The Other Child By Lucy Atkins

[amazon_link id=”1782069879″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’The Other Child’ is Lucy Atkins’ latest novel.

When Tess is sent to photograph Greg, a high profile paediatric heart surgeon, she sees something troubled in his face, and feels instantly drawn to him. Their relationship quickly deepens, but then Tess, single mother to nine-year-old Joe, falls pregnant, and Greg is offered the job of a lifetime back in his hometown of Boston. Before she knows it, Tess is married, and relocating to the States. But life in an affluent American suburb proves anything but straightforward.

Unsettling things keep happening in the large rented house. Joe is distressed, the next-door neighbours are in crisis, and Tess is sure that someone is watching her. Greg’s work is all-consuming and, as the baby’s birth looms, he grows more and more unreachable. Something is very wrong, Tess knows it, and then she makes a jaw-dropping discovery…

‘The Other Child’ is the first book that I’ve ever read by Lucy Atkins and it was quite a gripping introduction to the author. I started the story late one evening and I couldn’t put it down and then my iPad died just 30 pages from the end and I was left restless and dying to know how it would end.

The story is written in the third person about Tess, a pregnant woman who has left her life behind in England and moved to America with her son Joe and American surgeon husband Gregg. A new person in the town, Tess feels lonely as no-one really makes the effort to get know her and her neighbour Helena keeps making her feel uncomfortable with strange remarks. Suddenly there are strange messages left for her, silent phone-calls and a woman who seems to be watching her every move. Alone in a strange country with an unhappy little boy and a husband who is never about and is consumed by his work, she begins to doubt her new life especially when she discovers something out about Gregg and that maybe he isn’t quite the perfect man that she was led to believe.

Riddled with self-doubt and scared, Tess begins her own discovery into her husbands past and question was he quite the orphan that he has always said and why is he so determined to keep so much from her.

Tess is a great leading character, she is brave and is constantly questioning Gregg and the life that she has chosen, although she is friendless, she finds solace in her phone calls with her best friend Nell across the water and tries to make life easier for her little boy, who is a victim of bullying. Gregg is the typical American wholesome man, good looking with a charm, he is seen as a hero with his job and is quite arrogant at times with his attitude.

The story is incredibly well structured and cleverly written. Right from the very beginning, the book is filled with tension and intrigue. From the huge house that Tess is rattling about in to the amount of time she is left alone with her thoughts and vulnerableness, it creates an atmosphere of bleakness which seems to get worse when it snows and Tess is restricted to the house. Unsettling and atmospheric, ‘The Other Child’ is a darkly intense and gripping story, that you will be unable to put down. A great introduction to a new author for me.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”1782069879″ target=”_blank” ]The Other Child from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.

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