[3NP]≡ Descargar Gratis The Ice Twins S K Tremayne 9780007563036 Books

The Ice Twins S K Tremayne 9780007563036 Books

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The Ice Twins S K Tremayne 9780007563036 Books

So - a hard book to review. I was looking for a better-than-average psychological/paranormal thriller, and this is that. Well, almost. In terms of suspense and family drama, it delivers in spades. But I have a major gripe, which involves SPOILERS, so if you don't want to know, read no further!

The set-up is a family who has lost one of their young twin daughters in mysterious and horrifying circumstances, moving from London to a remote island off of Isle of Skye in Scotland for a life change. Which (and I have many connections to Skye) is a HUGE life change, in any circumstances. In the ones set out by the book, it just seemed insane from the start. Skye itself is remote without moving farther off of the island, but this is just what grieving parents Angus and Sarah do with their bereaved and clearly disturbed 7-year-old daughter, Kirstie/Lydia.

The slash? Well, that's because one twin fell off of a balcony in her grandparents' house in Devon and died, while the other survived. It seems cut-and-dried, but it isn't. It takes a LONG time to come out (about half way through the book) that Dad knows more than he's been telling about the 'accident.' Meanwhile, he's got a good job in the nearest big town, while Mom is left on the island, alone, to carry on with repairs and deal with their remaining daughter's splayed-out breakdown, which begins with her insisting that she is Lydia, not Kirstie - the twin everyone believed died in the accident.

The plot gets weirder and weirder from there - the parents seem to have no functional way of communicating, Lydia/Kirstie spirals further out of control, the island's isolation gets to all of them, and the dubious psychological "expert" in Glasgow makes veiled suggestions that send the whole mess into a death-spiral.

The ending? Predictable. And yet the supernatural influence is left in limbo, which is annoying. But honestly, what annoyed me most about this book's ending was that all the blame, and all the punishment (remember, SPOILERS!) seem to fall unfairly on mum Sarah. In the course of the story we learn that both parents have cheated; Sarah on the fateful day that her daughter died. But dad Angus has also cheated - moreso than he admits to his wife when he's confronted. And he's done other horrific things - IMO much worse things, in deliberately confusing his daughter's memory of events so that she will believe what's not true. Which of course drives her mad. And which poor Sarah doesn't know, so that, in trying to save her remaining daughter, she suffers the ultimate consequence.

I could have lived with all of this, if it weren't for the "six months later" epilogue, in which Angus is suddenly a millionaire with a cured daughter who's loved by all her peers in town (who used to shun her to the extreme). Oh, and Sarah? She's a footnote, despite the fact that she was found drowned, clutching a child's jacket and some blond hair.

Why was Angus given a pass, plus a new life as a millionaire, for his awful behavior, and Sarah had to die for it? This book would have been five stars for me if it had had a more equitable ending. They were both bloody awful parents. I'd have much preferred to see them have to work it out. Oh and one more spoiler - why on earth did the grandparents keep the house where their grand-daughter died?? Wouldn't you sell immediately, esp. in a desirable place like the Devon coast? Argh!


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The Ice Twins S K Tremayne 9780007563036 Books Reviews

What if you had identical twins and one of them died? What would you do if fourteen months after her death, her surviving twin claims you were wrong about which twin died? What would you do?

A tale of two halves.

I spent the first half of ICE TWINS frustrated with the implausibly of the story and the inconsistencies. I don't like being treated like a dumb reader. Don't tell me identical twins have the same fingerprints when it's factually inaccurate. Fingerprints develop differently in utero due to the nurture, not nature, because of different positioning in the amniotic sac and varying exposures to fluids. While this might seem like minor literary license, it distracted me for the first 51% of the book.

Bam. The second half of this novel filled me with wonder and anticipation. Was the surviving twin Lydia or Kirstie? Was she mentally ill? Seeing ghosts? Evil? A victim? At times heartbreaking, at times maddening my theories kept changing until I was half way through the epilogue.

ICE TWINS switched from Sarah's first person POV to limited third person. SK Tremayne didn't space the chapters logically, nor did she label the chapters which was confusing. If she had Angus or even Kirstie/Lydia narrate some chapters rather than third person, that might have made more sense.

Readers who don't mind creative license with biological facts will probably enjoy ICE TWINS more than me, but it's still a worthwhile read, especially on sale at for $1.99.
I began this book with high expectations, and the first couple of chapters were eerie and suspenseful enough, with a few deftly placed hints to set the stage for a psychological thriller effectively. From the beginning, and sustained throughout, the setting was beautifully done, evocative of a cold, windswept, and waterlogged wild environment eminently suited for dysfunctional folks running from a tragedy. Unfortunately, these descriptions of a wild Scottish island were the only good aspects to what devolved into a turgid, convoluted, and painful Lifetime Movie knockoff.

