7
RATING: GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
I have to say that I guessed the big surprise way before it was sprung on us. When Zoe and Anna were never seen together in public, I wondered whether things weren’t what they seemed. I was right. There were never two women, but one.
I don’t know what gave me the clue, but when Anna started to act less lovingly, I thought there was something fishy. In the chapters about their mother, Alexia, she mentions that the two girls loved each other deeply, but we didn’t see that deep sisterly love in the novel.
Things come to a head when Zoe can see that Nick is despaired, so she tells him that she needs to choose, and when she offers him to be the one to choose, he jumps at the chance. So Zoe goes to see Anna and there is an argument, and Zoe says that she is leaving. Anna arranges a dinner for the two sisters and Nick, and feeling nervous, Nick invites her sister Rachel. We can see that Anna is nervous and tense during the dinner, and when Zoe fails to make her appearance, she tells Nick and Rachel that she will drop by Zoe’s hotel to see if she is all right. When Nick and Rachel are on their way the the tube, he gets a text from Zoe, telling him that it is over and everything is sorted out. Nick calls Zoe, who tells her that she is at the airport and he should follow him. She claims that Anna knows about them and they have a tremendous row, and she insists that they need to travel to America and leave Anna behind. Nick is not convinced and wants to talk to Anna, so he goes to the hotel and finds the room covered in blood. Scared, he calls Zoe again, and she tells him that Anna is dead after she fell and hit her head. Zoe says that she called some friends to get rid of the body, and now Nick needs to clean the blood, or the police might think he has murdered his fiancé.
Nick is frantic but he does what Zoe does and he meet her at the airport. They take the plane, but Nick thinks there is something fishy. Zoe intends to pass herself off as Anna as she has all her documents, but what Nick finds it strange is that Zoe booked the tickets two days ago with his credit card, which she nicked, but if Anna’s death was an accident, how come she booked the tickets on her name? Did she plan to kill Anna all along? When questioned, Zoe doesn’t deny the accusation, and Nick thinks that Zoe is not well mentally. So when they land in New York and Zoe is delayed at luggage reclaim, Nick knows that he has to turn himself in, but before that, he needs to talk to the twins’ parents.
So he takes a taxi and arrives at the house. Alexia and David welcome him warily, and when he tells them that Anna is dead, Alexia starts wailing. Yet, when Nick mentions Zoe, the sobs stop, and Alexia reveals the truth. Zoe died three years ago because of her problem with drugs. Anna always blamed herself for her death as she was not there for her when she needed her. From then on Anna’s grief manifested itself in strange ways. She started to behave like Zoe in many ways. It wasn’t that she wanted to be closer to her sister, but she believed she was her sister. Her parents took her to a counsellor, and for a while she took some tablets, but she often went without her medication. Nick is relieved that there is no murder, but he wants to find Anna.
Her parents tell him that she might be in one of the bars that Zoe used to hang out in, and after a while he finds her, and they talk. Nick tells him that he knows she is Anna, and Zoe is dead. Anna is also honest and tells him that she brought Zoe to London when she overheard him talk to his friends about fidelity. So she wanted to test him, and if he had passed the test, she would have been honest with him and that would just have been a joke between them. Yet, he didn’t pass, and instead he had an affair with the woman who he believed was Zoe, and she thought Nick liked her better. After the revelations they have a nice conversation, and Nick admits that he loves him, and even though Anna still feels something for him, she can’t go past the thought that he believed he was cheating on him and he didn’t do anything to mend the situation.
The epilogue is six months later, and the company that Nick works for has made a donation to Anna’s homeless centre. After the fiasco in America, Anna returned to England, and she came clean with Vera, her boss, so she agreed to have counselling and took her medication. From then on she hasn’t heard from Nick, and now she is worried he is behind the donation. She and the people from the centre go to Nick’s bank, and unlike what we are led to believe, Nick is not there. Instead Anna meets Hal, Nick’s colleague, the one he used to confide in. It is obvious that Hal is smitten by Anna, and he tells her that Nick quit the job and is now a volunteer in El Salvador, helping to build orphanages. The end of the book shows that the beginning of something between Anna and Hal. I have to say that this addition of Hal is not something I like too much. Even though I have hated Nick, I had forgiven him a little because of all that he went through with the idea that Anna had been killed by her sister. I also liked him when he and Anna talked in the bar, and even though it was clear that Anna had mental issues, he was ready to support her. So I would have liked them to end up together.
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