The Accident

by C.L. Taylor

[Leah]

When I heard that Cally Taylor had written a psychological thriller, I was quite intrigued! Most will, of course, know her for her Chick Lit novels Heaven Can Wait and Home For Christmas. For me, Heaven Can Wait is one of the best Chick Lit novels I’ve ever read, and it’s quite disappointing in one respect that Cally has switched genres – as Heaven Can Wait was a fantastic, original concept and very much put Cally on my must-read map. But her genre switch must also be appluaded – not many authors can do that, I’m sure a lot of authors try, but I’m sure not many get it published and Cally has achieved that feat! Psychological thrillers are clearly 2014′s genre of choice, with many being published since the success of Gone Girl, and I was very intrigued to read The Accident by Cally Taylor, aka C.L. Taylor, and I actually found myself racing through it.

If you’ve read a lot of psychological thrillers, The Accident probably seems like many others, but I’m new to the genre, dipping my toes in and seeing what works and what doesn’t and so far I’ve been pretty impressed with my selections (particularly this novel right here and Paula Daly’s second novel Keep Your Friends Close) I’m sure if I start to read too many I will overdose and get fed up, but I found The Accident to be very fast-paced and very gripping. Surprisingly so. I was very surprised to be racing through the novel at such a speed! I started it at about 9.30am and had finished by 2pm. It’s a super clever novel, or at least I thought it was, not only focusing on the present, but zipping us back in time to the 1990s and we get to see Sue’s diary entries from that time, as her relationship with James becomes increasingly more controlling and difficult. I’ll be honest, I saw right from the first diary entry that James was quite clearly not all there, that he was too intense, too all consuming. And considering Sue was around my age when she met him, it’s a wonder she wasn’t surprised by just how intense he was. I was terrified of him from the beginning, because I could sense even without knowing that he was just too over the top.

In the present day we learn Sue’s daughter Charlotte is in a coma, after walking out in front of a bus, apparently on purpose, according to the driver, not that Sue’s husband Brian believes that, but Sue is convinced. And she’s convinced there’s a reason her daughter has yet to wake up. Even more so after reading her daughter’s diary, and she sets out to find out the truth, despite Brian’s lack of faith in her and his increasing worry she’s about to have another ‘episode’. It’s a bit obvious from the start of the novel, too, that Sue probably isn’t the most sane person in the world, and there are frequent references to her health and an ‘episode’ in 2006. We learn bits of it here and there, and it’s clear that what happened to Sue in the 90s still deeply affects her to this day – and rightly so. The diary entries we get to see were difficult to swallow, so I could understand Sue’s mental state being a bit more heightened than anyone else’s, but I felt that as a mother, she somehow just knew there was more to Charlotte’s accident than her simply having an accident. It takes us on a roller-coaster of a goose chase, as Sue chases down leads, and chats to all of Charlotte’s friends, Ella and Luke, and the mysterious Dan and Keisha. I was really into the plot, as interested as Sue was to find out what happened to Charlotte!

The ending was ridiculous – in a good way! It all culminated in exactly what I expected it to and I finished the novel with my heart beating fast. It was a great ending, but it was also disappointing: first, because it had ended and because I wasn’t really ready to say goodbye yet, and secondly, because well I actually can’t say, because then it’ll give up a spoiler. There was a very good second reason, and people who have already read the book may agree with me as to why the ending was rather abrupt because there was just one lingering question that I wanted the answer to and we didn’t get it, unfortunately. But the rest of the novel? It was great, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sue gets a lot thrown at her during the book – perhaps, in hindsight it’s a bit TOO much for one person to discover everything she does and there’s tons of obstacles in the way. Cally (she will always be Cally, not C.L. to me!) Taylor’s an excellent writer and has made the genre switch super easy. I was gripped from beginning to end, and I was so disappointed when it was all over, I can’t wait for Cally’s next book, because this one was insanely good!