MY SISTER by Michelle Adams

My name is Irini. I was given away. 
My name is Elle. I was kept. 

 All her life Irini thought she was given away because her family didn't want her. What if the truth is something worse? 

Two sisters. Two separate lives. One family bound by a harrowing secret. 

I'm a sucker for an intriguing psychological thriller, so of course I wanted to read this. Especially since that cover is so freaky.

Irini lives in London with her boyfriend. She's a doctor, currently working as an anaesthetist in a hospital. Her life isn't exactly comfortable or happy or good, but she survives. When her estranged sister--the one she's managed to avoid for six years--calls out of the blue to tell her their mother has died, she can't resist her. And just like it has every other time Elle has tracked her down, Irini's life is thrown into turmoil.

Elle is older, pretty, demanding and unstable. She's the one her parents kept. And has come in and out of Irini's life for years, always bringing along a mix of excitement, belonging and violence.

Irini isn't going to Scotland so she can pay her final respects to a mother she hardly knew, she's going because she wants to finally get answers to the questions that have always haunted her: why was she sent off to live with her aunt and uncle when she was three? And why didn't her parents want her?

Soon after arriving at the family home to find a detached father and staff obviously keeping secrets, she settles back into the toxic relationship she's always had with her sister. What she didn't expect was to stumble on explanations that run deeper than she ever imagined...

Yikes. This story is all kinds of messed up. It was seriously screwed up.

These two sisters are so toxic together that I found myself constantly cringing, and hoping that Irini would just forget about the past and leave that suffocating old house. But of course, she doesn't. She can't.

Pretty much every character in this book is somehow damaged. From the parents willing to do the unthinkable to protect their child, to the townfolk passing silent judgement, to the boyfriend so determined to break down the emotional walls between them, and even the man she meets via Elle. But the most damaged of all are the Harringford sisters.

Irini, with her constant need to find out the truth and always putting herself down about her disability. Elle, with her despicable cruelty masking something much darker. These two were awful together, and just as bad apart. I despised every bit of page time spent with Elle because she was so cruel and horrible. Her words cut deep into her sister, but she didn't seem to care. Also, although Irini was interesting, she still managed to get on my nerves a lot. Her passiveness is too much. She takes shit from just about everyone and shuts herself off from anyone trying to get close. While I totally understood why, it drove me crazy how she gave up so easily.

Actually, the story did get a bit frustrating in some sections because it takes quite a while for everything to be revealed. Plus, it's sometimes hard to watch how easily Irini lets her sister lead her down a dark and hurtful path. Still, it's a good book because no matter what, it kept me glued to the page.

My Sister is a tense and very disturbing psychological thriller that keeps the reader interested until the truth starts becoming clearer, and there's no denying what's going on. Although some of the twist does become obvious early on, it's still worth discovering everything else at the same time as Irini, because there are several unexpected surprises.

Yep. This is definitely a creepy story.

My Sister, April 2017, ISBN 9781472236586, Headline