Synopsis
She’s married to him. But does she know him at all?
Claire lives with her family in a beautiful house overlooking the water. But she feels as if she’s married to a stranger – one who is leading a double life. As soon as she can get their son Joe away from him, she’s determined to leave Duncan.
But finding out the truth about Duncan’s secret life leads to consequences Claire never planned for. Now Joe is missing, and she’s struggling to piece together the events of the night that tore them all apart.
Alone in an isolated cottage, hiding from Duncan, Claire tries to unravel the lies they’ve told each other, and themselves. Something happened to her family … But can she face the truth?
My Review
I read, reviewed and loved Sophie’s debut novel ‘Cuckoo’ and I couldn’t wait to get hold of a copy of her follow up novel called ‘Magpie’. It sounded like the deliciously creepy sort of read that I would thoroughly enjoy. I managed to get hold of a copy and started to read. Oh boy, ‘Magpie’ was most definitely a creepy read in more ways than one for reasons which I will explain further in a bit. I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Magpie’ but more about that in a bit too.
I can honestly say that I didn’t take to either Claire or Duncan at all but that wasn’t a bad thing because it meant that I didn’t favour one over the other. They are a married couple, although to say that their marriage is strained is a bit of an understatement. Claire is convinced that Duncan is having an affair but she doesn’t know who with and Duncan seems to be a domineering, bully of a man. That said, I wasn’t sure if either Claire or Duncan were telling the truth. They have a son called Josh, who seems to behave slightly oddly. I don’t mean that nastily but Josh will go out with his metal detector and he will spend all night searching for ‘treasure’ in the hope that he hits the jackpot. Josh’s relationship with his father is strained. I can totally understand why Josh is reluctant to spend a lot of time in the family home. Can either Claire or Duncan be trusted? Just who is telling the truth? Is there a twist to the tale? Well for the answers to those questions and more you are just going to have to read the book for yourselves to find out as I am not going to tell you.
I mentioned earlier that this was a creepy book in more ways than one so I will explain as best as I can. The title of the book is ‘Magpie’ (obviously) and when my late father passed away, I am convinced that he came back to us in the shape of a magpie and this magpie has regularly come to ‘visit’ us. Secondly, when my father passed away, tradition dictated that we had to give him enough money to ‘pay the ferryman’ for the journey over to the other side. So imagine the shiver that went down my spine when I got to the end of the book to read about a character having money to pay the ferryman. It’s made even spookier when you consider that Thursday is the anniversary of my father’s death. Add all that together and you have a very spooked and shivery me.
It took me next to no time to get into this book. As soon as I started to read, I just knew that I would have to binge read the book over the course of a couple of days. I wasn’t sure who to trust or who to believe. I had my own suspicions as to what the truth of the matter was so I had to keep reading to see if my suspicions were going to be proved correct. The pages turned over at speed and at one point the pages were turning that quickly that it was almost as if they were turning themselves. All too quickly I reached the end of the book, which I was disappointed about. I had been enjoying the author’s writing style, the characters and the storylines so much that I just wanted the book to continue for longer than it did.
‘Magpie’ is well written. Sophie has one of those writing styles that is easy to get used to and easy to get along with. She certainly knows how to draw you into the story. Once she has your attention, she will not let it go until the moment you have read the last word on the last page. Sophie takes you on one hell of an at times scary and unpredictable rollercoaster ride through one hell of a story. The story is written differently to what I am used to. It’s obvious that there has been an ‘incident’ which is as serious as it gets. It’s not clear as to what has happened although little clues are given throughout the story. The different chapters are written from the points of view of both lead characters and they detail what happened prior to the ‘incident’ happening and after the ‘incident’ happened. I did worry that perhaps the jumping about of the story might prove to be confusing but I needn’t have worried because the way Sophie has written the story really works and the story flows seamlessly as a result. ‘Magpie’ is definitely a book that messes with your head.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Magpie’ and I would recommend it to other readers. I look forward to reading more from Sophie in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 4* out of 5*.
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