REVIEW: IN HER WAKE, BY AMANDA JENNINGS

 

 

From the opening lines of In Her Wake, the reader is confronted with the sadness and loss Bella Campbell Bradford has suffered in the aftermath of her mother’s death. Elaine Campbell had been a loving mother, but there was always something amiss in their lives. Elaine’s fearfulness, her unwillingness to leave the house, and the overprotectiveness that turned Bella’s childhood into a prison are only the tip of the iceberg.

Her father Henry was kind, but also distant, a trait Bella chalked up to his being a doctor.

Bella’s husband David is overly controlling, and with his tendency to always take care of everything, from what to eat and where to work, she realizes that she must take some time away alone, to sort through her thoughts. Especially after a tragedy that occurs within hours of her mother’s funeral. A letter from Henry charts her course.

She goes to the Cornish coast for answers. There she finds more than she bargained for. What happened in France twenty-five years ago, and how does a cottage in Bristol figure into the lives of the Campbell family? Who is Bella, and what other secrets and lies have made her into the person she is today?

Finding the truth beneath the lies will lead her down some frightening pathways, but in the end, she will discover more than she had ever hoped for. Knowing that she can sort through her past on her own helps her decide how to deal with David.

Along the way, the reader gets to enjoy the local characters, like Dawn Tremayne and her mum, Alice. The author showed the reader the village of St. Ives in all its colorful quirkiness, which helped ease the shocking truths that seemed to come out of nowhere…and just kept unfolding. 4.5 stars.

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