How Far We Fall By Jane Shemilt

[amazon_link id=”0718183495″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’How Far We Fall’ is the latest book by Jane Shemilt.

Meeting Albie gave Beth a fresh start – a chance to leave her past behind. Now she has her new husband; an ambitious, talented young neurosurgeon. Their marriage gives Beth the safe haven she’s always wanted – with just one catch. Albie has no idea of the secrets she’s keeping. He doesn’t know that years ago, Beth had an affair with Ted, the boss helping Albie’s star ascend. Nor that the affair’s devastating ending will have consequences for their own future. So when Ted’s generous patronage begins to sour, Beth senses everything she’s built could crumble. And she sees an opportunity. To satisfy Albie’s ambitions, and her own obsessive desire for revenge. She’ll keep her marriage and her secret safe. But how far will the fall take them?

I’ve been spending the last few days reading this book and I must it’s quite an intense story that regularly made for interesting reading. The book is primarily seen through the eyes of married couple Albie and Beth. Albie is a hard working surgeon who’s determined to find a cure for cancer, after seeing so many children suffer for the terrible illness whilst his wife Beth, is content in life, no longer a theatre nurse, enjoys the time in their garden.

Between Albie and his boss, Ted they have potentially found a cure, but when Ted takes the credit for Albie’s hard work, this stirs something in Albie. Albie is hurt at this, as Ted was not only his mentor but also a close friend and finds himself unable to move forward and with Beth’s encouragement does something that will jeopardise everything. Unknown to Albie, Beth has history with Ted and it’s through their perspectives of the story that we see different reasons for their actions and also the consequences.

For the majority of this book, I enjoyed reading it, it’s dark and complex with a clever plotline. But in some parts, I found it a bit difficult as there is a quite a lot of medical jargon and procedures in it and sometimes, I found myself getting a bit lost. There was one scene that was particularly vivid and gruesome in describing an operation.

Both Albie and Beth are great characters, their back stories are interesting particularly Beth, as we see her personality develop throughout the story and she’s not quite the wholesome woman that Albie is led to believe. For me, Beth was my favourite character of the story, she’s strong, opinionated but not in a domineering way. Ted was also quite interesting, as we see his empire and ego tumble down around him.

This is Jane’s second’s book, after the huge success of her first novel, ‘Daughter’ which was another intense thriller about a mother’s quest to find her missing daughter and ‘How Far We Fall’ is just as gripping. A compelling tale riddled with drama and deceit, ‘How Far We Fall’ is a thought provoking tale about morals and just how far a person will go to get revenge.

You can pre-order [amazon_link id=”0718183495″ target=”_blank” ]How Far We Fall from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops from 28th June 2018.