The Stranger She Knew

The Stranger She Knew
by Rosalind Stopps

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review .
This was a wonderfully written book. I found it to be hard to put down. What a tense, breathtaking book.

I was taken aback at first. This book has a style all its own. In fact, it's written like nothing else I've ever read, so it took a bit of getting used to. But it wasn't long before I was totally sucked in. May, the main character, is in a care facility after having a stroke that left her mostly paralyzed and unable to talk. It's unique to get her point of view. Then the story switches to her past, years ago while she was pregnant with her daughter who is now in her forties. Her story, in both timelines, tumbles slowly but surely into darkness and mystery. The ending was a shock.

This book was told from the viewpoint of the protagonist, May, after she suffered a stroke and was sent to a nursing home because she was unable to communicate or care for herself.
The novel goes between the present and May's memories of earlier times when she was young.
May is married to Alain, pregnant with their daughter, and living in shared housing. Alain promises that they are moving, because he was offered a new job with the Welsh Film Board as a translator. May never knew Alain spoke Welsh, doesn't know why it never came up.
Alain tells May that the job fell through but was there ever really a job? Alain is very secretive and particular, May tries her hardest to be what he wants, who he wants. Soon, the insults start, the mental cruelty, the physical abuse, Jenny has no one to turn to nowhere to go, and she can't fight back.
May finds a friend in town, Helen, who is single and pregnant. Helen sees the marks on May's arms, hears what May isn't willing to say. As time passes and their friendship grows, Helen pushes May to let her help, to have May come and stay with her and her baby.
Helen and her baby end up dead, was it Alain? The abuse intensifies and the tension and anxiety for the reader intensifies too.
While May is recuperating she notices a new resident named Bill across the hall from her.
Bill is very private, but he keeps looking in at May when the staff isn't watching. Bill looks familiar, has mannerisms that May finds familiar but her brain is so fuzzy. Why is this new resident so interested in May? Why does he seem so menacing? It couldn't be Alain, because Alain is dead, because May killed him, or did she?
I gave this book 4 stars, because of the subject matter and the protagonist. I found it hard to read about the mental and physical anguish that May endured, and also found myself disliking May's inability to leave an abusive relationship even after multiple offers of help.
I know these situations go on daily, but it's hard to find pleasure in reading about them.
The book was exceptionally well written, the characters were very well developed and I felt like I was right there in the book too. Mental illness, drug abuse, physical and mental abuse are difficult topics, but the book was very good.

This is a thrilling read. May is the kind of character you want to hug. The villain is as scary as they get. The story jumps back in forth in time but easy to follow. I was flooded with a mix of emotions and questions. It kept me holding my Kindle tightly!

Set in two time frames, this is about a choice not to speak up. May is living in a care home, unable to speak after a stroke but there's something she needs very much to say. In the past, she opted not to talk and that caused ripples across time. Did she do it? Not telling. This is,. I have to say, a bit confusing in spots but it's the twists that keep you reading. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

How terrifying, you know something is wrong but you cannot speak! That is what happens to May in The Stranger She Knew by Rosalind Stopps. It was very uncomfortable to read about someone’s fears and they cannot communicate by just talking about them. This book was what I call a slow burn, it reveals everything slowly and doesn’t have the rapid twists and turns that thrillers typically have.

If you don’t mind a book that unfolds in all due time and contains past/present chapters then you should give this one a whirl.

SYNOPSIS

As a young woman, May found that sometimes it was easier to say nothing and cope with what life threw at her in silence. Now, decades later, May has suffered a stroke and has lost her ability to speak. She is still as sharp as ever, but only her daughter and a new friend from the care home, see this.

When May discovers that someone very familiar, from long ago, is living in the room opposite hers she is haunted by scenes from her earlier life. May is determined to protect everyone from this new threat, but how can she warn them without her voice? And who really is this man charming everyone in May’s life?

This one will be out on June 7!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of The Stranger She Knew by Rosalind Stopps. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thanks to NetGalley and Harper 360 for this ARC.

Wow. The Stranger She Knew was a wild ride of a read. I won't go into much detail because I want to not spoil the twists for those reading it. I will say that even while I guessed a few of the twists, the way they unfolded was very satisfying. The whole book kept me in suspense until the very end. I give this book 4/5 stars.

Thank you to Harper 360 and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Stranger She Knew by Rosalind Stopps is an unputdownable thriller with a very distressing story. The story revolves around May, who lived in a picture-perfect marriage with her young daughter and lovely husband - at least on the outside. Now, May is a patient in a care home. She's had a stroke and can't communicate anything to her family. Little does she know that someone from her past is closer than she thinks.

