The Guilty Friend by Joanne Sefton
Genre: General Fiction, Chick Lit
Read: 24th June 2019
Purchase: Amazon
(release date: 24th June 2019)
★★★★ 3.5 to 4 stars
THE GUILTY FRIEND by Joanne Sefton is not the thriller it seems to be marketed as. I guess it does have a level of suspense about it but I'm not really sure what genre this falls into, to be honest. But it definitely is not a thriller.
Having said that, it is still intriguing though a very slow burn. It was so slow for much of the book that I felt it would only result in a 2 star rating from me. Then it finally started to pick up around 65-70% (a bit too long I feel) that it went up to 3 stars where I felt it would sufficiently remain, given the slow pace that almost put me to sleep on more than one occasion. But then I got to the end...and that epilogue! That came out of left field and I never saw it coming! I felt that alone was worth a star in itself, boosting the rating up to 4 stars! However...I still didn't feel the book in its entirety lived up to a 4 star rating because it really did take far too long to build up and become remotely interesting. But that epilogue alone left me breathless that I felt it deserved its own star rating!
So it's the late 80s and Karen, Misty and Alex are all starting university at Cambridge. They befriend each other and over the course of the next few years sees their lives entwine together as they live the student life both on and off campus. Karen and Misty have travelled from home to attend university while Alex is from Cambridge, with her parents - both academics - living nearby in a huge house where the girls will often find themselves over the next few years. Each girl has a secret. But is it dangerous enough to harm them?
Thirty years later, it's 2019 and Karen is a widow, a mother to three girls - Evie (20), Tasha (15) and Callie (12) - and about to celebrate her 50th birthday. One morning she sees a news broadcast on an attempted bombing at a railway station and upon seeing a photo still of the scene, her world freezes. She feels as if she has seen a ghost...and she must have, for the face she had seen from the past is of someone who has been dead 30 years!
Misty is now a doctor at a clinic specialising in eating disorders. Never having married, her inspiration was drawn from that of her dead friend and the struggles she'd faced...and kept to herself. Misty wanted to make a difference. She has made a difference - to many families. Though she knows that not every story ends well, and some patients just never recover, succumbing to the illness that ultimately takes their life. That morning Misty sees the same news broadcast as Karen...and sees the same photo still. Alex. It can't be. She died 30 years ago. And Misty knows this because she found her.
Karen cannot stop thinking about the face in that photo. It's Alex. It has to be. That same face. Same expression. What if...Alex never really died? Everything that happened 30 years ago comes back to haunt her again. The past. The secrets. The guilt. As life continues around her, Karen finds herself lost in the past as she seeks answers to the questions not even she knows. She becomes convinced that Alex must be alive as she begins to lose her mind to paranoia and obsessive thoughts. But as Karen slowly begins to lose her grip on reality, she becomes oblivious to her own daughters' needs as each of them struggle to maintain life as they know it.
Karen and Misty haven't spoken for something close to a decade or more, having drifted apart after the tragedy of losing Alex. Neither girl was to blame but each of them felt guilty just the same, feeling as though they contributed in some way to her death...and that they could have somehow prevented it, had they not been so wrapped up in themselves. Now 30 years later, they are brought together again and this time Karen must rely on Misty's expertise when her daughter Evie calls on Misty for help out of concern for her sister.
Tasha is 15 and is battling anorexia. While her mother is otherwise oblivious, her older sister Evie has noticed a huge change in her sister over the past few weeks and months. Particularly as she is away at Uni most of them time, when she returns home she is shocked to discover how unwell Tasha really is. But Tasha claims she is fine. Her new friend "Alex" is there with her to ensure she remains so. But Evie can see clearly that she isn't and she is surprised to learn her mother hasn't even noticed just how much weight Tasha has lost and how unwell she really is. Even their younger sister Callie has noticed - how could their mother not?
So when Evie finds Misty's card scrunched up in Tasha's room and calls the number begging for help, Misty hopes this is just a case of overreaction. But when she makes a house call that evening on her way home to see Tasha at Evie's urging, Misty knows at once this is no overreaction. Tasha is in desperate need of help and if she doesn't get it now, she will die. But Tasha refuses help and when Karen returns, she is angered that Misty has an order placing Tasha in her clinic's immediate care. But Karen was so caught up in herself she never recognised the signs she had seen before.
Told from the various perspectives of each girl in 1989 and then again with Karen, Misty and Tasha in the present day thirty years later, THE GUILTY FRIEND takes us on a journey to the past and through the present, revisiting old friendships and old ghosts.
The characters are each well developed though I found myself throwing my hands up in frustration at the older and supposedly wiser Karen many times. She can be incredibly self-absorbed, forgetting the needs of her own daughters and often oblivious to others around her. I just wanted to shake her at times. How could she not see Tasha fading away before her?
Misty was a well refined character, as she went on to specialise in the area that took her friend. I thought that was a fitting tribute to Alex. From someone who didn't appear to have a lot of self-confidence when she was at Uni she soon found her place in the world and landed firmly on her feet.
Tasha was a heartbreaking character. While I can never really understand the need to starve oneself for whatever reason - to be skinny, to maintain control, whatever - her story is one that will break hearts to read. Her pain was evident in the pages as was her teenage angst. But her narrative added another dimension to the whole story which in the end is what the book is primarily about - anorexia.
While THE GUILTY FRIEND is marketed as a thriller, I am not sure it really is. It has more of a general fiction feel to it, even slightly chick lit. The author handled the issue very sensitively and respectfully, and it was clear that it had been well researched.
THE GUILTY FRIEND is a very slow burn. So slow I wondered whether it was going to pick up pace at all. And when it finally did - at around 65-70% - I found it was a little late by that stage. However, I am glad I stuck it out because that ending! WOW! I never saw that coming AT ALL and that made it all the more delicious. It added a whole new perspective that just left me breathless! And can I mention...that last sentence...? I don't believe I will be revealing any spoilers in saying it...
..."But Misty kept walking."...
Just WOW! That ending and that last sentence alone gave this book - which I was simply going to rate 3 stars - an extra star, in my opinion. It was that brilliant! Pure genius.
I would like to thank #JoanneSefton, #NetGalley and #AvonBooksUK for an ARC of #TheGuiltyFriend in exchange for an honest review.
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