With more twists than a bag of cough candy, this book will keep you wondering what's happening right to the last page. It's a dark modern story told through a collection of letters and a few random documents and it tells the tale of a honeymoon that didn't go exactly to plan.
The newly married couple, Richard and Evelyn had been gifted a honeymoon stay in a fashionable Turkish hotel by Richard's mother, and at first Evelyn thinks that her biggest problem is her interfering mother in law, but that pales into insignificance once they meet the beautiful Isabella who runs the hotel.
The hotel has become something of a local landmark after an elderly couple staying as guests drowned in the sea the previous year. Isabella tells Richard and Evelyn that the man was sleepwalking and left the room heading for the sea, then his wife ran in after him but they were both swept away by the current. On the face of things, it is simply a tragic accident, but Evelyn is not sure that everything they are being told adds up, and begins to wonder if Isabella was somehow responsible for what happened.
All the letters are very long, so don't be put off by the format as this is not anything like other stories told through letters such as 84 Charring Cross Road by Helene Hanff. In real life, no-one would write letters as long as these, especially in times of stress, but if you can get past that thought then the book is very cleverly constructed and takes in a number of modern themes along the way. I'm sure it will go on to be a best seller just like Scarlett Thomas's first novel, The End of Mr Y.
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