An interesting look into mental health conditions and psychopathy. After voluntarily spending 15 years in a mental institution Rachel leaves to return home to to the lodge she lived in before her parents died and to confront her sister about what happened on that fateful night.

Told through the perspective of Rachel and her mother alternating between Rachel in present day and her mother 15 years earlier this book offered a fascinating insight into childhood mental health disorders and the wildlife and animals of the Upper Penninsula.

I found the setting of this book to be stunning, with excellent descriptions of the animals and wildlife, but equally this brilliant description made the scenes of animal abuse and taxidermy difficult to stomach.

An excellent ending rounded this story off perfectly with just one little piece of open ending which was extremely satisfying.

The idea behind this book is a good one, but unfortunately I found reading it a disappointment. The book seemed overly long, and there is very little dramatic tension. The whole story is more or less obvious from early on. The characters are either good or bad, and Rachel seems to suffer no ill effects from having lived in an institution for fifteen years. Her ability to understand animals and birds seems to belong in a completely different book. Not one I will be recommending.

Forget one of those glossy Disney versions of old fairy tales this is an adult fairy tale quite as dark as anything by the Brothers Grimm.
Did Rachel kill her mother? She's spent fifteen years in a lunatic asylum believing she did. Could she be wrong? Who is the real psychopath in her family?
Set against the dramatic backdrop of a remote cabin on Michigan's Upper Peninsula this is an addictively frightening tale of sibling rivalry.

Having read the Marsh King's Daughter, I knew I was in for a treat. The Wicked Sister is rich in descriptions paired with deep research into psychology made this a must read for me. Evocative settings and complex characters are Dionne's hallmark, that and powerful drama, twists and tension galore.

The Wicked Sister by Karen Dionne is set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula wilderness and told in dual narratives. Flipping from past to present, this is a compulsive tale of manipulation and deception.

Rachael Cunningham is locked up in the Newberry Regional Mental Health Centre, believing she has committed an unspeakable crime. Subjected to horrific torment and having only a spider for company since the age of eleven, she has surely paid her dues. But when a discrepancy in the police report is discovered, no matter how Rachael looks at it, the crime could not have been committed by her. Discharging herself from the facility, she is free to investigate on her own terms.

Jenny, a wildlife biologist, must escape the neighbourhood after a tragic accident. Leaving behind a trail of devastation, the family travels to the wilderness to research bears. But Jenny’s young daughter Diana is precocious, manipulative and decidedly psychotic. I found it frustrating to watch a parent cave to such outrageous demands, but as disturbing as these scenes are, Dionne writes them so well. I found myself as uneasy and as traumatised as Jenny, with little or no solution to offer. A child with callous-unemotional traits is not everyone’s cup of tea. She certainly isn’t mine. The pillow incident made me want to throw something at someone and there were other cruelties that sadly fit the criteria. As these devastated parents endeavour to keep Diana’s condition a secret, I wonder how long it will take for another life-threatening accident to happen.

The massive hunting lodge made of Oregon pine is sadly the scene of a murder. Two ravens, nesting outside Rachel’s old bedroom may have answers to what really happened. As Trevor leaves Rachel alone in the house there is a spark of something in the air. I was excited by this chapter because of Rachel’s ingenuity and I wanted to know how she could possibly pull off keeping herself hidden from her sisters for the reasons she chose.

There are so many things to like about this book; the rapid pace and robust setting, and an exceptionally powerful conclusion. It’s not often you find a book with so many psychological layers, drip-fed a morsel at a time—an unnerving psychological thriller with enough suspense and action to hold you spellbound to the very end. Absolutely sensational!

Many thanks to the publisher, Little, Brown Book Group, UK, Netgalley and to the author, Karen Dionne for the privilege of receiving an advance reader copy of this book.

Rachel has voluntarily been in a mental institution for 15 years, placing herself there because, in her mind, she killed her mother, and on seeing this, her father shot himself.
Rachel decides it is time to tell her story, Trevor a would be Journalist and the brother of her friend Scotty, shows her police evidence that proves her innocence, she is agitated by the report and begins her own investigation.
Jenny found William Yang, the child of her next-door neighbours drowned in their pool – he was only a toddler. She is fearful that her daughter Diana was involved, as her clothes are wet and her alibi does not ring true. Diana is a deeply troubled child.
'The Wicked Sister', is the first of Karen Dionne's books that I have read.
The story felt crowded with so much detail about surroundings, ability to talk to animals and natural history that at times, I thought, enough get on with it. However, the basis for the story was good, it had enough twists and turns to keep you entertained, and the ending was well executed.
I want to thank NetGalley, Little Brown Book Group (UK) and author Karen Dionne for a pre-publication copy to review.

