite having a gut
feeling early on about Daisy’s character. It didn’t spoil the book at all and
in some ways, it made proceedings in the house seem a little more unsettling.
If the end comes as a real surprise, I’d recommend reading the book again,
knowing what you know! That aside, I do think the author had a real smorgasbord
of spooky elements that could have come into play but were cast aside, favouring
instead endless exposition that detracted from what could have been shocking
revelations causing the reader to gasp and think ‘Wow! Mind blown!’
The setting was so perfect for creating suspense, but it could
have been dialled up much more. A gothic house on an island. Where were all the
swirling mists drawing in? Where were the strange eerie sounds you wouldn’t encounter
on the mainland? I mean a raging storm is inconvenient and a bit spooky, but
ramp up the atmosphere, please. We get a glimpse about the garden and the
things that happened there, and there is a bit of action outside of the house,
but that’s the problem, the audience is not being made to feel really uncomfortable,
Feeney gives us a tempting starter, but I wanted a ramped up main course! I
want that feeling of claustrophobia, things untoward are happening outside so
we need to go into the safety of the house…but now the walls are closing in and
people are dead and… Sadly that intensity is not built upon.
When the family assemble at Beatrice’s house, she reads her
Will to the assembled family. Her Will confirms all their fears, she will not
be leaving anyone with anything. This of course ignites a furious rage within
the family; everyone has something to say, and feelings and animosity come to a
head. At the stroke of midnight, the fortune teller’s prophecy appears to have
come true. Beatrice is found dead, but who is the killer and will s/he strike again?
As I mentioned earlier, I need to be able to relate to the
characters. I need to know a deeper reason WHY Beatrice doesn’t want her
children or grandchildren to be beneficiaries. Tell me more about the siblings.
Lily hates Daisy, I get that, she’s the middle sister. She’s never going to be
the golden first child, and of course when Daisy arrives she’ll be the baby
sister who will get all the attention; but there has to be more about why Lily
is so intentionally cruel towards Daisy. Her character should be more menacing or disturbed
rather than vain, entitled, a spoilt brat. This is the problem with having Daisy
narrate the book via flashbacks, I need to understand where Lily is coming
from.
All in all this was a clever and enjoyable book but it just
lacked a bit of finesse in the execution and missed the opportunity to make
some memorable characters. I felt like the book was split into three parts, an
unusual creative beginning, a bland repetitive middle, and a rushed ending
tying up all the loose pieces together with a shocking twist, but ultimately
failing as the clues had been there from the start if you took notice of them.
It’s certainly worth reading, but other thrillers have gripped me more!
Genre: Thriller, Mystery,
Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Gothic Fiction, Psychological Fiction
Release
Date: 18th
August 2022 – Audible Audio
Publisher: Macmillan
Listening
Time: 10h
54m
“Disclosure: If you buy books linked to this site, I may earn a small commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops, at no extra cost to you.”
SPOILER ALERT!
“Daisy Darker’s family were
as dark as dark can be.
When one of them died, all
of them lied, and pretended not to see.
Daisy Darker’s nana was
the oldest but least wise.
The woman’s will made them all feel ill, which was why she
had to die.
Daisy Darker’s father lived life dancing to his
own tune.
His self-centred ways, and
the pianos he played, danced him to his doom.
Daisy Darker’s mother was an actress with the
coldest heart.
She didn’t love all her
children, and deserved to lose her part.
Daisy Darker’s sister Rose was the eldest of the
three.
She was clever and quiet and
beautiful, but destined to die lonely.
Daisy Darker’s sister Lily was the vainest of
the lot.
She was a selfish, spoilt,
entitled witch, one who deserved to get shot.
Daisy Darker’s niece was a precocious little
child.
Like all abandoned
ducklings, she would not fare well in the wild.
Daisy Darker’s secret story was one someone
sadly had to tell.
But her broken heart was
just the start of what will be her last farewell.
Daisy Darker’s family wasted far too many years
lying.
They spent their final hours
together learning lessons before dying.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.