Book Review – Lasting Damage, Sophie Hannah


Book Cover - Lasting Damage, Sophie Hannah

Book Review – Lasting Damage, Sophie Hannah

Title: Lasting Damage

Author: Sophie Hannah

Copyright Sophie Hannah 2011

Ebook

Blurb extract: She finds herself looking at a scene from a nightmare: in the living room, in the middle of the carpet, there’s a woman lying face down in a huge pool of blood.

Plot: This story is well told, a page turner definitely. It deals with a dysfunctional relationship. A classic storyline and mystery of a woman, is she going mad, is she already insane or, is it a set up. 

I’m guessing the publisher is aiming it at a female audience due to the white ‘chic lit’ looking cover. To be honest I nearly didn’t pick it up for that reason. However it’s not a chic lit read, it’s a murder mystery although not a strongly masculine one. No guns and car chases, although I think there was a fast car drive throughout one scene.

Characters: There are a few characters I didn’t get clear in my mind. It felt like a sequel, numerous characters had unexplained history. A couple of characters were in there for no apparent reason, unless their involvement is to link to other stories in a series. I thought they should be left out, or explained as I didn’t feel any connection to them. In short I didn’t care about these side characters at all.

Conclusion:  It’s a good fiction story, with an unusual slant on the ‘is she going mad’ theme. I can understand why 1 million copies sold. The last two chapters repeated the telling of the story so I sped read the last one, bit of a shame I felt the need to. I knew the ending but for some reason the author felt the need to explain it twice to two different characters, not sure why. (I’ve since seen this story is in a series of 10 books, I’m not sure why this isn’t shown on the cover though)

Recommended: I did feel as if I had missed a previous book, however this one still falls onto my list of recommended books, probably a ‘holiday’ read

You may also like:

https://www.christieadamswriter.com/book-review-a-boy-of-good-breeding-miriam-toews/

https://www.christieadamswriter.com/how-to-organise-your-bookshelf/

Culver Valley Series

Handy Shopping Links (If you use these, I earn a small commission. You are enabling me to continue writing, and keep this website and content free to you, thank you!)

Amazon

Waterstones

If you’d like my posts to your email directly please sign up for the newsletter.