Set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Two sisters have to confront their past when the youngest sister, Rachel's memories are not really as she remembers them. Rachel had locked herself away in a state facility as she believed that she had shot her parents. Now, an investigative journalist has reopened the case. When Rachel hears the evidence, she starts questioning everything that she believed to be true.

For fifteen years Rachel had chosen to stay in a psychiatric unit. She's just learned new details about the murders of her parents and checks herself out of the facility. She returns home to the lodge where she was raised and her older sister, Diana and her aunt Charlotte still live, to try and get to the truth. Told from Rachel's perspective in the present day and from her mother, Jenny in the past. This story is about two sisters, one good the other evil. This is a well written fast paced read with believable characters that are well rounded. There is some animal abuse and taxidermy in the story that might upset some readers.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Little, Brown Book Group UK and the author Karen Dionne for my ARC in exchange for an honest review .

When we first meet Rachel Cunningham she's an inpatient at the Newberry Regional Mental Health Center in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She's twenty-six and has been there for fifteen years, convinced that she accidentally killed her mother when she was eleven-years-old and that her father then took the gun and killed himself. Her sister, Diana, just twenty-years-old, was left at the family home, a lodge in the Upper Peninsula wilderness. Rachel's very bright and although she's a voluntary patient at the Mental Health Center she remains there, feeling that this is what she deserves. Perhaps, though, the circumstances are not as she remembers.

There's a reason that Peter and Jennifer Cunningham moved with their two daughters to the lodge. Peter and Jenny were wildlife biologists and Peter should have been teaching classes at the University of Michigan but one day a neighbour's son, William Yang, died in the Cunningham's swimming pool. Jenny had dived in and pulled the boy out of the pool and tried CPR but to no avail. Diana had been watching television but when Jenny returned to her, Diana's clothes were soaking wet. Diana was a psychopath and the Cunninghams' could not risk what happened to William happening to another child. How would that work out? Would the rest of the Cunningham family be at risk?

If the Cunningham's were to work they needed childcare. Rachel was amenable, but Diana was difficult and obstructive, so Charlotte, Jenny's sister, was invited to come with them to look after the children. It seemed fortunate that Charlotte developed a bond with Diana and whilst there were incidents the family lived in the lodge until Rachel was eleven-years-old.

It's three years and hundreds of books since I read The Marsh King's Daughter, but as soon as I saw the name 'Karen Dionne' I knew that I had to read this book. The setting in both books is Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Dionne brings the area to brilliant, dramatic life. It's hot in summer, harsh in winter and populated by bears, some of whom will play a major part in the story. Then there are the ravens...

Psychological thrillers don't come much better than this as two generations of sisters struggle with their relationships. A psychologist once told me that when there is a severe mental illness in a family certain facets of the illness tend to spread to other people living in the home. Diana is the psychopath but there's something wild and dangerous about Rachel too. And is the relationship which Jenny has with Charlotte and which Charlotte has with the children as innocent and wholesome as it seems?

I can think of few diagnoses which would be more difficult for a parent to receive than that a child is a psychopath. Even a life-threatening illness is usually only a danger to the child themself. Psychopathy isn't generally a danger to the sufferer - unless one takes account of the possible consequences - but is a danger to those around the psychopath. Dionne handles this elegantly and I was full of admiration for the way the characters are written. I'd like to thank the publishers for making a review copy available to the Bookbag.

The book was told from two perspectives, Rachel’s in the present and Jenny (Rachel’s mum) who retells the past about growing up with Rachel and her sister Dianna. You find out pretty early on from Jenny’s chapters that Dianna is diagnosed as a Psychopath, which was interesting but I kind of guessed from that point that this must be the ‘wicked sister’ and she probably killed the parents.

Jenny’s chapters were my favourite parts of the book though, it was fascinating to hear the back story of the sisters growing up together and each time reading about Dianna doing something ‘wicked’. It had me anxious at times as you never knew what Dianna was about to do. I loved the suspense of it.

Overall it was a great read with suspenseful moments and left me with a knot in my stomach at times. As mentioned I did guess the ending near the beginning of the book but it didn’t matter too much as there was still a little twist near the end.

This book is good. Really good. This is a really enjoyable psychological thriller. The characters are all very good and believable. A lot of this story takes place in the wilderness so the wild animals and the remoteness of the epic location play a central role in creating the atmosphere and intensity of this story.

The story is told in he present by Rachel who has been in a mental institution for 15 years believing that she killed her mum. Then one day Rachel reads new information that puts her memories into doubt. What if she didn’t kill her mum? The only way for Rachel to find out what really happened all those years ago is to return to the scene of the crime. The present day story slowly unravels alongside a series of flashbacks told by Rachel’s mum Jenny leading up to the events that fateful day.

Impossible to read re the way the book is formatted with numbers in pink next to every sentence, and every paragraph

The Wicked Sister
By Karen Dionne


She has been in an institution since she was 12 years old, the last 15 years, happy to be there because in her memory she killed her mother with a Remington rifle, and on seeing that, her father killed himself.

