The Girl on the Beach by Tracy Buchanan
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Read: 5th February 2019
Purchase: Amazon
★★★★ 4 stars
** Firstly I have to say, I pity any book I started after the last one I read. It was never going to live up to that one, so my apologies. **
First of all, let me begin by saying that THE GIRL ON THE BEACH and THE FAMILY SECRET are one and the same, published in UK and Australia as the latter and in the US as the former. As many have asked this question, as I did at first also, I felt it needed to be cleared up.
So, THE GIRL ON THE BEACH is the first book by Tracy Buchanan I have read and I had high hopes for it as the synopsis drew me right in. It started off with promised then I found it plateaued out a little to be a little unexciting and then it became edge-of-your-seat stuff with a whopper ending that even I didn't see coming!
It begins with a Prologue of a girl on an icy loch falling into its icy waters with someone looking on, just watching. It has that real menacing feel to it that gave the story promise and I couldn't wait to find out what happened to her. While the rest of the book has timestamps throughout, the Prologue doesn't, so we don't know whether it's past, present or future.
From there we meet Amber Caulfield, a woman who has known loss and disappointment in her life. When she was a young child she lost several fingers of her left hand to frostbite and then years later, her only daughter of four to meningitis which lead to the breakdown of her marriage to her doctor husband, Jasper.
Then one morning whilst opening up her beachside gift shop and bickering with her mum and aunt, Amber sees a lone figure on the beach with no shoes and no coat. It is cold and the wind off the sea is icy as Amber hurries to the girl and wraps her in a warm blanket. The girl is dazed and confused with no idea who she is or what she is doing here. The only clue is a notebook she carries in her back pocket, filled with wildlife drawings and notations.
The story then goes back in time to 1989 and a woman called Gwyneth, and as her story progresses so does the timeline. At first I was puzzled about the part Gwyneth played in it all. What did she have to do with the story unfolding with Amber? As there was 20 years between the two I wasn't sure how it related...at first. And then it started to dawn on me...in part. But it was only a small part that I figured out - the rest wasn't revealed till the end which I never saw coming! But, yes, how it made sense in the end.
However, I must admit I preferred the present day storyline with Amber and the girl with its mystery and poignancy to Gwyneth's past. I didn't like the McClusky family with whom Gwyneth found herself with at Christmas 1989. They held too many secrets and the mother was overbearing in my book. Then Gwyneth's romps with Dylan. Really? After 2 days. They sounded shallow and unbelievable. It made Gwyneth seem like a slapper in my book. But they parted though I knew it didn't end there. I really didn't like this part of the story. Sex in an icy forest. Sex in a barn. Sex in the front seat of a truck. Really? I thought I'd picked up a mystery thriller, not a Mills and Boon romance. It made me like Gwyneth even less. Then when the secret the McClusky's held was revealed it all felt a little anti-climatic. I can't believe all that had happened over that secret. Was that really worth more than someone's life?
The mystery girl brings out Amber's maternal instinct as she tries to find out what happened to her, and helps her unravel the mystery of her identity. As she does, the journey takes the two to Scotland and there the truth is uncovered. But it's not until they return to Winterton Chine that the real secret is finally revealed, surprising them all.
As the story moves between 1989 and 2009, the descriptions of each setting was so rich in detail that I felt like I was there in icy cold Winterton Chine, to the freezing highlands of Scotland and the artic Iceland.
I enjoyed this book, particularly as it began to pick up pace (and Gwyneth stopped jumping into bed with Dylan) as the race to find out the mystery girl's identity heightened. I loved the mystery it held. It was spellbinding - filled with emotion, mystery and new beginnings. It's about misundertanding, loss and learning to trust again. It's about human frailty.
The best part about THE GIRL ON THE BEACH was the ending. WOW! I loved how it all came together. As Gwyneth stepped off that train I began to realise just how it all fit - and it was genius!
Whilst I didn't like every part of THE GIRL ON THE BEACH, and found some aspects unnecessary to the story, I did enjoy it and do recommend it. That ending was worth the read.
Thank you to #TracyBuchanan, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheGirlOnTheBeach in exchange for an honest review.
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