Close My Eyes

It’s strange. I loved this book, but hated the main character.

Gen is whiny. Maybe it’s because I’ve never lost a child, nor do I want them at all… I couldn’t connect with her. Gen is also the least developed character in the story.

Even though the narrator constantly annoyed me, I had trouble putting down this book.

Some of the twists are oblivious and you can see them coming from a mile away. Some come out of nowhere and knock you off your ass.

"Of course, what I didn't realise then is that grief, like the seasons, is cyclical. I would just start to feel open to life again, then find myself thrust back under the water, drowning in loss."

Geniver Loxley lost her daughter Beth in a stillbirth eight years ago, and has been struggling ever since. When a stranger turns up on her doorstep, claiming that Beth is still alive and that there was a huge conspiracy to have Geniver believe that Beth is dead, and then that stranger is killed in a hit-and-run, Gen can't help but cling to the thread of hope, and, terrified of the violence seeking to catch up with her, she starts to try to track down her daughter.

This is a very tightly written thriller; McKenzie steers Geniver neatly down the show more line between compulsion and madness, between paranoia and reasonable fear. Like Geniver, the reader never knows whether her husband is involved or not, whose information she can trust, or whether Geniver is actually mad. The voice of a child weaves through the story, popping up intermittently, and remains a mystery until the end - enough to keep the reader looking for the next interruption. It reminded me a lot of Louise Douglas' The Secrets Between Us, although the characterisation is tighter and the mystery/madness angle more delicate than in TSBU.

In a sense, there is a little too much background information on the main characters: so much time and so many words are spent on Art's background, his rise to money and fame - it's clear that he is desperate to succeed at all costs. Similarly, we spend just a bit too time in Geniver's reproductive doldrums; as if a stillbirth wasn't traumatic enough, she hasn't fallen pregnant since and remains single-mindedly focussed on Beth, excluded from her friends' worlds of muddy football kit and birthday parties. In some ways, her exclusion from the world of a mother calls into question her suitability to take charge of a child, should Beth be found alive.

I'd figured out that the villain must be one of three people, given the assortment of red herrings, and was gratified to discover that one of them was the main villain, with a lot of help from a second one! There's a really chilling ending to this one, after the big climax/shoot-out/confrontation which we all knew was coming, which I didn't expect and which ends the reading experience with quite a cold, brutal feeling - as if the rest of the book wasn't brutal enough!

A well-paced, enthralling debut - I look forward to more of McKenzie's work. show less

Fast paced with numerous twists and turns and a few red herrings thrown in, made this book the kind of book you regret having to put down. It was difficult to know who you could trust and what was real and what wasn’t.

Through most of it I was ready to give this story a 5 star rating until I got to the ending that is. I figured out who the big baddie was and a few other things in the story, but that didn’t bother me. What did trouble me was the melodramatic conclusion so many crime fictions seem to fall into. I don’t know why so many mysteries need to close with these over-the-top endings and destroy what credible storyline there is at the beginning, but they do. As I was reading up to toward the last page, I was thinking a show more generous 3 star rating seeing that I did enjoy most of the story – this was until I got to the very last entry of the book. The last few paragraphs were chilling, and quite clever in my mind. I certainly didn’t expect it.

The author left an opening for a continuation of the story if she so pleases and I for one will be curious to see if she does. show less

Crafted with delicate intricacy and fast-moving action, the only book I've ever read that caused my daughter to ask, "Do you love that book more than me?" because of its ability to keep my attention no matter what was going on around me.

Gen thinks her only child was born dead, but eight years later a stranger appears at her doorstep to inform her the child was not only alive, but her husband was involved in fabricating the alleged death and whisking the baby away.

For two intense weeks, Gen follows up on the lead with the help of her husband's former best friend, Lorcan. The closer the pair delve to the truth, the more their worlds unravel.

With a haunting ending that you will always remember, this is definitely a book I wish I had written.

Sophie McKenzie is a well-known YA author who I first encountered when her teen thriller 'Blood Ties' was nominated for the Berkshire Book Award. (It was short listed for various other prizes and also won a fair few similar awards.) I was excited when I spotted this, her first thriller for an adult audience, and hoped it would live up to my expectations.

What's it about?

Geniver Loxley lost her daughter, Beth, eight years ago. Since then, she has struggled to move on, while her husband has built a business empire. One day a stranger appears on her doorstep and tells her what she longs to hear: her daughter is alive. Could this be true? Gen is determined to find out, even if it means doubting her husband, her friends and her own show more sanity.

