What an intense book! It was disturbing in so many ways, but I couldn’t put it down. I read it in a single session. It is short at 168 pages but that somehow felt right.

The story is essentially a three-hander, with the doctor (Langan) attempting to treat the psychological trauma of Patrick and Catherine who are the only survivors of a massive pile-up which killed twenty-seven people, including Patrick’s wife and Catherine’s partner. He is eminently unqualified to take on such a task having lost his own wife in similar circumstances.

The character of Patrick is terrifyingly cold and provides the perfect counterpoint to the doctor. His concealments, apparent insensitivity and frigidity created a tremendous tension and the feeling that he was about to do something terrible. The un-putdown-ability of the book stemmed wholly from this tension. There was a growing sense of horror and that feeling you get when confronted with something monstrous. Do you need to cover your eyes and hide, or should you stand up tall and stare at the beast?

My only criticisms would be that there are a few typos which have sneaked through the editing process (for example scolding instead of scalding), and that some of the transitions between scenes and viewpoints are very abrupt and forced me to back up and reorient myself. There were some instances of where a scene transition happened within a paragraph which was really disconcerting. It might be better to insert some spaces in the text to indicate the change and there certainly needs to be another editorial run through before final publication. It might be better to insert some spaces in the text to indicate the change.

This is a first novel I believe. Great work and I hope it does well.

Thank you to NetGalley for making an advance copy of this book available for review. The opinions expressed above are entirely my own, following a full read of the novel.