Review: The Second Sister by Claire Kendal

The Second Sister by Claire Kendal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes I read a book that totally hooks me in although I can't honestly explain why....well this was one of those books.

It has been ten years since Ella`s older sister Miranda dropped her baby son Luke off at theirs parents house,drove away in her car and vanished without a trace.Chilling new evidence links Miranda to Jason Thorne who is now in prison for the murders of several women,is it possible that Miranda knew him?

Now at the same age that Miranda was when she vanished and driven by her nephew's longing to know about his mother,Ella will do whatever it takes to uncover the truth - no matter how dangerous.....

This entertaining mystery is set between the dates of the 31st of October and the 19th of November of the same year.Throughout the book the titles of each chapter are found somewhere in the pages of that specific chapter which I thought was a clever idea.The story is voiced by Ella ( only her sister was allowed to call her Melanie ),I liked Ella,she was brave,stubborn,loyal,very clever but her attitude could sometimes also be very annoying.Little ten year old Luke was such a clever,perceptive little boy and I also liked Luke's dad.The other characters where a mixed bag of realistic,well thought out characters most of which where completely untrustworthy and a number of them where totally unlikable..The mystery of what had happened to Miranda was intreguing and I suspected more than one character of being involved in her disappearance as the story unfolded.

Although I did enjoy this book I did have a couple of issues with the story.I really get frustrated with books where almost every male character in the story falls in love with the heroine,it's what you expect if you are reading a romance but not what you want or need when you are reading a thriller.My second issue is that it was far too obvious that one character knew more than they were admitting.They might as well have had a large flashing sign above their head that read VILLAIN ALERT.....TRUST ME AND BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU.

It's not fast paced but the story is Intreguing,there was some unexpected twists and a very intense final confrontation.I did enjoy this thriller and would happily read another book by this author in the future.

Many thanks to Harper Collins UK/ Harper Fiction for a arc of this book via netgalley in exchange for a honest review