Jenny found the child of her next-door neighbours drowned in her pool – he was only a toddler, and couldn’t possibly reach the locked gate by himself. Diana must have been involved, least of all, because her clothes are wet and not from playing in their bathroom, which was dry. Diana lies easily.

Peter and Jenny know that there is something wrong with their daughter. They move to a rural family home because they knew their daughter could not be trusted around others.

This was an excellent premise for a novel and well written. The characters had me questioning the privilege of their decision making after receiving the diagnosis, choosing to bury their heads rather than deal with it.

I didn’t enjoy this book, and although I wanted to DNF it a few times, the quality of Karen Dionne’s writing urged me to read to the end.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for the opportunity of reading an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review - this book is due for release on August 4th, 2020. – 2.0/5.0

#NetGalley #TheWickedSister

I thoroughly enjoyed The Wicked Sister. From the initial setting in the psychiatric hospital to the homestead in the woods, the sense of place was incredible. The twist were shocking. Believable characters and more than a nod to fairytales. All that I want and more from a psychological thriller. As I was reading I kept thinking I enjoyed The Marsh King’s Daughter, Karen Dionne’s first novel, more... but I still rate The Wicked Sister five stars!

4.5 stars
I really loved The Marsh King's Daughter when I read it a while back so I was looking forward to seeing what the author could come up with next. Whilst it didn't quite hit the same heady heights for me, it was definitely well worthy of my time and energy reading it.
We meet Rachel who for the past several years - between the ages of 11-26 - has resided in a mental hospital as she believes that she was responsible for her parents' deaths. She has memory gaps but she firmly believes that HER truth that she has created from what she does remember, is THE truth. But then, one day, a visitor shows her irrefutable evidence that there is no way things could have happened as she believes which basically throws her whole word out. Armed with this new evidence, she travels to her family's remote wilderness estate, determined to find out what really happened from the only two people left to her; her sister and aunt, who currently reside there. And so begins her awakening as she faces her fears and her past as she remembers and slowly peels back the secrets and lies to uncover the whole raw truth of what really happened all those years ago.
Oh My. This book both broke my heart and gave me goosebumps. As well as hearing from Rachel in the present, we also hear from her mother Jenny in the past. Detailing how the family came to live in the remote wilderness and the events leading up to what happened. These flashbacks are injected into the main story at exactly the right moments to enhance and complement what is happening in the present rather than distracting. They bring colour and clarity.
Characterisation is excellent, I connected with Rachel right from the off and felt for her all the way through as she battled her memories and her relatives. Pacing was perfect and the story gripped me in such a way as to make me read on, holding my attention nicely all the way through. And the ending when it came was perfect. Shocking but perfect.
All in all, although not quite as good as TMKD, definitely a cracking read in itself. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

What a great story that is offered up here. It offers everything you expect and then just that bit more with some fantastic twists along the way!

I absolutely loved ‘The Wicked Sister’, the first of Karen Dionne’s books that I have read. It is such a creepy and thrilling book which has me on the edge of my seat.
Rachel has voluntarily lived in a psychiatric hospital for 15 years, since she was just 11 years old. She believes that the time has come to finally tell journalist and the brother of her best friend that she is responsible for the deaths of her parents. When he shows her the contents of some police papers she questions whether or not she was responsible. There is only one way to find out, she must return to where it happened, her childhood home and speak with her sister and aunt who still live there.
This is a great story and so well told. It goes back and forth in time from the present day to when Rachel was young, and is told by a variety of narrators, but mainly Rachel and her mother, Jenny, who are both brilliant characters.
What will Rachel recall when she gets back to her home? Will she find out the truth about the death of her parents? And if so, will she be able to make peace with the truth?
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

After the brilliant The Marsh King's Daughter, Karen Dionne once again plunges the reader into another dysfunctional family drama, set in the remote and pristine woods of the Michigan Upper Peninsula wilderness, with its echoes of the darkest fairytales and the parallel echoes between two generations of sisters, Jenny and Charlotte, and Jenny's daughters, Diana and Rachel, and the emotionally fraught difficulties of being a parent. Since the age of 11, the 26 year old Rachel Cunningham has been a resident of the Newberry Regional Mental Health Centre, a psychiatric hospital, enduring unspeakable suffering and humiliation, a self imposed punishment for being responsible for the death of her parents, even though the spider does not agree with her judgement. Trevor, the brother of her only friend in the asylum, Scotty, shows her police evidence that proves that she is innocent, it appears her sacrifice was all for nothing, now she must have answers.

