Ladies and Gentlemen let me introduce you to Duchess Day Radley. Your life will never be the same again.
We Begin – The Blurb
Thirty years ago, Vincent King became a killer.
Now, he’s been released from prison and is back in his hometown of Cape Haven, California. Not everyone is pleased to see him. Like Star Radley, his ex-girlfriend, and sister of the girl he killed.
Duchess Radley, Star’s thirteen-year-old daughter, is part-carer, part-protector to her younger brother, Robin – and to her deeply troubled mother. But in trying to protect Star, Duchess inadvertently sets off a chain of events that will have tragic consequences not only for her family, but also the whole town.
Murder, revenge, retribution.
How far can we run from the past, when the past seems doomed to repeat itself?
Read it all before?
I started We Begin at the End thinking it was set in Australia (it’s not). I also thought it would be Grisham-esque. Don’t get me wrong, I like Grisham but I’ve read a lot of them and had no real desire to trawl through 450 pages of another one. Why did I read it in the first place I hear you ask? Well my friend said it was good and I just can’t say no to books.
Oh no you haven’t
50 pages in and I was slowly being proved wrong. This I had not read before. I don’t want to write too much as to say it is a book a bout X or Y will reveal that A or B happened and I don’t want to do that to you. I want it to unwind and reveal itself to you like it did to me. I want you to realize your heart just broke then broke again, your jaw just dropped and you ugly cried. I want you to meet Duchess Day Radley, Robin, Walk and I want you to realize these characters will stay with you for a very long time.
Hats off to Whitaker. It reminded me in some ways of the excellent The Lost Man by Jane Harper (maybe that was where I got the Australia vibe from). Yes there is a murder but it unfolds entirely unexpectedly. I loved it (in case you hadn’t guessed) and think you should read it immediately.