Friend Request: Laura Marshall

Friend Request: Laura Marshall

Monday, 14 August 2017

Friend Request

Author: Laura Marshall

Publisher: Hachette Australia

July 2017

ISBN: 9780751568332

Paperback: 371 pages

Publishers Summary

When Louise Williams receives a message from someone left long in the past she feels sick.

Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook.

Because Maria Weston has been missing for over twenty-five years. She was last seen the night of a school leavers' party, and the world believes her to be dead. Particularly Louise, who has lived her adult life knowing herself responsible for Maria's disappearance. But now Maria is back. Or is she?

As Maria's messages start to escalate, Louise forces herself to reconnect with the old friends she once tried so hard to impress, to try to piece together exactly what happened that fateful night. But when another friend's body turns up in the woods outside their old school, Louise realises she can't trust anyone and that she must confront her own awful secret to discover the whole truth of what happened to Maria . . .

Review

How chilling and spooky would that be? Receiving a friend request from someone whom you had thought to be long dead!

Well, Louise Williams was braver than me, I would have ignored it, but she didn’t, she responded, and right there begins an intriguing and very twisty tale.

Maria Weston transferred to Louise’s school in the senior year, there was a little bit of mystery attached to her but nobody knew exactly what. Louise hung out with the popular girls, she wasn’t quite one of them herself but tried hard to stay close. When she tried to include Maria, the popular girls would have none of it and so Louise, not wanting to upset them, excluded her too.

Then one night something terrible happened to Maria, she disappeared and was presumed to have drowned, Louise believed that because of something she had done on that night, she was to blame.

Now, years later, Louise is living alone with her small son when this bombshell drops, “Maria Weston wants to be friends”. At the same time an invitation to attend her High Schools 25th reunion arrives, is this a coincidence?

Louise wonders if she is the only one to have received this spooky friend request and sets out to contact her old school friends via Facebook. She is a little nervous as she hasn’t been in contact for years.

This truly is an insidiously creepy story, I thought the descriptions of the awful ways of teenaged schoolgirls to be very well written and probably quite emotive for some readers. 

Later in the book we meet one of the most Machiavellian of spine chilling characters, but you will have to read the book to discover who that might be -and it might no be who you think it is!

Then there is Louise herself, we know of course, that she has a secret, but there seems to be something more, an undercurrent of something a little sinister in her life. The author does reveal all, but in a slow, tantalising way which keeps the reader turning those pages.

A cracking debut novel from author Laura Marshall, and I very much look forward to reading her next book.

Highly recommended.

Review copy provided by Hachette Books Australia

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The Sound of Glass

The Sound of Glass

Monday, 15 June 2015

• Written by: Karen White
• Narrated by: Therese Plummer
• and Susan Bennett
• Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
• Unabridged Audiobook
Release Date:05-12-15

Publisher: Recorded Books

Available from Audible.com

5 STAR REVIEW

Publishers Summary

The New York Times best-selling author of A Long Time Gone now explores a Southern family's buried history, which will change the life of the woman who unearths it secret by shattering secret.

It has been two years since the death of Merritt Heyward's husband, Cal, when she receives unexpected news - Cal's family home in Beaufort, South Carolina, bequeathed by Cal's reclusive grandmother, now belongs to Merritt. Charting the course of an uncertain life - and feeling guilt from her husband's tragic death - Merritt travels from her home in Maine to Beaufort, where the secrets of Cal's unspoken-of past reside among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the Bluff. This unknown legacy, now Merritt's, will change and define her as she navigates her new life - a new life complicated by the arrival of her too-young stepmother and 10-year-old half brother.

Soon, in this house of strangers, Merritt is forced into unraveling the Heyward family past as she faces her own fears and finds the healing she needs in the salt air of the Low Country.

©2015 Harley House Books, LLC (P)2015 Recorded Books

My Review

It actually took a few chapters before the book hooked me, as to be honest, I did find the early part of the story a little confusing and I had to re listen so as to sort out who was who. That done, I didn't look back and was soon immersed in this intriguing tale of Merritt and the family who were strangers to her. She was barely in the door of her new home when who should arrive on her doorstep but her stepmother Loralee with her ten year old son Owen, Merritts half brother. Loralee, the young, beautiful ex flight attendant with the big hair, who never faced the world without her lipstick and a big smile. This was the woman whose marraige to Merritts' father had been the cause of the deep rift between them, the woman Merritt dismissed as trailer trash, an airhead out for what she could get. Loralee and Owen had come to stay awhile. Much as she craved solitude, Merritt felt she could hardly refuse so grudgingly permitted them to stay, making it clear that it was only to be for a short while.

Merrit had also been unaware of the existence of a brother in law, Gibbes, he hadn't lived in the old house for years and wanted to retrieve a few of his boyhood possessions. Gibbes proved to be a far different man than Cal, his brother and Merritts late husband. This is how the relationships between the four of them began, of Merritts growing love for her nerdy little brother and her realisation that, after all, they are both grieving for the same daddy. Of her unquestioning acceptance of his attempts to become "cool" when he announces that he now wants to be known as Rocky, not Owen. Of how Gibbes proves himself to be so different to his abusive troubled brother, and of how Merritt grudgingly comes to accept Loralee as she truly is. Then, of course, there is the mystery and suspense! Exactly what secrets does that old attic hold? Well, you must read the book to discover how the mysteries are unravelled and of how the relationships develop.

I just love a good story, one where part of me wants to rush on to find out what comes next, but yet another part of me doesn't want it to end because I'm enjoying it too much and author Karen White knows exactly how to write such a story. Mystery, intrigue, pathos, romance, it's all here, just a warning though, this book does speak of spousal abuse, something which the publishers summary omits to mention, so should you find the subject to be distressing, be warned. In summary, this is beautifully and sensitively written and is a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Narrators

Narrated by Susan Bennett and Therese Pummer who both did a wonderful job, so easy to listen to with their lovely voices. Both masters of pace and timing, I'm not American, so am not qualified to judge American accents, but they sounded really good to me. I thought both age and gender changes were totally believable, I had no trouble in differentiating the characters. I'm not sure why two narrators were thought to be necessary though, as both seemed more than capable of telling the whole story as a solo performance, nevertheless, this audiobook is a quality production.




I purchased this audiobook from Audible.com, this review is my honest opinion.

 

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