What You Never Knew

What You Never Knew is a story about long-held secrets, family drama and tragedy. Its beautiful setting (a 100-year-old abandoned island cottage) gave the story a vivid atmospheric feel and had a strong nostalgic vibe for this reader. 

Hamilton's description of the sights and smells of an old cottage gave a wonderful dramatic feel to her story and took me right back to my own family's island cottage on Lake Nippissing when I was growing up - except ours hadn't been abandoned for 30 years and didn't have a mysterious past. Phew!

This book has good bones - setting, darker themes and red herrings - but I think it could be stronger in a few areas. The story lags a bit and despite the strong theme of grief, I felt the reader is kept at arm's length emotionally. I wanted more connection with the sisters - particularly more from May's wonderful ghostly perspective - but most of the story focuses on June who was a little too off-putting for me. We're told of the sisters' bond (and another romantic connection), but from the reader's POV, they go from tweens to adults without the reader being given enough background to understand their connection as adults.

This was an impressive debut and while I figured out the culprit, I liked that Hamilton used a unique way to tell her story and I think she has some formidable writing chops. I look forward to reading more from Jessica Hamilton in the future.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Crooked Lane Books for my advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. 

My Rating: 3.5 stars

Author: Jessica Hamilton

Genre: Suspense, Canadian

Type and Source: eBook from publisher via NetGalley

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

First Published: April 13, 2021

Opening Lines: One hour before I died, I was sitting in a 

stuffy lawyer's office dealing with the probate 

details of my mother's will.

Book Description from GoodReads: Told in alternating points of view between the living and the dead, Jessica Hamilton's debut novel will be perfect for fans of THE LOVELY BONES.

Idyllic Avril lsland, owned by the Bennett family, where their hundred-year-old cottage sat nestled in acres of forest. Forty-year-old June Bennett believed that the island had been sold after the summer of her father's disappearance when she was only twelve years old. It's months after the shocking death of her older sister May in a fatal car accident, that June finds out that the cottage was never sold. Avril Island is still owned by the Bennett family and now it's hers.

Still reeling from the grief of losing her sister, June travels back to Avril lsland in search of answers. As she digs, she learns that the townspeople believe her father may have, in fact, been murdered rather than abandoning his family in the dead of night, as she was led to believe by her mother. And that's when she begins to notice strange things happening on the island--missing family possessions showing up on her bed, doors open when she had locked them closed. It takes June no time at all to realize that her childhood summers at Avril Island were not at all what they had seemed to be.