Girls of summer? Bright cover showing a couple of youngsters in their sun tops. You might think you’ve got your hands on a nice, little romantic fiction, a poignant holiday romance, maybe. Think again. This is a powerful novel that renders that dalliance ‘romangst’.
‘ Rachel has loved Alistair since she was seventeen.
Even though she hasn’t seen him for sixteen years and she’s now married to someone else.
Even though she was a teenager when they met.
Even though he is almost twenty years older than her.
Now in her thirties, Rachel has never been able to forget the golden summer together on a remote, sun -trapped Greek island. But as dark and deeply suppressed memories rise to the surface, Rachel begins to understand that Alistair – and the enigmatic, wealthy man he worked for – controlled much more than she ever realised.
Rachel has never once considered herself a victim – until now.’
With a dual narrative that ping-pongs between THEN and NOW we are drip fed the account of an ostensibly, idyllic, summer of love for a group of carefree, backpacking, gap-yearing teenagers learning to live and learning to love. But these lessons can be hard ones, and they can be costly.
Rachel is the main protagonist and we learn of the events through her eyes. There were times when I wanted to shake her and say open your eyes, you silly girl, can’t you see what’s happening here? But she was a young girl in love, and we all know what that feels like, don’t we? There is no logic, there is no rational thinking. There is that blindness and tunnel vision that love infects us with. And even sixteen years later Rachel is unable to completely let go.
In many ways it is a bit of an unnerving, disconcerting read. There’s a great deal of tension and raw emotion. The reader is caught in the middle of a relationship with the protagonist and how events are unfolding. I often found it difficult to like Rachel especially in the way she treated Tom, but it’s one of those books where as you read and understand the situation she’s been in you start to soften a bit.
This is a debut novel, but I think the writer has shown the wisdom and sensitivity of a seasoned novelist in the way she deals with the events in this book and the portrayals of the characters she has created. It’s not an action packed narrative. It’s quite slow in places but it needs to be in order to perpetuate the sense of apprehension and anxiety that you feel is lurking behind every car trip to the rich and enigmatic Henry Taylor’s house. It’s a well constructed plot too. The intrigue about Henry is racked up until we finally meet him and it’s a very powerful and disturbing moment in the book. If, as a reader, you had suspicions before, then they are confirmed at this point.
You feel that this is a story that needs to be told. I think particularly in recent campaigns of awareness such as #MeToo. It doesn’t make for a happy, pleasant story, so this book might not be for everyone, it’s dark, but at its root, I think, is a desire for women everywhere to understand that they have to tell the truth, whatever the odds, whatever the obstacles.I will look forward to any future work from this exciting novelist.
My thanks to Milly Reid at Transworld Books for a gifted copy.
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