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A review by svw89
The Fire Child by S.K. Tremayne
2.0
While reading this I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd read something very similar before, something similar but much, much better. Mansion, dead wife who died under suspicious circumstances and who still has an effect over the house, young girl/woman marrying an older man... at times it felt like a poor, modern time copy of [b:Rebecca|17899948|Rebecca|Daphne du Maurier|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386605169s/17899948.jpg|46663].
I found certain things really hard to believe. Rachel, a young woman from a council estate in London, met and married an older man, David, after two months and moving to his mansion in Cornwall to live with him (on weekends) and his son. I really struggled with how quickly that relationship progressed, it might have worked in different times but in a modern day setting? It just feels weird. It also felt weird that Rachel was constantly described as so young. She's 30! While I don't class 30 as old, the way she was described made it sound like she was 18 with no life experience. Definitely not the case with Rachel, especially when you find out her backstory - some of which is utterly ridiculous.
The chapters hop around a lot, there can be weeks or months between chapters and I don't think it worked. While I liked the countdowns as the chapter titles - 120 days until Christmas etc. - it jumped around too much for my liking, it disrupted some of the tension and it made whatever character development there was come out of nowhere. For example, the breakdown of the relationship between Rachel and David seemed to escalate really quickly, it was really unbelievable. One minute he's all nice, the next he wants a divorce because she's mentioned something about his son, and the next... well, what an arsehole. The escalation of Rachel's mental health issues suffered too because of the time jumps.
I did like the photos included in the book, that added to the creepy atmosphere of the abandoned mines and the loneliness of rural Cornwall.
There were quite a few twists, none of them too exciting or unexpected, and I thought the ending was completely ridiculous.
I found certain things really hard to believe. Rachel, a young woman from a council estate in London, met and married an older man, David, after two months and moving to his mansion in Cornwall to live with him (on weekends) and his son. I really struggled with how quickly that relationship progressed, it might have worked in different times but in a modern day setting? It just feels weird. It also felt weird that Rachel was constantly described as so young. She's 30! While I don't class 30 as old, the way she was described made it sound like she was 18 with no life experience. Definitely not the case with Rachel, especially when you find out her backstory - some of which is utterly ridiculous.
The chapters hop around a lot, there can be weeks or months between chapters and I don't think it worked. While I liked the countdowns as the chapter titles - 120 days until Christmas etc. - it jumped around too much for my liking, it disrupted some of the tension and it made whatever character development there was come out of nowhere. For example, the breakdown of the relationship between Rachel and David seemed to escalate really quickly, it was really unbelievable. One minute he's all nice, the next he wants a divorce because she's mentioned something about his son, and the next... well, what an arsehole. The escalation of Rachel's mental health issues suffered too because of the time jumps.
I did like the photos included in the book, that added to the creepy atmosphere of the abandoned mines and the loneliness of rural Cornwall.
There were quite a few twists, none of them too exciting or unexpected, and I thought the ending was completely ridiculous.