The #Bookvent Calendar 2022 – Day Nine

#Bookvent – Celebrating my top reads of 2022

My day nine #bookvent selection is one which kind of creeps up on you. It’s a dual timeline story, a tangled web of lives torn apart by tragedy and it is written in the author’s beautifully evocative style. He’s a master of emotional manipulation, someone who can wring from you a whole range of emotions without you even realising they are building. Family, friendships, trust and maybe a touch of revenge, the book is packed with mystery and secrets just begging to be revealed. My ninth pick is …

Quicksand of Memory by Michael J. Malone

Scarred by their pasts, Jenna and Luke fall in love, brimming with hope for a rosy future. But someone has been watching, with chilling plans for revenge … An emotive, twisty, disturbing new psychological thriller by the critically acclaimed author of A Suitable Lie and In the Absence of Miracles.

The darker the memory, the deadlier the obsession…

Jenna is trying to rebuild her life after a series of disastrous relationships. 

Luke is struggling to provide a safe, loving home for his deceased partner’s young son, following a devastating tragedy.

When Jenna and Luke meet and fall in love, they are certain they can achieve the stability and happiness they both desperately need. 

And yet, someone is watching.

Someone who has been scarred by past events.

Someone who will stop at nothing to get revenge…

Dark, unsettling and immensely moving, Quicksand of Memory is a chilling reminder that we are not only punished for our sins, but by them, and that memories left to blacken and sharpen over time are the perfect breeding ground for obsession, and murder…

I’m not sure quite how he does it, with every single Michael J Malone book I feel like I’ve been sucker punched by the time I turn the final page. With Quicksand of Memory we are faced with a book which slowly, cautiously, creeps into your very soul, building a kind of emotional attachment to characters who, in other circumstances, you may well hold at arms length. This is a story of loss and of family, of friendships, new and old, and a complex tale of regret and hatred that leads to a truly destructive desire for revenge. It is a multi-faceted, character driven drama that draws heavily on the mistakes of the past in informing the fragile security that the protagonists, Luke and Jenna, have built. There is a third party involved in this story, one that, despite their best attempts at sabotaging the direction Luke and Jenna’s lives are taking, I couldn’t bring myself to dislike. They are a victim of their own childhood and upbringing too, and the more the author leads us into the past, into their real story, the harder it is to feel anything but compassion for them. For all three to be fair. there are moments of real tension, scenes where the threat is very clear and the consequences of certain actions have the potential to be catastrophic. It’s a book that taps into some very real fears of modern life, that I am sure many people would be able to identify with.

Examining the nature of toxic relationships, peer pressure, and how dark secrets can be corrosive, eating away at a person’s soul to a point of no return, this is another overwhelmingly impactful story that is very hard to forget and a must read for fans of Michael J. Malone.

You can read my full review here.

Happy #bookvent reading all

Jen