Unforgivable by Natalie Barelli
Genre: Domestic thriller, Psychological thriller, Suspense
Read: 24th July 2022
Published: 26th July. 2022
★★★★★ 5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Your ex-wife didn’t leave you because of me. She didn’t abandon her little girl because of a couple of love notes in your jeans pocket. She left because she’s twisted, and she wanted to punish you. And she’s not finished yet. You have to believe me. If you don’t, there’s no knowing what she’ll do next…
Becoming a stepmother is the best thing that ever happened to me. My favorite part of every day is picking Charlie up from school, watching her little rucksack bounce behind her as she skips over for a hug. I love the feel of those thin freckled arms around my waist. After a few rocky months of panic attacks when her mother deserted her, Charlie is flourishing. But the day Charlie’s mother Bronwyn returns without warning—showering Charlie with gifts and making promises she can’t keep—fear ripples through me.
When I raise my concerns, no one wants to listen. I know I sound like the jealous new wife, but nothing is more important to me than Charlie’s safety. Me and Bronwyn have history. We both have dark secrets in our past, and I know the dangerous lengths she will go to get what she wants.
But Bronwyn doesn’t know me as well as I know her.
She doesn’t know just how far I will go to protect that little girl…
A completely gripping and totally addictive psychological thriller that will send shivers down your spine. Fans of The Girl on the Train, The Wife Between Us or The Other Wife will devour this twisty page-turner in one sitting!
MY THOUGHTS:
I am excited to be taking part in the #BooksOnTour #BlogTour for Natalie Barelli's tense domestic thriller UNFORGIVABLE.
This is my first book by Natalie Barelli and despite wanting to delve into her thrillers long before now I've not had the chance to. And I'm wondering what took me so long? I read this addictive pageturning book in a matter of hours and no one was bringing me out of my trance until I was done. This book has everything I love and so many things I hate too...but oh, I still love to hate them...as it makes it soooo good!
There are all kinds of crazy going here but just who is the crazy one? There is so much paranoia, insecurity and passive-aggression going on that it's hard to know just who is pulling the wool over whose eyes. And just when you think you know the direction the story is taking, it back-flips and turns everything around, leaving you thinking...OK, I think I know where this is going now. But trust me, you don't. It's not easy to hoodwink me - other authors have joked with me about trying harder to do just that - but I was outwitted this time. I thought I was being clever and looking where no one else was...but the author double crosses us numerous times just when we were starting to trust her and our own instincts. By the end of the story I so wanted to say that I knew what was going on...but did I really? Hell no! Honestly, I thought Laura was being gaslighted but I think the whole time the author was gaslighting the reader!!
Laura is an art curator for a local gallery and is happy with her fiance Jack and she loves being a stepmother to seven year old Charlie. They are a happy little family unit and everything is going perfectly until that morning...Jack informs her that Bronwyn, Charlie's mum, is arriving to spend Charlie's birthday with her. And she will be staying with them. How long will she be here? A couple of weeks, he assures her. But the silver lining? She's agreed to sign the divorce papers she's been dragging her heels on since she left two years ago.
Laura and Bronwyn share a history pre-Jack and it isn't long before tensions are running high. Charlie, who is excited that her mummy has come to visit, will do anything to please her for fear that her mother won't like her enough to stay this time. And Bronwyn plays on that. Which Laura sees all too clearly...but Jack doesn't. Why? Is he blind? Stupid? Or just playing dumb? That man is quite honestly a p***-weak wet blanket that can't even stand up for his fiance against his ex-wife. I wanted to smack him so many times when he appeared to find the bench far more interesting that the caustic interaction between his fiance and his ex-wife.
And then there is Bronwyn's spur-of-the-moment visit. Why now? And where's her partner Leon? The plastic surgeon she ran off to Italy with two years ago? Laura is sure that Bronwyn has a hidden agenda and she is determined to find out what it is. But then is Laura really a reliable narrator?
Aside from the chaotic stress of her homelife, Laura has taken on a new assistant Summer without really checking her qualifications. More to appease her boss Bruno who is clearly taken with the attractive twenty five year old budding photographer. But then she begins to wonder if Summer's sudden appearance is a coincidence or if there is more her "just being there" one morning to apply for the position? I repeat...is Laura's narrative a reliable one?
