THE GOOD SISTER

 

SYNOPSIS

There's only been one time that Rose couldn't stop me from doing the wrong thing and that was a mistake that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister Rose three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life and disrupting her routine can be ... dangerous.

When Rose discovers that she cannot fall pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple.

Fern's mission will shake the foundations of the life she has carefully built for herself and stir up dark secrets from the past, in this quirky, rich and shocking story of unexpected love.

Title: The good sister

Author: Sally Hepworth

Publisher: MacMillan Australia

Publication date: October 27, 2020

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Do you know when you finish a book and you know it will feature in your top 10 list of the year even though we still have 8 months of books ahead of us? Well, The good sister is that book. I had seen so many glowing reviews that I was a bit scared, cause we all know what happens with hype, but in this case they were absolutely right. It was fantastic!

I started it a couple nights ago before going to bed and I thought “I’ll read a couple of chapters and go to sleep”. When I noticed I was already at 40%. It was completely engrossing from page one.

Fern is one of the most memorable characters I’ve read lately and not just because of her sensory processing disorder. The character was written with such care and sensitivity it will be hard to forget about her. Writing these neurodiversity characters can be quite tricky, as we’ve seen how they just become caricatures of themselves many times, but Ms. Hepworth wrote her perfectly. She and Wally/Rocco are between my favorite literary couples ever. They were so cute together and I loved how they brought out the best in themselves from each other.

The good sister is more a domestic suspense than a thriller, and for the first half we get to know the characters mostly, with no many turns, but it was such a pleasure. Once the twists and turns start coming you will not be able to stop reading. They got me so unaware that when I finished it I immediately felt bad for some of the things I had thought about some characters throughout the story. As the end approached my anxiety reached sky high levels as I was a bit afraid of the way Fern was gonna be treated, but once again it was done to perfection (it wouldn’t be the first time we see a character with this kind of disorder being dismissed and labeled as crazy).

Although this all seems a bit cryptic it will make sense once you read it, and you should definitely read it!

I’ve only read 3 of her books so far, but with The good sister, Sally Hepworth has become one of my auto-buy authors (and she reading her 1 ⭐️ reviews must be one of the most hilarious things I’ve seen the last few days 😂).