Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A slow-burning, psychological thriller with a ton of mind games that will warp your sense of what’s true and who to trust! From a technical standpoint, this book is pretty much flawless. The dual narration is perfectly executed, flowing seamlessly between the protagonist, Cass, and the psychiatrist who is working the case, Abby. Cass is a textbook unreliable narrator and I enjoyed the building mystery of what happened to her all those years before, and where Emma is now. As readers, we know we can’t exactly trust her, but we don’t quite have enough information to not know what (or who) else we can trust.
As with her previous books, I found the narration from Cass’s POV a little dragging at times, as a lot of it is in Cass’s head, but the characters are so well developed and the mystery so intriguing I still couldn’t put the book down. My favorite chapters were from Abby’s POV. I found her likeable and relatable, and it really ramped up the suspense to see her perspective as she tries to find out the real truth behind Cass’s story.
With very powerful themes of family, sisters and the dangers of narcissistic mothers, this is a complicated family mystery you won’t soon forget.
