Louise Douglas (1)

Sarah is at her most vulnerable when she first meets Jamie and Alexander. She is on holiday with her sister and brother in law, and emotionally raw from the stillbirth of a child and the subsequent breakdown of her marriage, not to mention her husband's infidelity with a friend.

The beginning of the story is a bit implausible - Sarah meets Jamie first, who tells her his mummy's gone, and imagines what could have been with her stillborn baby. Then after looking at Alexander in his swimwear, show more they find themselves with 15 minutes to have sex. This is followed by Alexander offering her a job rather than a relationship, as a carer for Jamie - Sarah accepts and moves across the country - what has she to lose?

Even during this weird beginning, though, the book is better than it sounds - I was quickly engaged by Sarah's story and Louise Douglas skilfully builds up her characters and the developing relationships between them. I was very taken with the portrait of Sarah's relationship with Jamie, as an instant rapport is replaced by understandable distrust and then she gradually wins him over.

I fell for this book, its characters and storytelling nearly as fast as Sarah falls for Jamie and Alexander. However, this is a suspense novel as much as a love story. Alexander's beautiful, glamorous wife Genevieve has vanished in suspicious circumstances, and he is the prime suspect. Sarah can not believe he is capable of murder, but lots of people think differently, including Genevieve's family who live locally. At this point Douglas ratchets the suspense up.

In the acknowledgements Douglas mentions borrowing Gothic themes from classics like Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca and the work of the Bronte sisters. Most of the other elements of The Secrets Between Us are quite common in popular fiction too, but they are put together well here. Not even catching sight of a major part of the ending put me off too much - as with many good crime novels, I enjoyed seeing how the story got there as much as any final revelations.

This was my first Louise Douglas book though I have been meaning to read her earlier novels for a while after recommendations from others - I am looking forward to them now.

Thank you to Transworld for sending me The Secrets Between Us to review as part of their Challenge. show less

I find it hard to sum up this book as it is many layered. It is not the sort of thing I usually read, but is a slow-burning mystery combined with a family story.

Mila has been living in Brittany for nearly a year at the home of her deceased half-sister Sophie and Charlie, Sophie's husband. Both were lost in a boating accident although Charlie's body has never been recovered. Mila is looking after their fourteen-year-old daughter Anni, as the only other relation, Mila's stepmother, is an older show more woman who has suffered a heart attack the previous year, although she is still running an investigatory business where Mila helps out part-time.

Mila is trying to write a novel but between working for her stepmother and looking after Anni, it has been neglected. Meanwhile she has a long-distance relationship with her police detective partner who is back in Bristol. She is still grieving for Sophie, whose voice she hears constantly as a sort of commentary on real-life events. And during the book she suffers a sense of inadequacy regarding her surrogate parenting of Anni, which she feels she can never get right and feels guilty because of that.

The action of the story is triggered off when Gosia, an elderly travelling lady in a caravan helps Anni after the girl falls off her bicycle. Mila meets her, intrigued by Gosia's large notebook. The next day the old lady is dead, seemingly of natural causes, but the notebook has vanished along with Gosia's phone, and the local police and doctor are not interested in Mila's concerns. Mila comes into possession of a photograph of Gosia's son and wants to trace him to let him know about his mother, but becomes targeted by hostile forces when she posts on the local social media group for the community asking for information on Gosia. And soon, these forces wreck more havoc.

The setting is well evoked of the small town communities in the area, and the seaside environment. The interweaving of family concerns and the wider one of tracking down a murderer is also well achieved with some lovely lyrical writing and good characterisation. There is a good sense of slow building tension and suspense. The only issue is that certain questions are left unanswered at the end of the book, but I think the author may intend to follow up with a sequel. Altogether I thoroughly enjoyed the book and have no hesitation in awarding it 5 stars. show less

Instead of reading books I've already started, I keep picking random selections from the library shelf. The Love of My Life is chick lit with a slightly darker tone - a widow with a selfish streak a mile wide does the dirty on her late husband's family, twice, in the present and in flashback. Liv Felicone's actions, and her arrogant narration, should make her deeply unlikeable, but her honesty sort of balanced her attitude problem for me. She is who she is, and does what she does, like most show more people in real life. I never quite believed in her grand romance with Luca - the pair of them sound unbearably smug, 'We were thin and good looking' - but her grief after losing him is very physical and powerful. The whole mess with Marc, Luca's twin, is the hardest part of the story to swallow, especially considering their history, but the three of them - Liv, Luca and Marc - actually deserve each other.

A quick, though not always easy, read, with obnoxious but strangely sympathetic characters. show less

There was a lot going on in The Secret of Villa Alba by Louise Douglas as ex-policewoman April Cobain travels to Sicily to help her old school friend, Maddalena, find out what actually happened over thirty years ago when Maddalena’s stepmother disappeared. Her case is about to be exposed on television and it is being suggested that Maddalena’s father most likely murdered her.

In alternate chapters we get to follow April’s investigation and also go back in time to meet Irene, who married show more Enzo Borgata and came to Sicily to start a new life. She had suffered a tragedy back home in England and was hoping that Enzo and his small daughter could help her rebuild her life. Unfortunately the marriage wasn’t a great success. The couple went to live at the family villa and Enzo’s mother was obvious in her dislike of Irene, and went out of her way to make the young woman feel worthless. Irene found her happiness at the stables where she tended and trained the horses, but a devastating earthquake changes everything.

While I loved the setting of this story I did find some incidents rather unbelievable. The characters were varied with some being much better developed than others. The story itself was gritty and intriguing but the sugar-coated ending disappointed me with it’s simplicity. show less