I was quite keen to read this after Watson’s previous amnesia-themed thriller ‘Before I Go To Sleep’ kept me entertained in both print and film format.
It was certainly a readable romp as I managed it in a single day, after the school trip I was on went slightly awry and I found myself having to follow the rest of the group with one very late and largely mute child.
The plot, however, with all its twists and turns, ends up in such an implausibly preposterous cul-de-sac you end up resenting the time you’ve invested. Julia, the first person narrator, never quite elucidates your sympathy enough to understand her affair with a psycho stalker with strange sexual predilections and you end up feeling like an uncomfortable voyeur of some less than erotic bedroom scenes.
Ok when faced with hours to kill but prepare, like a bad affair, to be ultimately disappointed.
The Year of the Dragon 