I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney
Aimee Sinclair is finally seeing success in her acting career but her personal life is in shambles. Her childhood was unusual in many ways and she has lost everyone she considered family. Growing up she was only ever comfortable pretending to be other people; an acting teacher gave her a chance to shine and she has never thought of doing anything else. She met the perfect man and married but he became physically and mentally abusive as the marriage continued. She finally has had enough and told her husband she wanted a divorce and now he has disappeared. She goes to the police for their help but they begin to suspect foul play and she is their only lead and suspect. She thinks her stalker must be involved but no one believes there ever was a stalker. Now Aimee needs to puzzle out who would want to hurt her and harm her career before she loses everything she has worked so hard to accomplish.
I thoroughly enjoyed the author’s debut novel Sometimes I Lie and I knew that her next book would have big shoes to fill. Unfortunately I think she tried a little too hard to top the surprising twists of her last novel. The entire book was great and well plotted with great insight into Aimee’s character and what made her who she is but then the last tenth of the book happened. There was a double twist (that’s the only way I can think to put it without giving the book away) where a single twist would have been more than enough to shock any reader. I know I didn’t see it coming! But when the twist twisted again I just shook my head and sighed. I don’t think it was a bad thriller I just think the author tried to hard to be shocking and went straight past plausible to unbelievable. It was still a great character study of Aimee, a woman who persevered after much hardship, and a good thriller but I’m holding out hope for the author’s third outing.