
The Perfect Sister by Sheryl Browne
Publisher: Bookouture
Imagine you uproot your family to move into your father’s house to take care of him. Living with a parent or your in-laws can be stressful enough but add the pressure of looking after a sick relative and that would be enough to test any relationship.
Claire, her husband Luke and her daughter Ella all moved into her dad’s house. He’s suffering from dementia and he’s rapidly getting worse.
Luke tries to tell Claire she might have to consider moving him into a care home facility. But Claire is having none of it.
Their disagreement is the cause of many a fight and most of the time has Luke leaving the house to cool down. After one such argument Luke is out on the town with his friends when he gets caught up with a beautiful woman who seems to be in distress.
Unfortunately for him, photographs of this encounter end up in Claire’s hands. So now their marriage is on the rocks. Claire’s father is getting worse and she’s left all alone to take care of him as well as young Ella.
Careful What You Wish For
That is until one of Claire’s life-long wishes seems to come true; a sister. Or at least a half-sister. Claire receives a message from Sophie, who claims to be her half-sister. She decides to meet up with her and suddenly she has some support during all her trouble.
But as they say, be careful what you wish for. Not all is what it seems and not everyone might be telling the truth.
Sheryl Browne usually knows how to capture me with her characters, plot twists and story lines. I generally find myself shifting my loyalties from one character to the other throughout her books. So it pains me to say I didn’t have any of that with this one.
Characters
In fact I didn’t like any of the characters (okay little Ella is great). Luke is an asshole who rather walks away from his responsibilities. And although he just wants to help a lady in trouble he very easily crosses a line that should never have been crossed.
Claire is so self-absorbed and gullible she instantly believes anything a stranger tells her. She trusts too easily and I miss a bit of mother lion in her. She just leaves Ella with someone who claims to be her sister without any doubt. Considering her daughter is very sick and one small mistake can cost Ella’s life you would think Claire would be more careful.
And then there is Sophie, from the start it was pretty clear to me how she was involved in all of this. The timing of her appearance is too perfect and it’s a little too transparent for my liking.
The idea of the story line is not bad. There are a few twists and turns that gave me that Sheryl Browne feeling, but all in all I felt a little dissatisfied after reading it.
I’m sure it makes for a good read for a lot of people, especially if you like psychological thrillers but it didn’t capture me as much as I had hoped.
Rating 3/5
The Perfect Sister is available from January 29, 2020. Grab your copy here
Disclaimer: I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley and Bookouture in exchange for my honest and unbiased review. All opinions are my own.
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