Rachel embarks on a search into the past, the woods where she was raised in almost complete isolation with only her sister for company, role playing characters from fairytales in their childhood, looking for who she is, what happened to her parents and those lost memories locked deep into her subconscious. The story is relayed from the perspective of Jenny and Rachel, a Jenny who becomes increasingly concerned about her young child, Diana, and the dangers she might pose to those around her. Instead of seeking professional help, Jenny instead removes her from society by organising their move to the isolated family lodge in the woods, feeling the emotional tug to do all that she can to protect her child, whilst carrying out field research on bears as a wildlife biologist. However, a trail of death, horror and destruction follows in the wake of the psychopathic Diana, threatening to destroy the family.

Jenny has seriously underestimated their ability to manage a callous, devious and manipulative Diana who feels no remorse, has no heart, and a dominant personality that rules the family. Jenny breathes a sigh of relief when her sister, Charlotte, comes to live with them, providing much needed support for Diana. After all, if you cannot rely on family who can you rely on? In a narrative that shifts from the past and the present, Rachel looks for answers, receiving nudges from the animal and bird kingdom, but will she survive the dangers of once again tangling with Diana, who had so easily dominated her as she was growing up? This is an uneasy and disturbing read, there is animal abuse, and a foray into the past that is so traumatic that Rachel has buried her memories deep within her psyche.

It would be all to easy as an outsider to wonder how Jenny and Peter made such catastrophic and poor decisions when it comes to Diana, but the emotional morass of being family, of being a parent, this can make you blind when it comes to your own child, just as it can when it comes to seeing your sister clearly, you may only see the dangers when it is all too late. An engaging and compulsive novel, although I much preferred The Marsh King's Daughter. Many thanks to Little, Brown for an ARC.

The Wicked Sister pulls you in from the first page and takes you on a gripping suspense-filled ride that has so many twist and turns. It's a well paced psychological thriller that is very hard to put down.

This was a very mixed bag for me as although I enjoyed a big part of it I found myself disliking the parts of animal cruelty as it was just much to detailed and descriptive and I had to skip most of these. The atmosphere and tension of the book was good and it’s a very dark story, one that is very well written from two separate points of view which made for a quick page turner.
A three star read for me and that is mainly because of the reasons I have said and I’m sure others will enjoy it more than I did.
My thanks to Little,Brown Book Group UK, Sphere for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Karen Dionne writes beautifully and weaves a wicked plot. I was hooked from the opening pages. "The Wicked Sister" is a psychological thriller which is extremely hard to put down, as my eyebags will attest. Feels like I held my breath for the last 10% of the book. Dionne skillfully ratchets up the suspense to almost unbearable levels. Brilliant read!

The Wicked Sister by Karen Dionne was, at best, was a quick easy ready that held my attention for its duration, but not much else.

I went into this book expecting an interesting examination of sisterhood and family, a mystery to unravel that would keep me guessing and the deliciously dark deeds of a psychopathic sister. Instead it felt disjointed, unrealistic and sadly rather disappointing.

I didn’t mind Rachel as a main character, though I think her arc could have been fleshed out more deeply. Her self imposed imprisonment in a psychiatric hospital felt a little contrived, the revelation that perhaps she wasn’t responsible for her parents’ death too easy and the spiral of the story from there was rushed. Throughout the book Rachel ‘speaks’ to animals, mainly spiders, ravens and bear (oh my!), which I found confusing and unnecessary. Rachel’s love for nature and her close relationship to the wilderness she grew up in could have been communicated without these strange element. It discredited Rachel as a narrator (perhaps that was the point?) and made me question whether anything she believed to be true actually was.

The Wicked Sister is written both from Rachel’s present perspective, and Jenny (her mother’s) from the past. I much preferred reading Jenny’s chapters, seeing the slow build and escalation of this family’s unravelling at the hands of their eldest daughter, Diana, was more interesting than the actual mystery of the book. I found Jenny a little annoying, but mostly I enjoyed her internal conflict with loving her deeply troubled daughter, but also her fear of her and what she might do.

One thing that continues to baffle me is Charlotte and her role. Charlotte is Rachel and Diana’s aunt, Jenny’s sister. She’s introduced as the slightly flaky, hippie cool younger aunt who sticks around to help her sister care for her children when she needs help. Charlotte’s involvement in everything that happened just felt ridiculously out of place. Her motivations never explored even slightly, I didn’t understand her loyalty to Diana because we were never given the chance to see that relationship really unfold or get a deeper look at her character before Diana.

I also have some issues with the way mental illness is presented her. Psychopathy is complex, and while Dionne certainly makes an attempt at discussing that early in the book when Diana receives her diagnosis, everything from Diana’s actions, to Rachel’s brief experiences in the psychiatric hospital felt a little underdeveloped.

However, Karen Dionne’s descriptions of the forrest, the lodge and the wilderness in general was enjoyable. It painted a rich setting for this story and I really enjoyed this aspect of the novel, but ultimately the setting couldn’t save this one for me and I gave the book 2.5 stars.