The Perfect Girl by Gilly Macmillan

Today it is my stop on The Perfect Girl blog tour and I will be sharing my review of this slow burning, gripping book. Check out the other blogs taking part on the tour.

To everyone who knows her now, Zoe Maisey - child genius, musical sensation - is perfect. Yet several years ago Zoe caused the death of three teenagers. She served her time, and now she's free.

Her story begins with her giving the performance of her life.

By midnight, her mother is dead.

One of my top 10 books in 2015 was Burnt Paper Sky so I have been eagerly awaiting the release of The Perfect Girl.

Zoe Maisey has paid for her involvement in the tragic event that left 3 teenagers dead. Several years later Zoe has created a new life and is focusing on her piano playing but when she performs one evening in The Holy Trinity Church she would never expect the events that unfold that evening and by midnight her mother is dead.

The storyline is told in the form of short sharp chapters each told from various characters points of views which if I am honest I wasn’t too sure of at the beginning but as the storyline began to build so did the suspicion as we are told through all the characters voices of the events of the evening and although I had a good idea as to who was involved having this multiple point of views did help to keep me guessing. Having the book structured this way I did find the characters were all really well developed and had their own individuality and although Zoe stood out to me each of the other characters all played a key part in the storyline so it is very clever how the author has managed to write from 8 peoples points of views and still all were really well developed.

The main storyline is trying to uncover who killed Zoe’s mother but we have various storylines weaving around this because each of the characters are flawed so we discover not only what happened in Zoe’s past but also secrets that the other characters such as Lucas and Tessa are hiding too.

Although the chapters were short the storyline did flow at a slow pace as we gradually uncover what occurred on the evening of the performance but yet I wasn’t on the edge of my seat eager to get onto the next chapter like I was in the authors previous novel, so although I enjoyed this book it didn’t knock Burnt Paper Sky off of the top spot for me but that is a hard book to beat as that book was totally thrilling and captivating so was a hard book to follow but never the less The Perfect Girl is still a cleverly written read.

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Burnt Paper Sky by Gilly Macmillan

Rachel Jenner turned her back for a moment.
Now her eight-year-old son Ben is missing. 
But what really happened that fateful afternoon?
Caught between her personal tragedy and a public who have turned against her, there is nobody left who Rachel can trust. But can the nation trust Rachel?
The clock is ticking to find Ben alive. 
WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?

I love finding little debut gems and that is what I have found whilst reading Burnt Paper Sky by Gilly Macmillan. Every mother’s worst nightmare is their child going missing and so the author has brought a subject to the storyline that will make that awful feeling in the bit of your stomach feel all to real when we follow the story of Rachel Jenner who let her son have a small piece of independence allowing him to run ahead to the swing and in those few crucial minutes when he was out of sight both her and son Ben’s world was ripped apart.

Rachel was such a well formed and remarkable character, every emotion that she went through could be felt with ease through the pages, guilt, worry, desperation and anger and yet whilst trying to deal this heartbreaking situation she is also having to face the utter disbelief that people would assume she would do this to her son because surely no one could have it in them to harm their own son could they?

There are a vast amount of characters in this book and yet each of them were developed extremely well and were easily recognisable without having to have time to get to know who was who which can often be a problem in books like this with so many key characters. The book alternates between Rachel’s point of view and Jim’s point of view who was the DI dealing with the case, this worked perfectly in this book as it gave the reader a view from both sides from the highly emotive and exhausting side and how the family cope whilst the investigation takes place and also from the side of the police where with little evidence and no witnesses they have to try and build a picture and try and fit pieces together to try and solve the case. I love the addition of the chapters with Dr Manelli and also the glimpse of the comments on the blog which all help to form a wider picture of the case.

I loved how unpredictable this book was, the suspense literally had me on edge the whole way through and I was completely shocked when all was revealed as I wasn’t even close to working out who was involved.

If you are looking for a highly charged and action packed book that is fast paced and so captivating that it is literally impossible to put this down as you constantly just have to read one more chapter that soon leads to the next and the next then this book will not disappoint.

This was an utterly breathtaking debut that is flawless throughout and has such a realistic ending that really pulls at the heartstrings. I am excited to see what this author has to offer next.

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