I Know Who You Are: A Novel

As always, Alice Feeney’s writing is phenomenal!! Here’s my issue- this book came with SEVERAL pages out of order and a few typos. I am an avid reader (averaging 3-5 books per month) and is the very first time I have experienced this issue so beware as you are sinking into this griping book!

Alice Feeney's debut novel, Sometimes I Lie has been an enormous commercial success and soon the audience will have the chance to watch a television adaptation starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. I Know Who You Are is a psychological thriller very close to the spirit of the author's first work and I'm almost certain that it will too be adapted into feature film or TV series as it contains all the ingredients that make a gripping thriller. There is mystery, intrigue, plenty of mind-blowing twists that turn the story upside down and a fascinating protagonist who is deeply troubled and carrying a heavy burden of secrets from her past. Feeney employs the double timeline narrative to better convey the story to the reader and the jumping back and forth in time throughout the book is handled expertly adding to a quick pace and further enhancing the element of suspense. Moreover, there are several unexpected developments in the plot, especially during the second part in the novel, while the final revelation is so shocking that leaves the reader in awe. The author is expert in weaving complex stories that involve morally dubious main characters who are drawn into nightmarish scenarios that require them to use all of their courage and cunning in order to survive.Aimee, the main narrator, is an actress and a rising star in the film industry, even though various aspects of her job seem to be a strain for her. For Aimee, pretending is a way of life as well as a means of escape from the real her who is buried under a series of lies and purposeful misinformation as she seems to believe that this is only way to live happily. Aimee's world will be overturned when one day she returns home to find her husband, Ben, missing with all his personal possessions still in the residence. Soon the case becomes a police matter and when the first detectives appear in Aimee's front step, she realizes that something truly sinister is going on and that she is set up for taking the blame for her husband disappearance or even murder. At the same time, the protagonist has to plow through an everyday existence that is filled with anxiety, so she soon begins to feel paranoid and suspects her closest circle of acquaintances. Furthermore, Aimee is convinced that Ben's vanishing must be somehow linked with the stalker who used to follow her a couple of years earlier and sent her messages writing "I Know Who You Are". Those letters deeply shook Aimee as it was evident that whoever the stalker was, they possessed information for her that could prove fatal for her career and personal life.In the past timeline we move backwards twenty years and we witness the events that marked Aimee's early childhood. Being raised by a violent patriarch in Ireland, the 5-year-old girl flees her house only to be kidnapped by a corrupt couple, John and Maggie, who imprison little Aimee and force her to become the substitute of their dead daughter. The main focus is on the relationship between Maggie, the woman who abducts Aimee and the little girl who gradually becomes accustomed to her new household as she has no other choice. Maggie wants to raise Aimee in a way which will help her deal with all the hardships of the world and sometimes she becomes even violent if that's what is required. John and Maggie run a bookmaking business and they often encounter problems with rival criminal rings who attempt to rob them more than once. As Aimee is growing older she is taught how to deal with similar situations and she even learns how to shoot a firearm just in case something bad happens in the shop. I will not write anything more concerning the plot as it would spoil a spine-tingling reading experience, filled with spectacular twists and turns.This is first book by Alice Feeney that I've read and I decided to give it a try after reading many rave reviews around the web. There is a lot of hype surrounding I Know Who You Are and deservedly so as it is the perfect psychological thriller to entertain yourself during the summer months. I have to admit that I didn't see the final twist coming and I was also fascinated by the main character's double narration that outlines an unlikable individual who, nevertheless, becomes identifiable to the reader as the story unravels and we learn more about Aimee's personal history that made her the way she is today. There is not a single redundant page in this novel as the author sets up his story from the very first pages and is careful enough to mention what is strictly necessary for the reader to keep turning the pages without making any hints at the forthcoming crucial revelations. This makes the twists feel like they come out of the blue, further enhancing the excitement and thrill. If you are a fan of intricate psychological thrillers that keep you on the edge of your seat, then this is the most fitting choice for you to add to your TBR list. It is also excellent for the fans of writers such as Harlan Coben, Liz Nugent, and Lisa Unger.

I really liked this book and would read the author again. The ending could have been better.

I’m a big fan of Alice Feeney’s books and this one did not disappoint. There is an extremely disturbing twist that will leave you completely dumbfounded!

