Robert lives in North East England. He works in Recruitment by day, and is usually to be found knee deep in a pile of books as a reader and reviewer by night. He has recently signed with The Blair Partnership, and his debut crime novel, What Falls Between the Cracks was released in Spring 2018.
Amber Reynolds is in a coma. We don't know why, any more than she does. She's unable to move or speak, and her world is a mixture of sounds, smells and visitors voices.
Her husband and sister are regular bedside visitors, but Amber struggles to separate real memories from coma-induced dreams. Her world is reduced to a series of fragmented conversations, and what she hears makes her wonder if either of them have anything to do with why she's in a hospital bed in the first place, who the mystery visitor is that comes after everyone else leaves, and whether anyone genuinely wants her to wake up at all.
The opening page sets the stall out for you to question everything you go on to read.
Alice Feeney has constructed a fantastic central character in Amber. That the hospital scenes with her lying there, unable to move or speak, are most gripping and speaks volumes as to the quality of the writing. The story bounces between three main timelines - present day coma, run-up to coma, and childhood back in the nineties, and they're woven together expertly, each in their own authentic voice, and with no shortage of cliff-hanger moments and dark places.
I usually pride myself on being able to second guess what's really going on, but this one kept throwing me off balance. Overall, utterly gripping, and ticks all the right boxes for a psychological thriller.
