Emma in the Night
Ratings31
Average rating3.8
The story starts with a bang, as 18-year-old Cass Tanner knocks on her family's front door late one night. Cass has been missing and presumed dead, along with her older sister Emma, after they both disappeared one night three years prior. As family and investigators gather around her to hear her account of what happened that night, Cass begins to tell her story – a story that involves a baby and an escape from an island where she and Emma were being held captive. The forensic psychologist assigned to the case of the missing sisters, Dr. Abby Winter, is suspicious of how polished Cass' story seems to be, as she has long believed something else was going on in the Tanner household when the girls disappeared. In alternating chapters, Cass tells investigators how to find her sister while Abby seeks to discover what, if anything, Cass feels she still needs to hide.
The multiple POV style seems to be gaining popularity in the genre and sometimes it feels overused but here it was executed perfectly. You get to hear Cass' inner thoughts as she narrates her story for her audience, all the while following Abby as she becomes increasingly emotionally invested in the case and begins to see herself and her family in Cass'. As the book goes on both characters become less reliable, leaving you on unstable footing as a reader. For a less talented writer this could cause the characters to seem inauthentic or less sympathetic, but in Walker's skilled hand this feels more like two sincere people who cannot both possibly be telling the truth. The narration unspools like this gradually until you suddenly realize that you don't know what has been the truth and what has been a lie. Small revelations appear at just the right time, hinting at something larger that dances just out of view of the reader. When the truth comes out, it's jaw dropping. In most of my reading I can say that I saw bits of the ending coming even if I didn't actually guess the entirety of the outcome. With this one I was completely blindsided and couldn't have been happier to have been so surprised. It was entirely satisfying, especially because the book stayed strongly character driven throughout.
My only real criticism of this novel is that some of the mental illness suffered by the characters was dealt with in a heavy-handed way. I think most readers would recognize the problems this family was facing without it being spelled out so directly and it felt a bit like a “tell” rather than a “show” by the author. However it was such a small problem that the rest of the novel's strengths more than made up for this flaw.
To find a thriller that examines mental illness and it's devastating effects on a family while also maintaining a strong pace and compelling characters is a treat. This is a novel I highly recommend.
(Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.)
**Note: This book was given to me by St. Martin's Press as part of a sweepstakes. This in no way impacts my review. Review was written in May of 2017.
I honestly do not know where to begin with this book. I entered the sweepstakes to win a copy of the ARC of Emma in the Night on a whim. The cover was enticing, the plot looked interesting. Hey, why not. I had not read anything else by Wendy Walker and I had not heard anything about this release yet. Boy, was that a good decision. This is an incredible read that could otherwise have slipped me by.
Emma in the Night is a story about a girl and her sister, who vanish without a trace. Three years later, the younger sister reappears. She seems willing to tell the authorities everything she knows about their disappearances. There's a lot going on, however, that she isn't willing to talk about. The story is told from the perspectives of Cass, one of the sisters, and Dr. Walker, an FBI agent who can see deeper than anyone else working the case.
At first, I found the disjointed storytelling to be confusing and frustrating. We were just getting bits and pieces of the story from Cass herself or secondhand from Dr. Walker's recounted conversations with Cass. Right off the bat, the writing style made me feel really lost in the story. As things progressed, I realized how intentional (not to mention essential) this was. Cass is an unreliable narrator, and makes it clear that she only feels the need to reveal things that will help her cause: finding her sister.
The characters were fascinating, complex, and well-developed. The plot and the writing were phenomenal. I could not make myself put this book down. I loved watching the story unravel, seeing things make both more and less sense as we progressed until it all came together with an impressive flourish. I knew there were twists coming, but I truly had no idea what was in store for me.
Wendy Walker blew this out of the water. Her writing is immersive and carefully crafted. I cannot emphasize enough how much I enjoyed this book–and I'm sure it will be great as a re-read as well. I'd recommend it to all who enjoy a good plot twist, but particularly to fans of thrillers and crime novels.