THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR (CATHY GLASS)

Story Description:

Harpercollins (UK)|April 12, 2010|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-729927-0 

Story Description: 

When Mandy learns her much-loved Grandpa is dying, she is devastated and returns to the house where she spent so many wonderful summers as a child.  But the childhood visits ended abruptly and those happy days are now long gone.  Having lost touch with the rest of her family, Mandy returns as a virtual stranger to her aunt’s house to nurse her grandfather. 

Mandy hardly recognizes the house that she loved so much as a child and it is almost as though her mind has blanked it out.  But as certain memories come back to her, Mandy begins to piece together the events that brought a sudden end to her visits that fateful summer.  What she discovers is so painful and shocking that she understands why it was buried and never spoke of by the family for all those years.  

My Review: 

Twenty-three-year-old, Mandy, spent many happy, wonderful summers with her cousin Sarah at her aunt and uncle’s home and becoming close as sisters.  They played as toddlers on the swings, had tea parties and as they grew into teenagers their discussions become more serious and age appropriate, each telling the other they had a crush on each other’s fathers which sent them into peals of laughter. 

Suddenly at the age of thirteen she was hauled out of her aunt and uncle’s home by her irate father with a threat to the family that if they ever contacted his family again he would have them all arrested.  Mandy never saw Sarah again for ten long years and never understood why she’d been suddenly dragged out of her cousin’s home.  She had blanked everything out and buried deep within herself, somewhere. 

Mandy’s beloved Grandfather is dying and is being looked after in his final days at her aunt and uncle’s home and Mandy decides after ten years or not, she was going there to help look after him in his final days.  However, when she arrives she realizes that she doesn’t remember being in the house before after spending so much time there as a youngster.  As the days pass she begins to experience flashbacks and feelings of déjà vu and has an unsettling feeling that something terrible has happened but doesn’t know what.  No one in the family will tell her anything about what happened so long ago and why she is having these flashbacks and sudden snippets of memory. 

As the story continues it comes to a stunning and surprising end that I wasn’t expecting at all which kept me reading faster and faster until I’d completed the entire 308 pages in one sitting!  The Girl in the Mirror really packs a punch and Cathy Glass has done a superb job in penning this novel.  One of her best, I think and I would highly recommend it to anyone.  Way to go Cathy!!