CY@CY Says Welcome to my dreamscape. Where a Lim is also a Ling.
Val McDermid hails The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood as a genuinely shocking thriller where nothing is as it seems. A chilling thriller, so says Clare Mackintosh. Lisa Jewell describes it as spine-tingling and terrifying. Ruth Dugdall declares it is more twisty than Gone Girl. Amazingly gripping, that’s Sophie Hannah’s verdict. “Oh my God, it is so good!” gushes Mark Edwards.
The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood
After reading the blurbs of this book, I thought I would in for a breathless and gripping reading experience. But somehow, the book doesn’t work for me. I really didn’t manage to get drawn into the story.
Due to the author’s writing style, I struggled to go through this book. I ended up skimming through sections of the book that didn’t add anything to the story and was tempted to stop reading it many a times as the story plodded along. I laboured through to the end with the hope that things would pick up and I would be rewarded with a satisfying read. Unfortunately the story bored the pants off me and I was really disappointed. I finished the book in over a week which is considered really slow for me as I usually finish most books within 2 to 3 days.
The Darkest Secret is told in a series of point-of-view of people at a weekend retreat in 2004 to celebrate Sean Jackson’s 50th birthday during which Coco Jackson, one of Sean’s identical twin daughters, disappeared. Chapters alternate between the weekend of Coco’s disappearance and a weekend 12 years later when her millionaire father dies in compromising circumstances handcuffed to the bed in a hotel room. What happened to Coco was finally revealed but I just shrugged with indifference.
Because of my great disappointment, I don’t think I would want to read the other novels written by Alex Marwood.