The #Bookvent Calendar 2022 – Day Sixteen

#Bookvent – Celebrating my top reads of 2022

My day sixteen #Bookvent selection is a book which is a little hard to define or categorise. It’s not quite sci-fi, not quite speculative fiction, but it is very original, packed with emotion and with a real sense of mystery at its heart. I am very used to the author’s skill when it comes to creating nail-biting tension in his thrillers, but this is a really different beast, one which left a mark and which was really hard to forget. My sixteenth pick is …

The Other Side of Night by Adam Hamdy

Bestselling author Adam Hamdy returns with The Other Side of Night, an utterly unforgettable tale of love, loss and redemption.

When disgraced former police officer Harriet Kealty discovers a plea for help in the margins of a second-hand book, she sets out to unravel a mystery that quickly leads her to confront some uncomfortable ties to her own life, including her ex-lover Ben.

Following the deaths of his close friends, Ben became an adoptive father to their orphaned son Elliot. But Harriet suspects that Ben knows more about these deaths than he’s willing to say…

What starts as a simple investigation becomes something entirely different in this moving story that will open hearts and minds as it answers the question: what would you do for one more moment with someone that you love?

I think I said of this book originally what I am still thinking now … that to really tell you why this book is so special, and to be free to explain to you why it made such an impression upon me, would be to risk spoilers. The beauty of this book – beyond the beautiful writing, the imagery and the sentiment and emotions that it evokes – lies in the slow discovery of the truth that lies within the pages. The facts which, as they are revealed, become both obvious and revelatory. It is a genre defying novel, almost indefinable, somewhere between mystery, sci-fi, speculative fiction and family saga, perfect for people who love beautifully lyrical and character driven stories that twist and undermine your understanding in the most wonderful of ways. Whodunnit and whydunnit are the key questions in this book as we meet Elliot, a young boy who has lost both of his parents and whose life is irrevocably changed when Harriet arrives on the scene. It is a duplicitous tale, one rich in emotional depth and a kind of melancholy which is hard to ignore and impossible to walk away from. It’s a book which caught me unawares in the most perfect of ways, a tale of inevitable tragedy and yet a strange, and almost unexpected, sense of hope. It showcases Adam Hamdy’s undoubted talent at creating compelling characters and wondrous scene setting, in which those quiet ponderous moments pack just as much of a punch as any of his actions thrillers ever could. Definitely recommended.

You can red my full review right here.

Happy #bookvent reading all

Jen