Reviews

I was recommended this book by someone on my university courses, and it was explained to me and it sounded so good I immediately had to add it to my TBR. When I found it in a charity shop, I was over the moon. However, I don’t think I’ve been lead on as much with a book in my whole life.

We follow Amy after she’s had an accident. Due to the accident, she has amnesia, which means she can’t remember the last 6 months of her life. So when she goes on holiday with her friends, Jenna and Lisa, and her mum to her aunt’s old ski house, she’s shocked to find out she invited her boyfriend - one that she can’t remember because they only started dating within the last 6 months! He is a doctor, called jack Stewart, and he said he was working, so he couldn’t come on the holiday with her.

She starts to collect her memories back. For some reason, she knows that Jenna is annoyed at her, but can’t remember why. And no one is more shocked than Amy when Jack Stewart shows up. He’s a lovely man, quite attractive and selfless too. However, there’s one big problem…

Amy made him up. She was so sick of being compared to her her friends, who all had loving husbands, and sick of being a disappointment in her mum’s eyes for never finding someone. So, she made him up: his name, his occupation, everything about him. All the dates, the gifts, etc. She even bought another phone to message hers from, as Martha - Amy’s mum - desperately wanted to meet him, but obviously she couldn’t; he wasn’t real.

So she doesn’t know who is the man living with them that is pretending to be her boyfriend.

And when she brings it up, all of her friends and family on’t believe her, and Jack plays up to it. She becomes more suspicious, but he seems to have an answer for everything. She goes to seek solace in the comfort of her aunt, who lives over the way with Gabriel, but she finds out, again, that her aunt is dead. It’s a shock to her, especially when she realises she is being left with a large sum of money. Upon returning back to the house, she realises she was being followed.

She’s paranoid, losing things or having things being moved and blaming them on Jack, who has a reason for everything. It’s only when she finds Gabriel dead, buried beneath the snow, does she know for certain that it’s Jack - and it’s all because he wants her inheritance.

Whilst she’s been accusing him, he’s been conversing with her bank and getting the money transferred into his account. Fortunately, he needs to have Amy’s verbal confirmation of the transfer. Unfortunately, this means that Jack has been chasing them, holding Martha under knifepoint - he didn’t want to hurt them, he just wanted the money. All his life, he’d been treated as less because he had less money, and he could never afford the fancy things in life, despite working hard and accepting shit from his boss. One day, when Amy saw him kick a cat and end its life, she videoed it, and he knew that he would go to prison - he’s out on parole, but anything like the would make sure he was locked up for good. He stopped her, then went to rob her flat, but saw the money, and then worked out she had a fake boyfriend, and posed as him.

Unfortunately, although they try to escape, Amy agrees to the bank details because she doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. He then takes off, and she skis after him, up the slope that her father died upon. She falls over, trapped by the snow, but Jack - real name Harry - helps her up. He does end up getting away, but she tried her best. She receives a postcard of him a few months later, and then she vows to get her money back.

There’s so many questions left unanswered in this book… What happened to Lisa’s husband? I thought he was boarding a flight, were all the flights just cancelled? Did he not bother coming in the end? Also, what relevance is Jenna’s husband to this? All along I thought her and Jack knew of each other, or there would be some big sister twist, but honestly it adds nothing to the story. It doesn’t explain anything, it’s just another unnecessary miscommunication, and it wasn’t done that cleverly.

Another thing that bugs me is that although most of the pieces fit the puzzle, it feels like some of them have been jammed in to make them fit. Like how could Jack have jumped to that conclusion hat she had a fake boyfriend in that scenario? How could he have done it if she hadn’t have lost her memory? I know he said he would just take it, but he needed her for the bank details, so either way, he would have needed her? I don’t know, and everything about Martha not knowing about the aunt’s death, the dad’s death, all of it felt a little unnecessary and forced in there. Some of it felt really eerie, and it could have worked so well with it had it been linked, but it was just used to fluff out the novel.

Even the characters weren’t that good… you’re telling me that not even her own mother, her own best friends, would believe her over this guy they literally just met? I get she’s just had an accident, but at least give her the benefit of the doubt. Amy was very annoying, but I just feel sad that she had to create a massive lie, then lost all that money, and for what? She has literally gained nothing.

I’m disappointed by this book, I can’t lie. The plot was there, it could have been a very clever book, but it just didn’t do it for me, unfortunately. Some of the parts were quite mysterious and tense, but other than that, it wasn’t my cup of tea.

Content Warnings