The Bad Sister by J.A. Corrigan
Genre: Psychological thriller/drama
Read: 18th April 2022
Published: 21st April 2022
★ 1 star
DESCRIPTION:
One rotten apple can spoil the bunch
The Keane sisters grew up together at Raven House, a luxurious riverside home that their mother inherited. On the day of a party at the house, tension fills the air as Jess, Natalie and Teresa all fear the exposure of things they’re desperate to hide. The beautiful evening is marred by tragedy, and a celebration turns into a nightmare when a young life is lost. It is a haunting reminder of a shocking event five years earlier.As guests eye their companions with suspicion, it’s the family who have the most to hide. They turn on one another, with breathtaking malice and irrevocable consequences.
Years later, the sisters are barely hanging on to the scraps of their relationship. As another family celebration looms, long-held secrets come rushing to the surface. But someone is determined that the past will stay dead and buried, and will stop at nothing to prevent their mistakes being uncovered.
Which sister has the most to hide? A secret that they would kill to keep…
A compelling thriller about the secrets families keep that you won’t be able to put down. Perfect for fans of Shari Lapena, Gillian McAllister and B. A. Paris.
MY REVIEW:
OK, so I'm in the minority here in that I really couldn't get into this book. I wanted to...I liked the premise and I really wanted to find out what the mysterious secrets were surrounding the sisters...but not enough to keep reading a book I was quite simply bored with. THE BAD SISTER began with an intriguing premise and so therefore, it had promise. But that's where it ended...because the story took so long to build any kind of picture that I simply lost interest.
In a nutshell, I hate slow burns. They take too long to build the story and the tension that I could be on an adrenaline-fueled ride with another thriller that has captured my interest from the first page. I have, on occasion, enjoyed a slow burn but it has to be done in a way that keeps me engaged otherwise I'll go looking for something sparkling and shiny elsewhere. Because honestly, I found the entire tale dull. Admittedly, I only got as far as about 25% before I pulled the plug...and to be honest, that is well and truly enough time to have built any kind of tension and drawn the reader in and keep them there.
What I did glean from the story is that we have three sisters - Teresa, the oldest; Natalie, the middle sister; and Jessica, the youngest and most fragile of the three sisters. There is also a mother who perish the thought you would actually call "mum". Instead she had her daughters call her by her given name, Eva. And then there was Dom, the girls' stepfather. This dysfunctional family, because they really are, lived in a a beautiful luxurious riverside mansion called Raven House. Eva is a habitual drug user and I suspect Dom is too, either that or he simply facilitates Eva's drug use. The woman is the worst kind of mother blaming her daughters for the death of Teresa's twin, Hope, five years before on the now embargoed Raven Island. Never mind the fact that the sisters all feel the loss of their other sister. And so as soon as each girl reaches university age, they escape the prison that is their home with Teresa being the first to leave. When she comes home to visit she brings along her new boyfriend Luke, despite warning him about her very strange and eccentric family. Nobody gets along, it's a wonder they even bothered.
Then Natalie's best friend Juno is murdered and Jessica's convinced she knows who did it. But could she be wrong?
Fast forward to the present day and each of the sisters are married but none of them have much at all to do with each other. Teresa is estranged from both her sisters whilst Natalie would rather not speak to her eldest sister at all, if not for her own daughter Hope (named after their lost sister). Jessica still seems to be a walking and, at least now talking, mess. She married a man fifteen years her senior and I'm not sure why because they don't even seem to like each other. Ironically she is a psychiatrist and she has so many issues she is in need of a therapist...which she does in fact have but stops the session whenever it gets too uncomfortable. A bit hypocritical when that's the whole point of therapy. Teresa is a successful barrister and I don't know what Natalie is, besides a mother.
Honestly, I stuck it out for as long as I could before I gave up and tossed it aside. I wanted to know what happened and why they were all a dysfunctional mess but not enough to force myself to read it. For me, the book is slow and boring and uneventful.
I'm sorry to leave a negative review but I honestly couldn't get into this story at all. I liked none of the characters and didn't much care what happened to them. I'd rather someone tell me what happened rather than me having to drag myself through 360 pages. Why leave all the thrilling parts of the story for the last half or last quarter even? That is just too long and too slooooow to drag it out. And that is my biggest issue here...it is far too slooooow. If by 20% nothing is happening, I ditch it. Life is too short for books we don't enjoy.
I would like to thank #JACorrigan, #Netgalley, #Canelo for an ARC of #TheBadSister in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Julie-Ann also writes modern historical fiction under the pseudonym Jules Hayes.
She now lives in Berkshire with her family and a very cute dog.
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