Read on the Kindle, our book club book for March.
After a disappointing first novel (The Miniaturist), this book, also a first novel, really gave me something to get my teeth into.
The narrator of the story is 82 year old Maud. Although never explicitly stated, it's clear that Maud has pretty advanced Alzheimer's. At the start of the book she is living by herself, supported by visits from carers and her long-suffering daughter, Helen, but it soon becomes apparent that Maud cannot be left on her own, and she is moved into Helen's house.
It seems a terrifying portrayal of what happens to a dementia sufferer when the familiarity of home is taken from them. Maud's grasp on reality becomes more and more tenuous as she tries to discover what has happened both to her friend Elizabeth, and her sister Sukey, missing for seventy years.
I pretty much devoured this book over three days. I thought the writing was superb and the way the two mysteries, historical and present day entwined themselves in Maud's mind was brilliant.
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