Book Review - Don't Close Your Eyes by Holly Seddon

Amazon UK

Title:  Don't Close Your Eyes

Author: Holly Seddon

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Corvus

Publication Date: 6th July 2017 

Rating: 4 Stars

Robin and Sarah weren't the closest of twins. They weren't even that similar. But they loved each other dearly. Until, in the cruellest of domestic twists, they were taken from one another.

Now, in her early 30s, Robin lives alone. Agoraphobic and suffering from panic attacks, she spends her days pacing the rooms of her house. The rest of the time she watches - watches the street, the houses, the neighbours. Until one day, she sees something she shouldn't...

And Sarah? Sarah got what she wanted - the good-looking man, the beautiful baby, the perfect home. But she's just been accused of the most terrible thing of all. She can't be around her new family until she has come to terms with something that happened a long time ago. And to do that, she needs to track down her twin sister.

But Sarah isn't the only person looking for Robin. As their paths intersect, something dangerous is set in motion, leading Robin and Sarah to fight for much more than their relationship...

For the majority of the book I was really enjoying it, I was very curious to see just where it was going, and how it would turn out. However I can't help but feel the ending came out of nowhere, and its just left me feeling a bit unsettled and it just felt like the conclusion really didn't have enough explanation for my liking. 

However as I say the majority of the book I absolutely loved. It's a story of twins, Robin and Sarah, both as they are now, but also as children and their life growing up.  It was the chapters that were set in their childhood that I found myself really hooked on. 

But yet if I say what I want to about their pasts, I'll probably be giving away key spoilers, and equally their present situations aren't the easiest to explain. I will say that the twins have been estranged for many years, are completely different from each other, and yet they may be each others only hope. 

As children I felt really sorry for them, as adults I'm not sure how much I really liked or was drawn to either twin.  The book touches on many different issues and I felt they were all dealt with sensitively and with a feeling of realism towards them. 

Don't Close Your Eyes was well written and I did find large parts of it to be completely compulsive reading. 

Thank you to Netgalley and Corvus for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon

Amazon UK

Title: Try Not to Breathe

Author: Holly Seddon

Format reviewed: Hardback

Source: Publisher supplied review copy

Publisher: Corvus Books

Publication Date: 7th January 2016

Rating: 4.5 Stars

You won't be able to put it down.
Just remember to breathe. 

Alex is sinking. Slowly but surely, she's cut herself off from everything but her one true love - drink. Until she's forced to write a piece about a coma ward, where she meets Amy.

Amy is lost. When she was fifteen, she was attacked and left for dead in a park. Her attacker was never found. Since then, she has drifted in a lonely, timeless place. She's as good as dead, but not even her doctors are sure how much she understands.

Alex and Amy grew up in the same suburbs, played the same music, flirted with the same boys. And as Alex begins to investigate the attack, she opens the door to the same danger that has left Amy in a coma...

What a cleverly crafted book, told from various perspectives, over a 15 year period. I wasn't completely shocked out the outcome, it had crossed my mind about who the attacker was, but I had also though it could have been a few other suspects too. 

Alex is just about a functional alcoholic, who works in the mornings, and then drinks for the rest of the day. She is also a freelance journalist researching a story about coma patients, and whether they can understand anything in their state. It's in the hospital she comes across Amy. 

Amy was only fifteen when she was attacked and left for dead, and is now not exactly in a coma, and can breathe for herself, but isn't awake, nor able to communicate in ways that would be familiar to you or me. Her brain though is definitely still active, and we get chapters from her point of view, from the lead up to the attack, right through to the present day, where she is clearly aware of her visitors, even if she thinks she is still fifteen. 

Then there is Jake, the other main player in this story, and other main focus, he was Amy's boyfriend at the time of the attack, and it changed him. He is now married and has a baby on the way, and yet is hiding a secret from his wife. 

Alex decides that she wants to write a story about Amy, having recognised her from all the newspaper coverage at the time, as her attacker was never found. Over time, Alex regularly visits Amy, and its through these visits that Alex, starts to gain some inner strength.

I found Try Not to Breath to be pretty suspenseful, and once I was in the rhythm of the book, I was finding it harder to put it down., to the extent that it was the early hours of the morning when I finished it, and I didn't notice the time. 

However this is being billed as a psychological thriller and from my experience of them, and my understanding of the genre, that doesn't feel quite right to me. I didn't get a sense of danger, or even urgency, just a mystery that needed solving, and some tough issues to be tackled. 

I found the way Amy was portrayed, and her condition to be fascinating. I was unsure with the first few chapters from her perspective whether it would work, but you do get a real sense of a girl who is trying to communicate and no longer can. 

I thought Try Not to Breathe is a fabulous first novel for Holly Seddon, and  I would love to see what she writes next. 

Thank you to Corvus Book for this review copy. This is my honest review.