Here is a chilling excerpt from Chapter 1, which takes place in Lewisham in 2017:

"I could hear the words in my head but they wouldn't come out.
I'm fine, I wanted to say, you can leave me here, I'll be OK. It was the blood, that was all, could smell blood, and I've always hated that. I wanted to explain to them. It makes me feel funny, but not funny ha ha, I would have said but they've got no sense of humour, young people. I didn't like the way the man was looking at me. I'm not just a stupid old woman, I tried to say. I may not have been speaking very clearly but there was no need for him to look at me like that. I tried to tell him, don't look at me like that, young man. I wanted to say it in quite a stern way but my mouth was doing that thing again of not working properly, as though I was drunk or I'd had something nasty done at the dentist. All that came out was a slur of s's and some spit. I noticed he didn't like the spit much, ambulance man or no ambulance man, he didn't like that at all. I'd say he flinched, leaned back a bit, but he couldn't go far because he was kneeling next to me on the floor."

Overall, The Stranger She Knew is a highly-distressing thriller that you won't be able to put down. Honestly, at first, the alternating timelines between the past and the present were weird, but I got used to it 1/3 of the way through. That's when the action picks up, and then it became unputdownable. I sped through the rest of the book. If you typically check out trigger warnings, definitely check out the trigger warnings for this book. Also, I still had some questions at the end. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of thrillers in general, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in June!

I recently went on this long rant about how much I love dual time zones when narrated properly within a book. The Stranger She Knew, has dual time lines down to a science and this book right here will have people talking for a long time.

Here is my only gripe....

I would not classify The Stranger She Knew as a thriller. I still thoroughly enjoyed this book but I feel as though when something is labeled "a thriller" I am kept in anticipation as to some big twist that will come and when it doesn't, I fell as though I become slightly disappointed. A genre needs to be accurate just so the reader knows what is to be anticipated. Again, this did not ruin the book at all and I enjoyed it very much.

Rosalind Stopps, is a true storyteller and I have become a huge fan. My attention was captivated early on and the ending left me completely satisfied. The Stranger She Knew, is a book I will definitely be recommending and I can not wait to see what this author comes out with next.

May, an elderly woman of indeterminate age, lived independently but she wakes up in a nursing home, unable to speak or to control her limbs. Her thoughts turn to a conspiracy. She's not really this old woman, but a younger person in the guise of an old woman. She's a good person, yet her irascible behavior with the aides (carers) makes her less popular. Still she receives good care in the home she calls (in her mind) "the gravy boat" for its unending smell of gravy. Eventually, she makes a friend or two and her daughter Jenny visits. Essentially, her brain/thoughts function but her communication is almost nonexistent and until she can write, further in her recovery, few people understand her efforts at speech. So this is a novel about May and how she came to be so suspicious of a certain kind of man, including Bill across the hall.

It is a novel taking place in 1977 and 2017. About May, Alaine and Jenny, a family that could not survive intact due to Alaine's violent and unpredictable character. About May and Helen, her only friend, who shared their pregnancy time and a closeness that May never forgets. About May and Jackie, a friend in the nursing hime who is falling in love with Bill. What it means to be at various stages of illnesses late in life, mental and physical. What serious trauma can do to a person's mind, particularly a person who is virtually locked in, unable to communicate in nuanced ways.

It is a novel of elderly May and adult Jenny and a parent's regrets and the regeneration of a relationship. Of the ways our brains can be lovely in their memories or pernicious and about how we see others, judge ourselves or act on our deepest fears. This novel is not for those who want a lot of action in every book, because it takes place in only a few rooms, a few train rides and one brain. I liked the complexity of May, who is very, very well written in both her young and old womanhood. I like May, despite and in part because of her faults. I like her politics at the beginning of the feminist movement, her independence and understanding about why she stays with Alaine and in the end our understanding of what happened to her that makes her the complex, stronger, angry person she is today.

The premise of The Stranger She Knew touches on one of my biggest fears - being trapped in your own body/mind unabkd to communicate or have control of what's happening around you.

You should read this if you enjoyed: The Silent Patient

Stopps summarizes The Stanger She Knew "As a young woman, May found that sometimes it was easier to say nothing and cope with what life threw at her in silence. Now, decades later, May has suffered a stroke and has lost her ability to speak. She is still as sharp as ever, but only her daughter and a new friend from the care home, see this.


When May discovers that someone very familiar, from long ago, is living in the room opposite hers she is haunted by scenes from her earlier life. May is determined to protect everyone from this new threat, but how can she warn them without her voice? And who really is this man charming everyone in May’s life?"


4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️