Day of the Accident by Nuala Ellwood #BookReview

They say you killed…BUT WHAT IF THEY’RE WRONG?

Sixty seconds after she wakes from a coma, Maggie’s world is torn apart

The police tell her that her daughter Elspeth is dead. That she drowned when the car Maggie had been driving plunged into the river. Maggie remembers nothing.

When Maggie begs to see her husband Sean, the police tell her that he has disappeared. He was last seen on the day of her daughter’s funeral.

What really happened that day at the river?
Where is Maggie’s husband?
And why can’t she shake the suspicion that somewhere, somehow, her daughter is still alive?

 

An excellent novel! This is the second novel I read by Nuala Ellwood, the first being the absolutely amazing My Sister’s Bones. It’s so tricky to write a great sequel after such a debut but she pulled it off with great ease it seems, I wanted to keep on reading. The prologue alone is enough to draw you in, it opens with Maggie (Margaret) in court taking the stand and she’s determined to make things right now…

The story then cuts back to Maggie waking up in the hospital and being told her daughter is dead. She locked her car condemning her daughter to die! How could she? It doesn’t make sense because the love for her little girl is spilling from the pages. Her husband disappears quite literally out of the picture and she is left on her own devices – without a home even – with nothing but the tiniest snippets of flashbacks.

The mystery was really well developed and Maggie was a very likeable character. Is she reliable though? I felt sorry for her and rooted for her to find some answers. There are fragments of her memory that come to her and help piece together what happened on that day but there are also letters written by a little girl who misses her mother enormously and pleads for her mother to take her home. The emotional letters tugged at my heart but did not make it easier to work out what happened. They only created more doubt and confusion actually because enthralled as I was by them, it remained a mystery who the author was. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions but if it wasn’t Elspeth, then who would it be? Maggie is convinced her daughter is alive and there are a few strange events that could be a sign she just could be right…

The Day of the Accident had a tantalising plot with great twists and turns making it even unpredictable for me to figure out where to search for answers or know who held them. It was difficult to know who to trust, Ellwood kept me guessing throughout and it all built up to a devastating finale.

The story ends in court the way it begun, making it a full circle. Knowing the story though, you’ll look at it with a whole new set of eyes. Brilliant conclusion.

Even though My Sister’s Bones is still my number one novel, I thoroughly enjoyed The Day of The Accident and I look forward to her next novel already!

I received a free copy of this novel from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

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