Book Review - Familiar Strangers by Jackie Walsh #BookReview #BookBlogger #suspense

I loved the premise of the story, a mother with Alzheimer’s in a nursing home suddenly uttering the words - You are not mine, I took you!! And the daughter Becca’s world was absolutely shattered. On the other hand, an unknown woman was found murdered close to her home, and the cops started investigating her.

Jackie Walsh with her debut kept me enthralled for most of the book. I kept egging the main character to move faster. The pages of kindle sure did turn fast. I needed to know the secret of her birth, the life she had been living. Not a single thing seemed to foretell the story of her past. I liked seeing how she persevered to find clues since the truth was hidden in her mother’s lost world.

In some ways I loved the way Becca’s circumstances were described, she seemed trapped. Only the truth would release her from the prison of someone else’s making. Searching for information about the dead woman brought her very close to the edge of the precipice where freefall was the only option. Walsh’s writing brought out the desperation so clearly that I kept inspecting every line to get an inkling about the past.

Ah but soon my niggles came to light. Becca was not shown growing strong down the book except in the last 20%. She either drank and drank and drank or she fell unconscious. I am sure if I investigate, I would find that drinking led to her swooning with every information revealed to her. Ughhh…

Yet the book with its story kept me hooked for those 3 hours allowing me to escape into Becca’s world with its familiar strangers.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Hera books, and this is my journey into its pages, straight from the heart!!

All my reviews can be read here

Since Becca Wall’s mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, every day Becca loses a little more of the loving, caring mother who would do anything for her only daughter. But when one day Nancy Wall confesses that Becca is not her child, her world falls apart.

Becca tells herself that the words are just a cruel symptom of Nancy’s illness; after all, she has her birth certificate, and pictures of herself as a newborn along with her Mom, Dad and older brother, Danny. Becca tries to forget, to get on with her life – until the day the police question her about the whereabouts of a missing woman, Katie Collins.

Katie has disappeared without a trace, telling her husband that she is leaving to find Rebecca Wall. But Becca doesn’t know Katie, so it’s a case of mistaken identity – isn’t it? But as Becca discovers why Katie was desperate to find her, the lies that Becca has always believed crashing down. Soon, it’s clear that someone knows the truth – and that they’ll stop at nothing to keep their secrets…

Publication Date: 22nd May 2019

Publisher: Hera Books