The Surfacing by Claire Ackroyd
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 15th August 2025
Published: 1st June 2025
★★ 2 stars
DESCRIPTION:
The secrets you bury don’t disappear. They rot…
It’s twelve years since teenager Peter Ferguson drowned in Loch Ness—on the same night that Stephanie, her mother and her sister, Aurelie, were camping on its shores. In the shocking aftermath, their family and life as they knew it fell apart, and the sisters no longer speak. But now Aurelie is getting married, and Stephanie realises that a reunion might finally bring the truth about that fateful night to the surface…
As the wedding celebrations get underway, tongues loosen, and dangerous whispers circulate among the guests. Yet the real danger—the rot that threatens to break them all—might come from within the family itself. As she confronts the suspicions swirling around her, Stephanie is about to uncover secrets that will change all their lives forever.
She never planned to get blood on her hands in her pursuit of the truth. But as the clock ticks down on the family reunion, that may be her only option…
MY THOUGHTS:
The secrets you bury don’t disappear. They rot…
In a rather interesting debut, we meet Stephanie who lives a somewhat hermit-lifestyle at an artist's retreat in the Scottish Highlands. The place she used to frequent every summer as a teenager with her family until a tragedy and her family fractured - though both events were unrelated.
Some twelve years later, Stephanie is returning to England for her sister Auriele's lavish wedding at some illustrious estate manor that would only do for her self-obsessed sister. It's the last thing she wanted to do but her mother wrote her a letter pleading with her. And it seems she has an ulterior motive. To uncover the truth of what happened that tragic night at Loch Ness when a young man disappeared. Does her mother know something? Or does she suspect that someone else knows something?
The entire book takes place over twenty four hours - from the evening before the wedding and the wedding day itself. I love the time format of each chapter as the events played out. But what I loved most was Stephanie's snippy snarky quips - some of them silent and mostly her internal monologue but some were not.
Interestingly, Stephanie is not someone I would warm to although I did sympathise with her with regard to her difficulty making friends as a teenager at school and the bullying but generally, she is not someone I would like. She is completely standoffish and gives off those vibes in droves. None of the other characters are particularly likeable either so I didn't really care one way or the other what happened to any of them.
This tale is a slow burn and while I did enjoy Stephanie's snippy thoughts, I didn't entirely warm to the book. It was an OK read but nothing entirely earth shattering. I found the reveal to be somewhat disappointing though not surprising. I had hoped for something different, I guess.
I would like to thank #ClaireAckroyd, #Netgalley and #LakeUnionPublishing for an ARC of #TheSurfacing in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Claire is an economist by background and loves cold-water swimming, travelling, cryptic crosswords and all things book related. She lives in Bedfordshire with her husband and two children.
Social Media links:
No comments:
Post a Comment