Secret Sister by Sarah A. Denzil
There are many great novels about family secrets, but the Audible Original audiobook “Secret Sister” by Sarah A. Denzil has a unique premise. The protagonist, Faye Mathis, is a well-known author whose diagnosis of early-onset dementia turns her life upside down. She deals with it the way she knows best: through writing.
Specifically, a memoir — a project with a deadline that’s a ticking time bomb. As an adopted child, Faye dives into uncovering her birth family. But tracking down her birth mother proves disappointing; her mother, like Faye, has dementia, but unlike Faye, she’s in the late stages, offering little insight and leaving Faye with more questions than answers. Faye doesn’t know it yet, but by meeting her birth family, she’s just opened a Pandora’s Box of danger.
MYSTERIOUS CHARACTERS
When a picture of a disoriented and disheveled Faye wandering around town goes viral, Faye is convinced that it’s someone else in the photo. But how on earth can she prove that? Even her own daughter and stepson believe Faye suffered a sort of fugue. It wouldn’t be the first time, though never in such a public fashion. Only Faye’s boyfriend, Alistair, will entertain the idea that — as bizarre as it sounds — perhaps she might have a long-lost twin.
The more Faye digs for answers, the stranger things get and the more she must question what she thinks she knows. The narrative is interwoven between multiple points of view: Faye and two menacing characters — “the Grave Digger,” who is obsessed with killing his stepmother, and “the Sister,” who is obsessed with revenge against her sibling. Denzil keeps you guessing about their identities and how they intersect with Faye’s story, but when all is revealed, it’s a gut punch of a twist.
A GENRE NOVEL WITH LITERARY THREADS
The novel’s setting on the Yorkshire moors creates a gothic atmosphere; it’s a place of wild beauty, quiet isolation and hidden violence. Faye lives on the cliffs of the North Sea in a house bought with the royalties from her Palmer Twins teen mystery series, which, as we discover, is written in spooky rhymed poetry that’s reminiscent of Edward Gorey or Hilaire Belloc.
Denzil peppers her story with parallels between various characters and situations. It’s as if they are mirrors of each other, “twins” in a sense. This provides an intriguing layer of metaphor that elevates the story from the genre. It is clear that Denzil has carefully crafted literary threads through her tightly woven plot.
UNRELIABLE OR NOT?
As a woman suffering the onset of dementia, Faye is the ultimate unreliable narrator, casting doubt on whether events are as she remembers or perceives them. As the danger heightens, so too does her dementia, making her predicament all the more terrifying. And yet, through the fog and missing pieces, she remains determined to survive. She also discovers that she’s not as confused as the people around her seem to think; her intuition is keen, even if she herself second-guesses it.
Secret Sister features a stellar cast, including Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer) and Joanne Froggatt (Sherwood), who do a great job bringing the story to chilling life. The audiobook captivates the listener’s attention from start to finish, even during binge-listening sessions. And you’ll have a hard time not listening on and on to “just one more chapter” as the family secrets Faye stumbles on turn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game involving greed, vengeance and terrifying sadism.
Secret Sister is exclusively available on Audible and Amazon.
Sarah A. Denzil is the global #1 bestselling author of We Play Games and the queen of domestic noir. Her other books include Amazon bestsellers Silent Child, Saving April and The Broken Ones. She also writes under the name Sarah Dalton. Sarah lives in Yorkshire with her partner, enjoying the scenic countryside and rather unpredictable weather. She loves to write moody, psychological books about ordinary people in extraordinary situations.
