The Wicked Sister

Rachel is in a mental hospital and believes herself to be responsible for parents deaths. When a reporter becomes a friend and interviews her, new evidence comes to light that makes her question everything. Returning to her home, she begins to remember.

This is a great psychological thriller. My first impressions were that it was odd after a casual mention of a talking spider. As it goes on, there are more talking animals but it starts to make sense, and then you begin to wonder if you are right or wrong–it gets cleared up at the end nicely.

This story is also very clean–aside from the obvious murders. There is one slightly disturbing instance involving ‘the wicked sister' writing words on a belly with a knife, but that's honestly the worst and not too bad–easily skippable.

I loved this dual timeline novel told from Rachel's point of view and that of her deceased mother. I was fascinated to find out what really happened on that wintery day that led to the murder of Rachel's parents. The horrors that unfolded, to the lead up to that fatal day, were both shocking and disturbing, as too was the day itself.

Being a mother I felt a lot of empathy towards Jenny and the situation she was in. No parent wants the news that their child is unwell and having to deal with a demanding child with behaviour issues is such a strain mentally and physically.

I was immediately drawn to Rachel and felt a lot of sympathy for her. Imagine believing you were responsible for shooting both of your parents! I was fascinated with her belief that she could communicate with the animals. I did question whether this was a sign she was still mentally unstable or whether it was a symptom of being isolated from society for so long or whether she did in fact have a special connection with animals. This element I felt added to the overall suspense of the novel as I found I was always second guessing Rachel, not sure whether she was a reliable character and one I could trust.

And then we have the wicked sister Diana. The villain of the story. What was really interesting was her relationship with Jenny and how Jenny tried to always love and protect her as any mother would. Dionne's writing is so emotive and thought-provoking that although I wanted to hate Diana I felt compassion instead towards her and her family.

I adored the setting which was very atmospheric and added to the tension of the story, as too did the nod to Grimm's fairy tales which weaved throughout the book. Nature played a strong part in this novel which I found bewitching and mesmerising. This was definitely the page-turner I was hoping it would be; it was chilling, creepy and down right gruesome! Many thanks to Catherine Burke and Little Brown Uk for gifting me a copy of The Wicked Sister. A truly magical book with a lot of evil running through it.

But you can be evil even if you don't choose it.

disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for review consideration. All of the opinions presented below are my own. Quotes have been taken from the advanced copy and are subject to change upon publication.

I was absolutely blown away by The Marsh King's Daughter earlier this year and was highly anticipating Dionne's newest release. Unfortunately, this one really fell short on expectations. If you want a mindless thriller with disturbing elements, please look no further. If you're looking for anything more than that, perhaps think twice.

I was unconvinced from this from the start; the premise that this woman spent 15 years institutionalizing herself because she thought she did something that could have been disproven by a single line in a police report is quite frankly absurd to me. There continued to be inconsistencies and hyperbole that would pull me out of the story completely. For one, Rachel grew up learning the woods like the back of her hand. She was a vegetarian, essentially a pacifist, and deified nature. So how am I to believe that she repeatedly chucks her cigarettes to the ground and leaves them there? I know this is such a minor point to nitpick, but it just goes so vehemently against her character that I honestly couldn't believe it! I saw the twist coming from a mile away, and one of the characters became so cartoonishly evil that it felt like Dionne wasn't even taking things seriously anymore.

Never mind the fact that I'm starting to tire of the psychopath child trope and this truly added nothing to the genre of thrillers that rely on it. It really seemed like most of the thrills relied on pure shock value. This does work to its benefit in some ways: it's difficult to put the novel down and it's a fastpaced read. Something dreadful is truly lurking around every corner here.

There was also a strange fabulist element integrated into this – Rachel can apparently converse with animals. I thought at first that this was meant to skew the reader's judgment of her: is she actually insane? But it really seems to serve little purpose other than furthering the plot in certain areas and getting Rachel to where she needs to be. It really felt like something that should have either been left out or utilized more thoroughly by Dionne.

So, this didn't work for me at all I'm afraid. If you're looking for something fast and simple and are able to suspend your disbelief, this could totally be the book for you. But if the above elements would be an issue, perhaps skip this one this time around.

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