Not so 'Super'-Natural
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The blurb
One night, Annie went missing. Disappeared from her own bed. There were searches, appeals. Everyone thought the worst.
And then, miraculously, after forty-eight hours, she came back. But she couldn't, or wouldn't, say what had happened to her.
Something happened to my sister. I can't explain what. I just know that when she came back, she wasn't the same. She wasn't my Annie.
I didn't want to admit, even to myself, that sometimes I was scared to death of my own little sister.
The Review
Following up her debut novel, The Chalk Man was always going to be a tough, tough ask. I loved The Chalk Man for its amazing creepiness and excellent twist and was eager for more of the same.
The Taking of Annie Thorne is just as creepy. In fact the opening chapter is downright disturbing, gruesome horror (of the best kind). In that respect, it was even better than her debut, as this book hooks you in from the very start and I was fascinated to know what had led to such a hideous event taking place.
The premise is great. Joe returns to his home town to finally enact his vengeance for what happened to his sister Annie, way back when. He's had an email : " I know what happened to your sister, it's happening again" and now he is determined to find out what, or who, took her. (and what returned in her place)
Unlike The Chalk Man, this is not a straight crime thriller, it has a strong supernatural aspect to it. I was surprised by this as its not obvious in the blurb that it takes that route, but it most definitely does. I get the impression that this has alienated the 'purists' of the crime thriller community. For me, it wasn't an issue, I like supernatural elements in a book, as long as they are done well. But here's the crux of the issue... I'm not sure it was done amazingly well.
I'm finding this hard because I love this author and her writing style, I loved her first book and in some ways I really liked this too. But the supernatural element just didn't play out well for me. Mostly because - it's a bit random and nothing really gets explained. Evil is only truly scary if you understand what it is, or what its trying to do - and neither of these questions were addressed.
That said, Tudor is still a brilliant writer and I hope her next book hits the spot.
The Taking of Annie Thorne was released on 21st Feb 2019 by Penguin UK - Michael Joseph.
Big thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for the free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.