Publishing year: 2017
This new book by Louise Jensen starts with the press standing watch on a house where something terrible has happened.
There is blood, and when the paramedics leave the house with the gurneys empty, a neighbour mentions that maybe nothing has happened to the people, but a voice coming from a walkie talking belonging to the police says that there are two bodies and it is a murder investigation.
The book then goes back to the present. We meet Kat, who is in a café, and there she sees a person from her past. It is Lisa, who used to be her best friend. Something happened in the past that drifted the two friends apart. Lisa greets Kat without the misgivings that Kat has, and we learn that when they were young, Kat was involved in a car accident and as a consequence, someone died. What Kat feels so guilty about is that she didn’t stay and fled the town. Now Lisa reassures her, telling her that she was angry with her at some point, but not because what happened but because she left without a word.
The two women talk over lunch. Kat tells her that she is married to Nick, and both of them run a charity alongside a lawyer, Richard. Kat’s happiness is marred by the fact that she can’t have children, so she and Nick are trying to adopt a baby from China. They already suffered a disappointment when a boy went to another family, and Kat feels this time it will be different. Lisa then tells her that she was a surrogate for a woman and had a baby girl, and she implies that she would be ready to do the same for Kat.
Later that day Nick returns home and tells Kat that some legal problem has risen, and their hopes for the baby have been crushed. Kat is desperate, and she remembers Lisa offering to be a surrogate mother for them. So when she calls her, Lisa offers again, and Kat and Nick accept. Richard, who is the third partner in the charity and Nick’s best friend, tells them that surrogacy is not the best solution as there are many legal vacuums, and if Lisa were to decide to keep the baby, they wouldn’t be able to do anything. Kat doesn’t like Richard much; she thinks he doesn’t like her and believes that Nick could have done much better. Kat also wonders if Richard intentionally sabotaged both adoptions as he was in charge of the legal matters.
I have to say that the relationship between Kat and Nick is strange. I believe they are in love, but Kat claims that she doesn’t know anything about his parents or childhood because she doesn’t want to tell him about hers. She hasn’t even told her about the accident that she was involved with when she was young. What kind of marriage is this when these two people are not honest? When Richard mentions possible health problems, Kat mentions that she knows Lisa’s parents, who are healthy, and half the genes will be Nick’s. At her reference Nick and Richard exchange a knowing look, and I have the hunch that there is something dark in Nick’s past.
Interesting start. From the description we got at the beginning, it is obvious that the house the journalists are watching is Kat and Nick’s, so who are the people who have been murdered? The couple? The two women? Lisa and Nick?
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