Blood Sisters by Jane Corry (ARC edition)

Title: Blood Sisters
Authors: Jane Corry
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Source: The publisher
Publisher: Penguin Books (29th June 2017)
Blurb:

Three little girls set off to school
one sunny May morning.
Within an hour, one of them is dead.

Fifteen years later, Alison and Kitty are living separate lives. Kitty lives in a care home. She can’t speak, and she has no memory of the accident that put her here, or her life before it.

Art teacher Alison looks fine on the surface. But the surface is a lie. When a job in a prison comes up she decides to take it – this is her chance to finally make things right.

But someone is watching Kitty and Alison. Someone who wants revenge for what happened that day.  And only another life will do…

(Blurb taken from Goodreads)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4 stars)
Review:

BLOOD SISTERS is the intricate new novel from Jane Corry. The novel follows the stories of Alison and Kitty fifteen years after a horrific event: one sunny May morning three girls set off to school, on the way one of them died. Kitty lives in a care home unable to speak with no memory of that tragic day or her life before it. Alison meanwhile has become an art teacher, and on the surface everything looks fine with her. But looks can be deceiving. Someone is watching both girls, because they think they got away lightly. Someone wants them to pay for what happened on that sunny May morning.

I enjoyed Corry’s first book MY HUSBAND’S WIFE, so I was curious what her second book would be like. If you have read and enjoyed MY HUSBAND’S WIFE then you are in for a treat with BLOOD SISTERS. Both books have a very similar style and tone, though they deal with very different subjects. I also want to say that BLOOD SISTERS deals with topics of self-harm and sexual abuse, so if these are triggers for you then this book might not be one for you. Having said that, I think Corry handles the topics sensitively and I didn’t think either topic was particularly graphic.

The narration of BLOOD SISTERS is split between Alison and Kitty. I thought this worked really well as it allowed me to get to know both characters, and it served to paint a broader picture of what was going on. The narrative timeline jumps about between past and present, and there are also a few large time gaps in the narration – but each chapter gives you a month and year, so it is fairly easy to keep track of. There is also another narrator that occasionally haunts the narrative, offering a new fragmented point of view in an almost poetic style. I quite enjoyed these interludes, trying to work out who was speaking and why.

BLOOD SISTERS is a very intricate and complicated story, with complexly interwoven plot threads. This book deals very seriously with secrets and lies: the story is full of guilt, and hidden truths. Corry brilliantly draws the story out, and at times will have you desperate to turn the page to find out what is going to happen next. It does take a while for the tension to build, particularly at the beginning, but from part three BLOOD SISTERS is a real page-turner. I’m not too sure what I think of the ending of the book. It works well and is realistic, but it leaves me feeling disquiet – I think that may be the point.

If you are looking for a mystery thriller that will keep you guessing then I highly recommend that you give BLOOD SISTERS a try. It is a novel that will keep you guessing until the end. Corry brilliantly builds the tension through the book with tantalizing hints. It’s a must read for fans of MY HUSBAND’S WIFE.