Unravelling by Helen Forbes
Genre: Psychological thriller, Crime fiction
Read: 9th February 2022
Amazon
Published: 10th January 2022
★★★ 3 stars
DESCRIPTION:
A forest of secrets
Two bodies are found buried in a Highland forest, a place that haunts the dreams of Kate Sharp. Her mother, Ellen, died when Kate was a child. Does the forest hold the secret to her death?
A secret journal
Kate discovers her mother’s journal, and the tale of a tragic unravelling begins to unfold. Ellen’s story is one of fear and hope, love and loss, set against the imposing background of Craig Dunain, a psychiatric hospital where she should have been safe.
Unravelling the truth
Someone else from Ellen’s past is searching for answers, and he will stop at nothing to find them. Unaware of the danger stalking her, Kate continues her search. Will she find the answers? And can she save her own life?
Beautifully written, cleverly plotted, and meticulously researched, Unravelling is a captivating tale of family secrets.
MY REVIEW:
Helen Forbes is another new-to-me author I've not come across before but upon reading the premise for UNRAVELLING, I was intrigued. Thrillers surrounding mental health/illness always fascinates me, particularly when featuring a sinister and foreboding asylum such as the one depicted here.
But...
It took me a while to get into this book. I don't think I connected well with Kate and then Martyna seemed a little too psycho. To be honest, the first part of the book left me wondering where it was heading and I felt the pace to be a little slow, despite the short snappy chapters that I so love. But then Part Two began and the story shifted back 30 years to Ellen's story in her words, beginning in her early teens to her time in "The Craig", the psychiatric hospital overlooking Inverness. It was then we, the readers, are given a different perspective and while some of it was confusing and repetitive it was also the convoluted mind of someone suffering from a mental illness. Things didn't really pick up till after 50%, which in my book is a little long before making things interesting, but I persevered and was rewarded with a satisfying outcome.
Set in Inverness, the Highland capital of Scotland, the story begins with Kate in the present day as she nurses her ailing grandmother and then grieving with her loss. Kate had never really known her mother Ellen, who died when she was just a young girl, and was brought up by her grandparents. Kate doesn't know her mother's story or what happened to make her so ill or why. She often asked her gran who could only say that she was ill and did her best to get better.
But then a chance meeting with someone who knew her mother all those years ago leaves her with a parting gift as he helped her move into her grandmother's flat that she had bequeathed to her. In one of the boxes, she discovers a journal belonging to her mother and upon reading the first few entries, discovers the worst possible secret she could imagine. Shocked by what she read, Kate shuts the journal and buries it back in the box in which she found it...not yet ready to read any further.
Meanwhile, a camper in the woods surrounding the old asylum stumbles upon a gruesome find...a human bone which then leads to the discovery of an almost intact skeleton. Police search the area and later uncover another set of skeletal remains. Could these remains be linked to the old Craig Dunain asylum?
Part Two begins a different perspective in which we are given Ellen's narrative as she tells her story from her early teens, the birth of her daughter Kate and her subsequent spiral into mental illness, resulting in her being admitted to "The Craig". This part of the story highlights the debilitating horrors of mental illness as we see the confusing world through Ellen's eyes and her inability to trust anything or anyone. We meet several other colourful characters in her time there - some sad, some mad and some downright horrible. In this part of the story, we are privy to Ellen's world and not the one everyone else thought was her story...but the one that really happened. And as it came to an end, the sheer emotion was just heartbreaking.
Finally, we came to Part Three which was the beginning of the end of Kate and Ellen's stories. Everything that happened beforehand came together in perfect synchronicity to evolve into a culmination of events that brought everything into the open...therefore giving Kate the closure she needed.
It was cleverly done but I couldn't help but wonder if the chapters couldn't have alternated between Kate and Ellen in the present and past with each chapter to give readers a building insight as the story developed. It may have helped it move along more smoothly because the first part was incredibly slow to start with. I wouldn't say it was addictive, not to start with, but I did want to find out what happened which is probably what made me continue reading...otherwise I may have given up. For me, it lacked something to keep me engaged despite it ending up a fairly decent thriller.
Despite my misgivings, UNRAVELLING is certainly atmospheric and even claustrophobic with the haunting setting of Craig Dunain Mental Hospital, known as "The Craig" at its centre, giving that sinster sense of foreboding. It is most certainly a sad and twisted tale of murder and mental illness that is tense, dramatic and even emotional.
I would like to thank #HelenForbes, #ScolpaigPress and #RachelsRandomResources for an ARC of #Unravelling in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Helen has now taken to crime with a passion, and has published two psychological thrillers. Unravelling is set in Inverness, against the background of a former psychiatric hospital. Deception is set in Edinburgh, and tackles the themes of domestic violence, prostitution and trafficking. Helen has also completed a further thriller set in Edinburgh, which she hopes to publish in 2022. Queen of Grime’s main character is a crime and trauma scene cleaner with a big secret. It is gritty and dark, but also funny and uplifting. Helen hopes to expand Queen of Grime into a series.
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