I did not buy the premise that identical twins are so identical in every respect that their parents, who claimed to be so terribly devoted and loving toward them, could not distinguish them enough to know which child died and which survived. Although much was made, in a thoroughly muddled way, of personality differences and which twin was favored by which parent because of these differences, the central premise remained that neither parent appeared to know which twin died, and that was the lynchpin on which this story was pinned. So when the central premise is flawed, everything else is as well, and the psychological aspect seems woefully contrived, and the thriller parts fail to raise a single goosebump.

I grew exceedingly weary of Sarah Moorcroft’s over-the-top whining and weeping and blaming—she came off not as a grieving mother but a weak and annoying person who fastened on to one harebrained theory of her daughter’s death and the identity of the surviving daughter after another. Her husband, Angus, was not much better. Both of these people seemed for most of the book as advertisements for the sorts of folks who should not have children until they had passed some sort of maturity exam. I thought it was also odd that Sarah’s part of the story was told in first person, ostensibly so we could really see and feel her emotions—they were so one-dimensional that it scarcely mattered—and Angus was at one remove, telling his story through third person.

The alleged climax to this “thriller” was an utter dud. Of course, because I didn’t think there was a single thrilling moment in the entire book, it was a big “So what?” for me. I was annoyed that I’d slogged through this psychological hot mess to see how it ended, and found it didn’t even rate a whimper, much less a bang.

I wish all these whiny, silly, and annoying characters had succumbed to the treacherous tides and the mud flats, and Sawney Bean, or Beany, the eminently lovable dog, was the sole survivor. But that’s just me.
So - a hard book to review. I was looking for a better-than-average psychological/paranormal thriller, and this is that. Well, almost. In terms of suspense and family drama, it delivers in spades. But I have a major gripe, which involves SPOILERS, so if you don't want to know, read no further!

The set-up is a family who has lost one of their young twin daughters in mysterious and horrifying circumstances, moving from London to a remote island off of Isle of Skye in Scotland for a life change. Which (and I have many connections to Skye) is a HUGE life change, in any circumstances. In the ones set out by the book, it just seemed insane from the start. Skye itself is remote without moving farther off of the island, but this is just what grieving parents Angus and Sarah do with their bereaved and clearly disturbed 7-year-old daughter, Kirstie/Lydia.

The slash? Well, that's because one twin fell off of a balcony in her grandparents' house in Devon and died, while the other survived. It seems cut-and-dried, but it isn't. It takes a LONG time to come out (about half way through the book) that Dad knows more than he's been telling about the 'accident.' Meanwhile, he's got a good job in the nearest big town, while Mom is left on the island, alone, to carry on with repairs and deal with their remaining daughter's splayed-out breakdown, which begins with her insisting that she is Lydia, not Kirstie - the twin everyone believed died in the accident.

The plot gets weirder and weirder from there - the parents seem to have no functional way of communicating, Lydia/Kirstie spirals further out of control, the island's isolation gets to all of them, and the dubious psychological "expert" in Glasgow makes veiled suggestions that send the whole mess into a death-spiral.

The ending? Predictable. And yet the supernatural influence is left in limbo, which is annoying. But honestly, what annoyed me most about this book's ending was that all the blame, and all the punishment (remember, SPOILERS!) seem to fall unfairly on mum Sarah. In the course of the story we learn that both parents have cheated; Sarah on the fateful day that her daughter died. But dad Angus has also cheated - moreso than he admits to his wife when he's confronted. And he's done other horrific things - IMO much worse things, in deliberately confusing his daughter's memory of events so that she will believe what's not true. Which of course drives her mad. And which poor Sarah doesn't know, so that, in trying to save her remaining daughter, she suffers the ultimate consequence.

I could have lived with all of this, if it weren't for the "six months later" epilogue, in which Angus is suddenly a millionaire with a cured daughter who's loved by all her peers in town (who used to shun her to the extreme). Oh, and Sarah? She's a footnote, despite the fact that she was found drowned, clutching a child's jacket and some blond hair.

Why was Angus given a pass, plus a new life as a millionaire, for his awful behavior, and Sarah had to die for it? This book would have been five stars for me if it had had a more equitable ending. They were both bloody awful parents. I'd have much preferred to see them have to work it out. Oh and one more spoiler - why on earth did the grandparents keep the house where their grand-daughter died?? Wouldn't you sell immediately, esp. in a desirable place like the Devon coast? Argh!