Yet in the middle of this chaos is innocent little Charlie, who Bronwyn insists on calling Charlotte and dressing her up as if she were a life sized doll in pinks and frills and everything so un-Charlie. Charlie, who is not exactly a tom-boy, but enjoys adventure and nature and wants to be a vet or run an animal sanctuary. She enjoys exploring nature and playing soccer and rolling in the mud. She's not a pretty little princess into frills and make-up and all the fickle fakeness her mother is. But for the sake of pleasing her mother so she won't leave her, Charlie acquiesces. She dresses in the clothes Bronwyn buys for her, that she isn't comfortable in; she refuses Laura's invitation to play "so she doesn't get her clothes dirty"; she keeps her room clean which is definitely un-Charlie-like...and through it all, Charlie is still unhappy. And it breaks Laura's heart. For the little girl just wants her mummy to love her...but is Bronwyn capable of loving anyone beyond herself?
Oh, I do love a cuckoo-in-the-nest domestic thriller. Threatening everything that our protagonist holds dear with just a flutter of her eyelashes and expensive gifts for her long-lost daughter. Who craftily wrangles their way into the homes and lives of the unsuspecting (until it's too late) and winning others over bar one who sees through their ploys but no one else will believe them?! So while our protagonist appears to be the crazy one, little miss cuckoo deftly swoops in to save the day time and again in such a way that makes the crazy appear even crazier. And the passive aggression...you could cut the air with a knife!!
Honestly, that is just what I expected, and got, with UNFORGIVABLE! Until it went further than that and it leaves you wondering...what the...what just happened? Believe me when I say you think you have it all worked out, but you don't. Not even close. This was a whole new level of psycho and so cleverly done. I don't care if it's been done, in part, before...it's the thrill of the ride that I enjoy and boy, did I get that!! The author engineered everything perfectly that the reader thinks "that's it" only to realise it was nothing but a red herring sent to confuse us and send us in the wrong direction while the real twist kept giving...and giving...and giving...until the final page.
I loved UNFORGIVABLE and will definitely look out for other thrillers by Natalie Barelli, who I've wanted to read for so long but just not gotten around to it. I love the fact that she's an Australian author who lives not too far from where I do...but...I have to say, it really annoys me when authors (particularly Australian) create a setting for their books in America! This is not the first, as I have come across many, and it has me wondering what is so wrong with Australia that one can't base their stories here? Nicole Trope does and hers are amongst my all-time favourites. I'm really puzzled as to why so many don't utilise their own backyards for creating the perfect settings for their books. Really, this book could have sufficed well enough here in Sydney as well as it did in Seattle.
Yep Bronwyn is a character that definitely got under my skin but then she was written in way to do just that - get under the readers' skin. And she certainly did that. If she wasn't messed up crazy, then was it Laura who was? Who was the paranoid one? Because both women displayed perfect examples of paranoia...didn't they? Who's pulling the wool over whose eyes? OMG I wanted to throttle Bronwyn and then smack Jack and Laura's heads together for being so utterly clueless. But then had they all been smarter then there wouldn't have been such a thrill ride of a thriller, would there? There would be no UNFORGIVABLE. And quite honestly, all characters made some very stupid decisions...some more than others, I might add.
UNFORGIVABLE is an edge-of-your-seat thrill-ride a minute that had me turning pages for "just one more chapter". It is addictive and is a train wreck but honestly, I couldn't look away. I couldn't stop reading. I had to know who was playing who and how it all ended. It is fast paced throughout that it felt like a pressure cooker was inside my head as I raced through the pages until the very end.
A non-stop rollercoaster ride I thoroughly recommend UNFORGIVABLE to fans of tense domestic thrillers that love a little gaslighting. And just a little bit of crazy...
I would like to thank #NatalieBarelli, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #Unforgivable in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Natalie lives with her family in the beautiful Blue Mountains outside Sydney in Australia, where she is forever thinking about new ways of killing people and getting away with it.
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