Publisher: Penguin
Release date: 21 February 2019
Back cover blurb: 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?
The Day of the Accident is the first Nuala Ellwood book I’ve read, and it certainly won’t be the last. There is an underlying uneasiness to this novel that for me made it what it is, and I’m not sure I’d have enjoyed it as much without it.
Margaret (Maggie) wakes up after a long period in a coma to find out that her daughter is dead and her husband has left her. Even those of the most stable mind would undoubtedly struggle if presented with this information, but Maggie has also suffered before from mental health issues.
After much pleading, Maggie learns from the hospital staff caring for her, that her daughter Elspeth died after the car Maggie had been driving plunged into the river. She remembers nothing of this, though her scarred hands and nail beds suggest that she tried very hard to save her daughter.
So why then are the police asking questions that Maggie doesn’t know the answer to and why do they seem to be regarding her with suspicion when she tells them that she is unable to remember anything? Do they know something she doesn’t.
Day Of the Accident is at times an unsettling read, with some quite unsavoury characters. But that for me only made it more intriguing, and I had to second guess where it was going on a number of occasions.
I don’t want to say too much more for fear of giving anything away, so you must discover this one for yourself.
Day Of the Accident is at times an unsettling read, with some quite unsavoury characters. But that for me only made it more intriguing, and I had to second guess where it was going on a number of occasions.
I don’t want to say too much more for fear of giving anything away, so you must discover this one for yourself.
Day of the Accicent is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.
Thank You to the publishers who approved my request in exchange for an honest review.