- File Size: 617 KB
- Print Length: 432 pages
- Publisher: Sphere (1 Aug 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00ABLJ680
Arriving on the windswept Ile de Re off the coast of France, Tabby Dewhurst is heartbroken and penniless, unable even to afford a room for the night. Then she overhears a villager repeating aloud the access code to her front door and, hardly believing her own actions, Tabby waits for the villager to leave and lets herself into the house . . .
And so she enters the strange, hidden world of Emmie, whose sudden offer of friendship is at odds with her obsession with her own privacy. Soon Tabby begins to form suspicions about Emmie, suspicions that will lead her back to England - and to a scandal with shattering consequences.
The prologue begins with a woman sitting in stationary traffic, and out of the blue a car veers across the road, a young person grabbing the wheel from the rear seats in a fruitless attempt to stabilise the vehicle. The witness is traumatised by the look of terror on their face as they plunge through the barrier and down the embankment, to what she assumes would be certain death.
As with a lot of prologues (or this could just be me) you put the scene to the back of your mind as the story is taken up with Tabitha waking up in a strange man's house after spending the night with him. She is destitute and penniless so he gives her fifty euros for the cab fare back to Paris. She takes her leave and after a short cab journey tells the driver to stop, she realises then she will at least be left with a small amount of left over cab fare.
Armed only with the thirty remaining euros and her rucksack she finds herself in a village not far from La Rochelle. She sits in the town pondering how and what to do when she overhears a frustrated woman saying her passcode to her property keypad outloud. Seeing the woman leave shortly after she decides in a fit of impulse to seek sanctuary there for the night, assuming the English speaking woman will be gone long enough for her to rest, shelter and decide on her next move in her plan to get back to England.
She is shaken awake after what seems like a short time napping in the guest room when the woman arrives home.
She is gracious enough to let Tabby explain herself, and after assuming that she poses no threat to her introduces herself as Emmie and agrees to her staying the night.
They sit down to talk and Tabby confesses how she came to be stranded and alone in a foreign country after her boyfriend and travelling companion unceremoniously dumped her in India, claiming not to love her any more.
Emmie feels pity, empathy and a certain affinity for the younger woman, alone in a foreign country, and decides to show an act of kindness and help Tabby; giving her a place to stay and arranging employment alongside her as a cleaner in the île de Ré.
The two woman begin to forge a friendship, yet Emmie is undoubtedly withholding things from Tabby, she knows she has never met anyone so obsessed with privacy and secrecy. She lets her suspicions get the better of her and decides to delve into her past with small clues she finds.
The story flicks between Emily and Tabby's perspective, in the way that makes you turn the pages even faster as you are itching to regain the momentum that the story is building.
The way Candlish portrays the île de Ré is exqisite. It's brought to life by the description of the scenery, even down to the houses and furnishings illustrates it perfectly, also the expression of feelings ties you deeply to the characters.
Speaking of the characters, I loved them! Candlish has perfected the dreadful Nina Meeks to a tee (the real villain of the book). I loved Tabitha; helpful, down on her luck and suffering troubles from her own past, in all - she just wants to help even though her judgement can be misguided. Arthur - I had mixed feelings about him, I wanted to like him but again, misguided!
Of them all, I loved Emily the most. In my mind a true victim. She withstood a childhood filled with tragedy and had to watch her father fade before her eyes with Alzheimers disease (researched well and handled sensitively) and makes simply the wrong choice when falling in love which has the most tragic of consequences and she finds herself public enemy number one, the subject of a nationwide witch hunt instigated by the self proclaimed 'scalp hunter' Nina Meeks.
The ending was to me a huge shock, I had just recovered (slowly) from the most dramatic and totally unpredictable plot twist I have ever read (on a par to me with Jodi Picoult's - The Storyteller, actually no, even more of a shock than that!) when the story ended. At first I was outraged, but after sitting an mulling it over for a while hours, I realised there really was no other way to end it. The whole book, to me, is a touch of genius.
The only thing left for me to say, is if you only ever read one more book...make it this one!
*NB - The Disappearance of Emily Marr is a book I paid for myself and was not a supplied review copy.
