No
one Will Know, by Rose Carlyle.
Rose Carlyle writes thrilling thrillers. Every ingredient required for success –
suspense, horror, characters-who-aren’t-what-they-seem, and an indomitable
protagonist who survives an ending with the final twist on the last page is
present by the bucket-load. (Can you
tell how much I enjoyed this book? It’s
not often that I try to read something in a single sitting, and I didn’t
succeed, but two days is pretty good.)
Eve Sylvester hasn’t had a good start in life, but lately
she believes she is being rewarded with some happiness at last: crewing on an ocean-going yacht with a man
she eventually loves, exploring wonderful destinations, and a marriage proposal
from Xander who has arranged for her to meet his parents when they dock in
Sydney: what could possibly go wrong?
Naturally, everything.
On the way to the fateful family lunch, Xander is killed
in a freak car accident and Eve is injured, but finds that she is pregnant. As well as being rejected as a fortune-hunter
by Xander’s family, she is stunned with grief but is determined to manage
somehow: she will be mother to Xander’s
child if it is the last thing she does – they will both survive, but how?
The seemingly miraculous answer comes in the shape of an
offer by a very rich couple who seem to know her circumstances better than she
does: wife Julia cannot have
children. To inherit a very old family
property in Rumania she must bear a child:
if Eve could spend her pregnancy on their remote property off coastal
Tasmania, after the secret birth she could be the child’s Nanny, never having
to leave its side. A win-win for
everyone – what could possibly go wrong?
Except everything.
For a start, Eve notices too much about her surroundings,
which are sumptuous but so remote that she would never be able to leave without
the couple’s permission should she change her mind; there are unexplained arrivals of various big
boats at the island’s marina where mysterious deliveries and collections are
made. And the staff closest to Julia and
her husband Chris are very hostile and protective. Eve is trapped in a rich little cocoon: what will happen to her after the birth? Nothing
good, she’s certain!
Ms Carlyle has proven that she’s no One Hit Wonder – she
carried me along on a wave of ‘will she won’t she’ that nearly drove me mad
enough to read the ending before I’d got there;
fortunately, I didn’t succumb to my baser instincts and lasted the
distance, giving myself a well-deserved pat on the back for being strong. Well done, me! FIVE STARS.