What's it like?

Quietly engrossing, then increasingly dramatic. I was initially drawn-in by the portrait of a couple living their everyday lives, considering IVF, long married and no longer completely in tune with each other. Then - bam! The stranger arrives with her news at the end of chapter one. I like that McKenzie starts the action quickly (too many books seem to reveal half their plot in the blurb, so you're left itching to move beyond your expectations) and the way her protagonist, Gen, is subsequently unsettled, slowly reaching into the murky past.

The characters are well-drawn and there's plenty of doubt. Is Gen being conned? Can she trust her husband, Art, who seems desperate to leave Beth behind them? Is Art's old friend Lorcan trying to cause mischief or does he really want to help Gen? And why is Gen's best friend, Hen, colluding with Gen's husband behind her back? I found the first couple of hundred pages gripping as I strove to decipher the truth, but when the truth began to surface I was dubious.

Reflections

The truth about Beth Loxley is far-fetched and there's a lot of talking required to even begin to explain it, though if you accept the personalities McKenzie has taken care to establish, it all does make perfect (albeit twisted) sense. I felt the ending was a little OTT too, but again, if you really consider what's at stake, it's probably not. I think when I was reading I became almost irritated by the solution McKenzie created, but on reflection I'm not sure why. Possibly I was irritated by other, mostly very minor, details.

Why, oh why, is Gen incapable of moving forward without male support? (Why is this true of so many female protagonists? Why do none of them ever have real best friends they can rely on to help them solve their problems? Best friends who don't just assume they're mental? I assume the answer is partly that two women working co-operatively and sensibly to resolve issues wouldn't be as thrilling, but why not? Does there really always HAVE to be sexual tension involved?) Why is she called Gen? What kind of name is 'Art'? Or 'Hen'?

Despite the minor irritations outlined above, I did enjoy this and thought it worked really well as a thriller. McKenzie makes effective use of red herrings and retains ambiguity over who can be trusted for a long time. She also effectively interweaves the main story with a few snippets of diary like text from a young child. It is unclear for a long time who the child is, but once the reader realises who it is, the diary voice helps provide a thoroughly chilling conclusion to the story.

Final thoughts

This novel is described as a 'nerve-jangling thriller for fans of Gillian Flynn and Sophie Hannah' on the back cover and I completely agree. However, the converse is also true. If you thought 'Gone Girl' implausible or that 'Little Face' involved too many long explanations of motives then this might not suit you.

As for me, I enjoyed this sufficiently to keep an eye out for more by Sophie McKenzie and the blurb for her second adult thriller, 'Trust in Me', sounds intriguing. Hopefully next time I'll feel completely gripped throughout. show less

Well, this book was a wild ride. It started out as an examination of a woman in the throes of grief and turned into one of the most implausible thriller plots I've ever read. The writing was very repetitive, really stretching out the first section of the book much longer than it needed to be. The audiobook reader, however, was excellent.

What a suspenseful psychological thriller author, Sophie McKenzie, has spun! We find Geniver Loxley still stuck and despondent eight years after the stillbirth of her daughter, Beth. Her husband Art, is wildly successful and thrilled to be brought into the Prime Minister's inner circle. He's a bit of a celebrity, garnering lots of attention and showing little to his wife. He pushes Gen to try again for a child of their own and go for IVF treatments in order to help her move forward of "stuck". Gen's unsure. Beth haunts her dreams; Gen is consumed by thoughts of her - the wonderful young eight year old girl she could have become.
Then a knock at the door is heard. Lucy O'Donnell tells Gen that her baby was born alive and whisked away. show more Furthermore, Gen's husband was in on it. This Lucy had learned from her sister, upon her sister's deathbed - the sister who, as a nurse, attended Beth's birth. Lucy's motives are not pure. She and her husband, who recently lost his job, are short on funds to support their family. Lucy thinks that this revelation is worth some money. Surely Gen and her celebrity husband have plenty of it to spare.
This news sends Gen reeling. She doesn't know what to to believe, whom to trust and where to turn. But it appears to be her wake-up call as she starts pursuing clues wherever they will take her. Gen wonders whether this news could be true. She wants it to be true. Or is she just going mad?!
This read was a thrill a minute and I just couldn't put the book down. show less