Book Synopsis:
EVERYBODY THINKS THEY KNOW MINA McCREERY.
EVERYONE HAS A THEORY ON WHAT HAPPENED TO HER SISTER.
NOW IT’S TIME TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH…
Mina McCreery’s sister Evelyn disappeared nineteen years ago. Her life has been defined by the intense public interest in the case. Now an anxious and reclusive adult, she lives alone on her family’s destocked sheep farm.
When Lane, a private investigator, approaches her with an offer to reinvestigate the case, she rejects him. The attention has had nothing but negative consequences for her and her family, and never brought them closer to an answer.
Lane wins her trust when his unconventional methods show promise, but he has his own motivations for wanting to solve the case, and his obsession with the answer will ultimately risk both their lives.
Superbly written, taut and compassionate, Wake looks at what can happen when people’s private tragedies become public property, and the ripples of trauma that follow violent crimes. Wake won the CWA Debut Dagger in 2019.
My Review:
Wake is a gripping, atmospheric read that’s hard to believe is a debut novel.
I’m a huge fan of books set in Australia so this book instantly appealed to me. The author does a great job of setting the scene with her vivid descriptions making it easy to visualise life in the Australian Outback. I felt like I could feel the heat of it sometimes which helped add to the tension and atmosphere in the book. This is especially true when it came to the descriptions of the vastness of the outback and how lonely it can be there. It made me feel even more suspicious about Evie’s disappearance as there didn’t seem to be many suspects or opportunities for someone to take Evie which made me very intrigued.
Mina and Lane were vey interesting main characters who I enjoyed getting to know throughout the book. I didn’t particularly warm to either of them when I first met them as they both seem highly suspicious and unlikeable. It was interesting getting to know a bit more about their back story and their complex past. Mina always seemed to know more about what happened then she let on and Lane seemed obsessed with trying to solve things which I sparked my curiousity.
Overall I loved this book and would easily rate it as one of my books of the year. The gradual reveal was tantalisingly good and I loved hearing everyone’s different opinions on what happened which helped keep me guessing until the end.
Huge thanks to Steven Cooper from Hodder books for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Shelley Burr is the winner of the CWA Debut Dagger award with Wake, an alumni of the ACT Writer’s Centre Hardcopy program (2018) and a Varuna fellow. When not writing she works at the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. She lives in Canberra, but grew up splitting her time between Newcastle and Glenrowan, where her father’s family are all sheep farmers. WAKE is Shelley’s first novel.
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