Judas Scar by Amanda Jennings – Book review

I hate reading books that make me think. I like to switch off, usually preferring ‘chick lit’ and crime novels, where there is a conclusion, no matter how ridiculous. But this book made me think, it made me want to know more, it’s left me thinking about Will and Harmony’s future and can’t help but think it won’t be a happy one.

I read Sworn Secrets, Amanda’s 1^st novel and you can read the review here.

Judas Scar revisits the past, raking up memories of boarding school that Will thought and hoped he had left firmly behind him. Combined with problems in his marriage, the apparent accidental, meeting with Luke, his old school friend, to his wife Harmony which appears to cause an irreparable rift in his marriage.

Will never dealt with his past, his child hood, his relationship with his Father, what he witnessed at boarding school and it has damaged his present and his future. Believing he can live a normal life without realizing how the past has shaped his present.

Cover ups, lies and deception weave through the plot with each character justifying the decisions they made, both in the past and in the present, leading to a death, an arrest, a cover up to prevent fraud coming to light and a reconciliation that left me wanting to know more, pondering how Will and Harmony’s marriage and future could possibly survive the decisions they have made.

Sworn Secrets by Amanda Jennings – Book Review

I’m an avid reader of all genres; I tend to read chick lit, a biography, a crime story then back to the chick lit. I have no preference to author or style and my only criteria as to whether I think I will enjoy a book is the ease of the opening paragraph and the font size.

I realise now that I’ve probably put a ‘good’ book down without getting past the first page as if I find I’m not in love with the book by then I don’t tend to read any further.

Sworn Secrets, I’m afraid was a difficult book to read for the first 3 chapters and I am glad I persisted as it is probably one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

The story tells of a family dealing with the sudden and accidental death of their 15-year-old daughter, how they cope individually to come to terms with their loss, as a Mother, a Father and a surviving sibling. The Mother’s anguish of feeling disloyal if she laughs with her surviving daughter, the Father who feels that not only did he lose his daughter but that his wife is slipping away from him also. As a son he is also dealing with his parent’s ill health and his Fathers dementia, a fall out between his wife and Mother and the reappearance of his wayward brother.

As the year leading to the anniversary of their daughters death closes in, they discover things about her, who she was and the life she led, that as parents they don’t want to have to knowledge of, but it is all brought out in the public eye and accumulates in yet another death. The younger sibling is on a road of discovery herself, losing her virginity and seeking to establish her own identity and not that of the ‘dead girls’ sister.

A wonderful and honest story of how a family pull together to deal with the difficult subject of the death of a child, heart breaking and teary, this book is one not to be put down and Amanda makes you feel as if you know each and every character, identifying with the difficulties they face in coming together as a family.