Book Review – Lasting Damage, Sophie Hannah
Title: Lasting Damage
Author: Sophie Hannah
Copyright Sophie Hannah 2011
Blurb extract: She finds herself looking at a scene from a nightmare: in the living room, in the middle of the carpet, there’s a woman lying face down in a huge pool of blood.
Plot: This story is well told, a page turner definitely. It deals with a dysfunctional relationship. A classic storyline and mystery of a woman, is she going mad, is she already insane or, is it a set up.
I’m guessing the publisher is aiming it at a female audience due to the white ‘chic lit’ looking cover. To be honest I nearly didn’t pick it up for that reason. However it’s not a chic lit read, it’s a murder mystery although not a strongly masculine one. No guns and car chases, although I think there was a fast car drive throughout one scene.
Characters: There are a few characters I didn’t get clear in my mind. It felt like a sequel, numerous characters had unexplained history. A couple of characters were in there for no apparent reason, unless their involvement is to link to other stories in a series. I thought they should be left out, or explained as I didn’t feel any connection to them. In short I didn’t care about these side characters at all.
Conclusion: It’s a good fiction story, with an unusual slant on the ‘is she going mad’ theme. I can understand why 1 million copies sold. The last two chapters repeated the telling of the story so I sped read the last one, bit of a shame I felt the need to. I knew the ending but for some reason the author felt the need to explain it twice to two different characters, not sure why. (I’ve since seen this story is in a series of 10 books, I’m not sure why this isn’t shown on the cover though)
Recommended: I did feel as if I had missed a previous book, however this one still falls onto my list of recommended books, probably a ‘holiday’ read
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