Author: Shalini Boland
Narrator: Katie Villa
Publisher: Adrenalin Books
Publication Date: June 2016
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
Buy The Book: Amazon | BN | Audible
Description: A chilling suspense story of wounded hearts and dark secrets.
Washed up on the beach, she can’t remember who she is. She can’t even remember her name. Turns out, she has an idyllic life – friends and family eager to fill in the blanks.
But why are they lying to her? What don’t they want her to remember?
When you don't even know who you are, how do you know who to trust?
My Thoughts: For a lot of people, getting a start over at life opportunity might be a good thing once all the confusion of the lost past events is overcome. For Mia James, the confusion about her past doesn’t dissipate over time as she begins to piece together what happened to her. Her memory loss causes her more doubts about the man claiming to be her boyfriend, her family and whether her amnesia was really accidental.
This book twisted me around and upside down. I had my own doubts about the boyfriend, not liking him from the start. When Mia learns she inherited 8 million pounds from her father, my doubts increased. I also wondered about Mia’s mother and sister and why their relationship is strained. Mia has to rely on strangers to fill in the blanks. Are they telling her the truth?
This story moved at a perfect pace and flowed seamlessly. I felt like everyone is keeping secrets, including Mia, though she doesn’t know what her secrets are. As the story moves along and it becomes apparent that Mia’s accident was deliberate, the tension spiked into high gear for me. I can’t imagine how frightening it would be to lose all of my memories and then find out that someone close to me means to do me harm.
The story gets darker and more tense as Mia learns more and though she has no memory of anything, she appears to be quite self-reliant and is able to function without difficulty, including driving a car and finding her way around Christchurch. I liked that about Mia. She never comes across as helpless. Frightened, absolutely, but definitely not helpless.
The story was expertly narrated by Katie Villa who breathes life into the characters and expertly conveys their thoughts and speech with raw emotion, which is necessary for readers when listening to an audiobook.
The ending came as a huge surprise for me. It wasn’t the ending I was hoping for, but we can’t always get what we want. Once I picked myself up from the floor after the rug was ripped out from under me, I have to give major kudos to Shalini Boland for giving me a story that was thoroughly enjoyable, shocking, surprising and real.
My Final Verdict: I highly recommend this story to fans of thrillers, mysteries and suspense stories that keep the reader riveted to their seat featuring characters that are not always who they appear to be. If you don’t mind that the line between right and wrong and good and evil isn’t always obvious, this is the book for you.
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of The Girl From the Sea from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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