The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne

The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne is a spooky thriller that keeps me on the edge of my seat as it hurtles towards its shattering climax. It is a creepy mixture of a mystery, a thriller and a ghost story and I felt a bit uneasy when the story seems to hint at incest. It really takes me on a roller coaster ride as creepy little girls and deeply conflicted parents get my adrenaline flowing. I don’t like roller coaster rides but this was a ride that I enjoyed immensely.

A year after Lydia, one of their identical twin daughters, died in a tragic accident, grief-striken Angus Moorcroft and his deeply- depressed wife Sarah are struggling to rebuild their shattered lives. Money has been getting very tight as Angus lost his job as an architect after punching his boss in a drunken fit of anger.

Things are thrown into total disarray when the normally withdrawn surviving twin, Kirstie, stuns Sarah by telling her that they have made a huge mistake: she announces that she is Lydia, not Kirstie, and it was Kirstie who died. The problem is that with monozygotic twins, there is no physical way of proving which twin is which. True to the psychological thriller genre, Sarah keeps this new revelation from her husband. After all, she suspects he’s keeping secrets from her.

When Angus is left a tiny, remote Scottish island as a legacy from his grandmother, they decide to relocate to the island to make a fresh start away from London.

Kirstie, who now insists on being called Lydia, finds it almost impossible to make friends with other children at her new school. The kids at the school are frightened of her and she is bullied and treated like an outcast. She becomes increasingly withdrawn and disturbed, adding more despair to her parents.

Sarah and Angus try their best to adjust to their lives but they seem to be fighting a losing battle. With Angus having to spend longer times (sometimes overnight) on the mainland for work, Sarah struggles in a cold wreck of a barely-habitable lighthouse keeper’s cottage.

Angus seems to be keeping a secret of his own. A widening rift has developed in his marriage to Sarah. Is he having an affair? Did he do unspeakable things to Lydia? And does he know more about his daughter’s death than he is letting on?

So is the living twin, Kirstie, pretending to be Lydia, or is she possessed by her? Did the parents misidentify the dead twin?

Go figure it yourself by reading the book.