6000 people can’t be wrong
When I saw this years longlist I wasn’t surprised that Lisa had been nominated for it by the judging panel, given how long the audio book had stayed on the best seller list, currently at number 8 in the general list, number 1 in mystery, thrillers and suspense and has over 6000 reviews.
With Nicola Walker as one of her main actresses as the narrator because of her background in such big TV roles, like Unforgotten, her voice is already synonymous in crime fiction so you know that this book is being taken seriously alongside 9 other narrators including Lisa herself. When there are this many voices involved in a book you know that the audio book will have it’s own unique flavour that will transcend what was written on the page. With the book being about a podcast it’s as if it was made for audio.
At Alix’s 45th birthday party she bumps into Josie who coincidently is also celebrating her 45th birthday, and a new podcast ‘my birthday twin’ is unintentionally born. For Alix who is used to interviewing women about how they became successful, she can generally take what they say as the truth, but is it the same for Josie and what impact will this have on her complex life and her family? It must have had quite an impact as it resulted in a Netflix documentary series. This is quite an interesting way to break the story up and differentiates it between other podcast writers like Matt Wesolowski and Heather Critchlow.
With a running time of 10 hours and 14 minutes when the first revelation comes about 2 hours into the plot you wonder where it will go next as it is so dark and in other books it would be the concluding twist and had me hooked from then on.
The deadline for voting for crime book of the year is now close so I have to do a lot of reading anyway, but I had over half the book to finish yesterday and just couldn’t put it down. I hope Lisa does well because she deserves it. So far it’s been a really good list with some really good contenders with 3 or 4 previous winners in there too, I have no idea who will win this year. I thought I knew but this one has thrown a spanner in the works.
