Molly lives a quiet, contained life in London. Naturally risk averse, she gains comfort from security and structure. Every day the same.
Her identical twin Katie is her exact opposite: gregarious and spontaneous. They used to be inseparable, until Katie moved to New York a year ago. Molly still speaks to her daily without fail.
But when Molly learns that Katie has died suddenly in New York, she is thrown into unfamiliar territory. Katie is part of her DNA. As terrifying as it is, she must go there and find out what happened. As she tracks her twin's last movements, cracks begin to emerge. Nothing is what it seems. And a web of deceit is closing around her.
I'd like to thank Jenny at Hodder & Stoughton for my proof copy of First Born and for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour.
As the blurb says First Born features identical twins Molly and Katie Raven who although they might look identical in every way, the same cannot be said about their personalities. Molly's whole world as she knows it is turned upside down when she receives a phone call from her parents who have been in New York visiting KT, as Molly calls her, to say that she has been murdered.
Molly is so risk adverse that the thought of travelling solo halfway across the world terrifies her but she knows that she has to put her fears aside if she wants to support her parents and find out what happened to KT. We get a real insight into Molly's mindset and the way she constantly assesses her environment and potential risks and can see what a solitary and very insular life she has been living. Whereas as we soon discover, KT was the adventurous twin who lived life to the full and had no end of admirers but could any of them have a motive for killing her?
The narrative is told from Molly's viewpoint as we follow her attempts to retrace her sister's steps to try and find a motive behind her death. The more we learn, the more we realise that Molly is an unreliable narrator and her judgement seems to be a little skewed. The new Molly is still very much risk adverse, so she looks for means to protect herself at any cost and has a go bag stashed should she ever need it, and it would appear she has good reason to be wary. I have to admit I found myself shaking my head so many times wondering what on earth she was doing, her actions seemed so out of character for her and put her in some terrifying situations.
I loved the setting of New York and it really was the perfect city for this story, the vibrant city that never sleeps which makes it the perfect place for KT to have lived but the most terrifying of cities to visit as seen through Molly's eyes.
It's hard to go into any more details about what is uncovered without spoiling it for other readers but it's fair to say that you're constantly on edge. There's a real sense of danger that could appear at any moment and you're never sure who you can trust as we encounter many unsavoury characters during Molly's investigation. The first half of the story is slower in pace as details are explored but the second half definitely ramped up the tension as the plot thickened and everything I thought I knew flew out the window.
First Born is an atmospheric and brilliantly plotted story and one that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.
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