Jaffareadstoo....: Blog Tour ~ In Her Wake by Amanda Jennings

Jaffareadstoo is exited to be hosting today's Blog Tour stop

My thoughts on In Her Wake...

Our lives are made of up of a rainbow of memories; some, perhaps, are a little more fragile than others, but deep within ourselves there’s always a real sense of belonging. Imagine then, finding that the memories you have lived with for all of your life are without substance and are as ephemeral as the wind.

Peeping into the corners of a closeted childhood spent at The Old Vicarage, with her parents, Elaine and Henry, Bella Campbell was a lonely, only child. There’s no doubt that she was loved beyond reason, but being the absolute centre of her parent’s life meant that she was never really free, and as the ghosts of her past are laid bare and opened up to scrutiny, we learn that there is far more to Bella’s life than we could ever have imagined.

What then follows is the gripping story of Bella’s quest to lay aside the ghosts and demons of her past in order to discover where she really belongs. Her journey of discovery takes her to the rugged beauty of the Cornish coast and to a 25 year old mystery which threatens to destroy her future.

Psychologically chilling, from its dramatic beginning through to its powerful conclusion, In her Wake is beautifully written by an author who has the supreme confidence to flip a story on its head and who isn’t afraid of taking a risk by not giving you the blindingly obvious. It’s a story of love in its most controlling form, it’s the story of families and of the secrets we keep hidden, and it’s also about the hopelessness of catastrophic grief and the sadness, almost beyond reason, of devastating loss.

Rarely have I been so utterly gripped by a story that I wanted to race through it at top speed, and believe me, when I want to, I really can speed read but such is the emotional pull of the story that almost with a feverish compulsion I read until my eyes ached with tiredness. And yet, as much as I wanted to discover what happened to Bella, bizarrely, I didn’t want the story to end, because then I would have to say goodbye to a set of characters who had become as dear to me as friends.

Even now, days after finishing the story, I keep remembering snippets, hidden clues, unspoken nuances that reveal far more about people and which lay bare the foundations of a life filled with secrets and lies.

As you can tell, I absolutely loved it.

Best Read with ….A creamy cappuccino and bowl of soup, heated to lukewarm…

About the Author