Book Review: In The Wake by Helen Trevorrow

The weather is dark and cold. There is nothing better to do than curl up with a duvet and a good book. Make that book this debut spine-chilling thriller.

Goodreads Review

In The Wake by Helen Trevorrow

When a body is found floating in London’s Royal Albert Dock, successful public relations expert Kay Christie is sent to quiet the media, but things get complicated when it emerges that she knew the victim.

As events spiral out of control, Kay discovers that those close to her may be harbouring another secret – the story of a missing girl. Can Kay discover the truth before her life unravels and she risks losing everything?

In The Wake questions whether we can ever truly leave our pasts behind and explores the lengths that we will go to protect the people that we love.

Review

In The Wake is just more than a thrilling read; it is a wonderful piece of feminist literature. It’s sad to admit that this is the first book I read with a female lesbian read. Every day I realise just how much the book world is lacking diversity and it pains me. Some may argue why should I even bother pointing this out? If this were an equal world I wouldn’t but we very much still have to highlight diverse books.

However, beyond Kay, many strong female characters make In The Wake the wonderful book it is. I can’t go into too much detail here without giving away significant parts of the plot but keep a close eye on the female characters in this book. Note how they are all different people living under various circumstances but there is one thing that unites them, their strength.

You know what? In The Wake even goes beyond feminism in terms of great themes. It also looks deeply into family trauma and how occurrences during the childhood can have a major impact on somebody later in life (much the same theme as Anxious Anna). Not that family trauma during adulthood doesn’t have a negative impact; this book shows that it most certainly does. If that wasn’t enough in terms of themes In The Wake offers, alcoholism also rears its ugly head. I found it interesting to see the different levels of alcoholism scattered across various characters which drove home one very important point: alcoholism is not a “one size fits all” kind of thing. Some people can hide it, some others can’t. Some people make terrible mistakes because of it while some other, well, read the book to find out what they do because of it.

In The Wake is a totally amazing book that should be applauded by the book-loving community. Show Helen Trevorrow that love by picking up a copy of In The Wake today.

I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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