The world still seems enamored with of the Gone Girl explosion, I admit, I am part of that world, I love dark twists. Suddenly and continually, everyone is writing twisty-turny thrillers with unreliable narrators and hateful characters. And here we are. Maybe I read to try to recapture the exhilaration I felt after I turned that page in Gone Girl. Sigh.And here I am two books into my Alice Feeney adventure. I read *Sometimes I Lie* a while back and while I found it enjoyable, there were many questions still floating around in my head that I had to google what other people thought. I don't know if that is a good thing.This brings me to *I Know Who You Are*. It was a little tough out of the gate. Aimee presented like an A-hole from the beginning (shocker - unlikeable character - check). But, as the book went on, she shed that persona. It almost seems like the author forgot until the very end.I did enjoy the flipping back and forth between mysterious timelines, Aimee as an adult and as a child (dual narratives- also check for those of you keeping track of the GG MO). If anything, Feeney is great at building suspense. You do really wrack your brain to figure out what the twist could be (you know one is coming). It's almost deceiving.But...When the twist finally comes, it is so far out of left-field that it makes no sense and feels completely unearned. There is a huge difference between a shocking twist that has been hiding in the depths of the novel, leaving you breadcrumbs along the way, and just dumping a twist so ostentatious right in your lap with no link to anything else that has gone on in the story and finishing it off with random never-to-be-explained mysteries.And this is not nearly as disturbing as I was expecting given the hullabaloo on Goodreads.Anyway, if you are a quick reader, it's fairly entertaining, just don't expect the twist to be satisfying. It's not.

This novel delightfully suspenseful from beginning to end! I couldn't put it down once I started reading. Alice Trendy is one of my favorite authors!

It was a good book, It did lose me in a few places as it felt like it was jumping around a bit. It did have twist and turns but I had to keep questioning if I remembered things correctly. It was hard for me to stay with this book for some reason.

Having read Alice Feeney's initial book, 'Sometimes I Lie', and thought that it was a pretty decent first offering, I proceeded with the second; what a let down! The book is the equivalent of a second rate 'B movie' and I don't think I have ever come across so many distracting metaphors, the book drowns in them! Do look out for an awful 're-working' of the Oscar Wilde quote 'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars'.The writing is inconsistent, it is good in places but overall quite clunky, the build up is long, the ending is ridiculous and overworked; it's a pastiche of many familiar movie endings. There is a fairly obvious and clumsy clue to the identity of the 'bad guy' well before the end.A book is an investment in time and to be 'rewarded' with such a poor ending is very disappointing; to include a metaphor, this author's stock has definitely fallen!I do think that this author may have potential, but in my view this book does not showcase her talents.Conclusion - don't waste your time or money.Note to the author - pare it down, sometimes less is more.

How did this get good reviews? From the way it was written to the unbelievably silly plot it is really bad. It is billed as a page turner with a twist, sadly not. Badly written with unbelievable characters. The whole story line is lacking in any kind of authenticity The end is ridiculous.

