The Book:
The Half Sister by Sandie Jones, 2020
The Characters:
Rose and Harry
Their daughters Kate and Lauren
Jess, who claims to be Harry’s daughter
The Plot (from Goodreads):
Sisters Kate and Lauren meet for Sunday lunch every week without fail, especially after the loss of their father. But a knock at the door is about to change everything. A young woman by the name of Jess holds a note with the results of a DNA test, claiming to be their half-sister. As the fallout starts, it’s clear that they are all hiding secrets, and perhaps this family isn’t as perfect as it appears.
The Twist:
Jess was indeed Kate and Lauren’s dad’s child. Jess knew who her mom was all along as well and that she had been murdered, she was just trying to find the murderer. She had gone to Kate’s newspaper to try to get them to help investigate, but Kate refused. The police weren’t interested either, so she needed to try a different angle.
Harry wanted to leave Rose and the girls for Jess’s mom. Rose told the three girls that Harry fought with Jess’s mom on the night they were supposed to leave, and she fell and hit her head. Harry called Rose in a panic and asked her to take baby Jess. Rose left the baby at a church.
The Ending:
The book ends with Rose’s trial, which determines that Rose killed Jess’s mom because her DNA was found under her fingernails and no one else was present.
The Review:
In the age of 23 & Me and Ancestry DNA, there seems to be a handful of books popping up about long lost siblings appearing and ruining someone’s formerly content life. I like the concept, but foresee it quickly becoming overdone. I’ve loved Sandie Jones’s previous two books, but this one unfortunately was my least favorite so far.
This one was more of a family drama, with a couple of unsurprising twists. Just because there’s murder doesn’t make this book a thriller–there was no creepy aspect to it and no suspense. Murder mystery, maybe, but even the murderer was unsurprising.
The characters were well done, though. I liked Lauren and Kate, Kate especially.
The Half Sister wasn’t bad at all, but I had high standards for Sandie Jones after her first two books. It was enjoyable enough, just not nearly as much as her previous novels. It was a light, quick, and enjoyable mystery.
Check out my reviews of Sandie Jones’s other books:
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