Mid-list actress and thirty-six-year-old, Aimee Sinclair, returns to her Notting Hill home to discover her journalist husband of two years, Ben Bailey, nowhere to be found and his mobile, wallet and car keys lying on the living room table following a brutal argument the previous night. As drama queen Aimee makes clear in the opening paragraphs, “lying is what I do for a living” and she is best at “becoming someone else”, marking her out as yet another unreliable narrator. Added to that she also drinks and was wrongly diagnosed with transient amnesia as a child, a fact that is still on her medical history. When the police immediately suspect Aimee after she initially fails to disclose the previous nights bust up, she tells of the stalker who has been plaguing her life and delivering menacing missives, each inscribed with the chilling words, ‘I Know Who You Are’. Could her stalker be behind Ben’s disappearance? When Aimee and supercilious investigator, DI Alex Croft, discover the withdrawal of the sizeable balance of the couples joint account it makes Aimee realise that the truth is far more complex and has the potential to wreak havoc in her life. Is Aimee being gaslighted and framed by her controlling husband who never wanted her to act, or is there a third party behind the scenes plotting the actresses downfall?Whilst Aimee continues to film her latest screen effort, entitled ‘Sometimes I Kill’ with hunky co-star, Jack Anderson, amid sniping actresses, a global agent and over zealous journalists alike, her own investigative efforts plod along and fail to really engage or build much momentum. For the most part her narrative feels heavily padded and meanders along without making any serious inroads until significantly further into the story making it feel rather insubstantial. Needless to say, I failed to connect with Aimee or have much sympathy for her self-obsessed and overwrought narrative. As she lays out her anxieties and makes clear the masks she wears to hide her real self from the world, the readers initial sympathy quickly wanes and it is the compelling and moving parallel narrative, charting the life of five-year-old Clara, born to an impoverished family in Galway in 1997 that kept me reading.Distraught following her father’s insistence that her mothers death in childbirth is Clara’s fault she runs away and falls prey to an unstable and pretty sinister woman called Maggie, who transplants her to life in Essex as a ready-made replacement for the daughter her and bookmaker, John Sinclair, lost. Coming to terms with her new domestic situation, Ciara’s plight is shown in flashbacks through the eyes of a child, making clear her harrowing ordeal at the mercy of two undesirable individuals. There is never any secret made of that fact that kidnapped Ciara went on to become Aimee and how is came about see’s Alice Feeney take readers on a wild ride!The story broaches some pretty grim topics and contains a number of potential topics that some readers will find unpalatable, however, Aimee’s present day narrative is heavy on the melodrama and make the novel all too far-fetched and incredible to ever really take it all too seriously! Likewise the denouement is utterly impossible to swallow and proves a real bum note to a mildly entertaining story. It is the past narrative and the back story of Aimee as young Ciara that impresses and part of the reason why Alice Feeney’s sensationalist thriller feels so uneven is the difference in calibre of the writing and well crafted characters in the two individual narratives. Whilst there is twist upon twist which all ratchets up the tension ahead of an explosive finale and the pace accelerates, I had guessed the final reveal well ahead of time and when it came to be it was so glaring unbelievable that I had to laugh!Dark and very twisted with a questionable conclusion, but the hollow present day narrative devalues the entire novel. Although objectively the storyline should be a masterclass in keeping the reader guessing and tying up every loose end, it failed to convince me.

I enjoyed Alice Feeney's first book, 'Sometimes I Lie' massively, so I was thrilled to get to read an advance copy of this book, via the Pigeonhole, with installments delivered to me every day for the past 10 days.The first 70% of the book absolutely lived up to expectations, with the author's fast, pacey storytelling drawing you in to a very dark story indeed. The heartbreaking circumstances around young Aimee growing up were riveting. Without spoiling anything for future readers there was some truly gruesome stuff in there.Unfortunately, as the book drew to a close I was finding it harder to believe what was happening, with some characters more like a parody than real people eg the detective and the journalist. It spoiled my enjoyment of the book a little as it seemed a perfect storm of too many characters with something against the main protagonist, with events unfolding in a way that I could not quite get behind.That said, if you are a fan of the genre of thrillers with unusual twist, I'm sure you will enjoy it. It's probably a great easy holiday read - had I had the book in it's entirety I would probably have finished this in a day (and therefore been a bit less judgemental) as the author writes so well. All in all, it was always going to be so hard to top 'Sometimes I lie' - she almost did it (but not quite for me).

I wasn’t sure in the first few chapters if this was going to be for me, it didn’t flow that well and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get through the sections each day. That was Monday lunch time, by Monday evening I had read 2 days’ worth of sections and had to leave the book in another room, so I wouldn’t read any further!Tuesday came along, and by 11:45pm that night I had read the whole book. I needed to know what happened next!The book follows Aimee across 2 timelines, her childhood and the traumas she has endured, and also as a semi famous actress whose husband has disappeared. There are so many twists and turns in this book and you are constantly second guessing everyone, I didn’t even trust Aimee. Despite this, it was a very easy book to follow and you would get to the end of a chapter and there would be another snippet revealed! Less than 48 hours later and erm I’ve finished the book!My only criticism is the absolutely mental/bizarre plot twist ending. In fact it was so off the wall I had to re-read the reveal as I wasn’t sure I had read it correctly. So it loses .5 star for that.Fast paced, hideous characters, squirmy moments, and shout at the book “no don’t go in there you fool!” times.