How much soap opera can you stand? Reveal....shock, horror! Then another reveal....shock, horror! Just a few too many leaps beyond the suspension of belief for me. Hated the males in this- too dependent and needy for my taste- and really didn't connect with any of the females either. ( )

This is a story about families, secrets and betrayal. Rosie is the main protagonist who, at 17, discovers that her mother isn't really her mother when she takes a test for Huntington's Disease after watching her mother slowly deteriorate and finally pass away. Rosie's quest to find the truth leads to some devastating revelations. In part one, at the end of each chapter, there is a mysterious narrator. When this narrator is revealed in part two, I found her story more interesting than Rosie's. Unfortunately, this book has so many twists and turns that the plot loses credibility and starts to feel so contrived that it lost me. ( )

Such a roller-coaster of emotions. It was really good. ( )

I received this book from NetGallery to read and review.

Katie Dale did an amazing job with this book, it is well written and her writing brings out true emotions for all the characters in this story. To me this is a sign of a great author.

So it begins with Rosie who's mother Trudies dies from Huntington's disease, reading Rosie struggles and her loses so she could take care of her mother, the affects of this disease on Rosies' life is heart wrenching.

Then Rosie finds out through her mom's best friend that Trudie was not her birth mother and that she was switch at birth. As Rosie embarks on her search to find her birth mother she finds more then she bargained for.

The story seems very real at times and you can imagine how this would affect other people lives and feelings. Then there were times when I was really disappointed in Rosie's actions and the decisions she made. It was like she forgot to think of how this would effects others and not in a good way. So not sure if it was the authors intent or not but at these points the story didn't feel as real as I first thought.

Even though there were a times when I was disappointed with the story I didn't put the book down. If anything I thing one of the main reasons a person should read this book is for the awareness of Huntington's disease.

I think Katie Dale did a great job shedding some light on the disease which I actually have never really heard of or just didn't pay attention to. There is no cure and it must be heart breaking on the families who have to watch their loved ones with this disease.


( )

I don’t remember how I first heard about Katie Dale’s debut novel, but I’ve been looking forward to reading it for ages. The synopsis really spoke to me, this idea of swapped babies and big family secrets sounded like it’d make for a really interesting read.

The plot worked so well for me, it mixed a pretty hard reality with a bit of romance, a little humour and some wonderful travel. I loved the variety of settings, at times the book really made me yearn to jump on a plane. There are lots of twists in the plot, it could very easily have slipped into feeling very contrived in places but I think Katie managed to avoid this quite nicely. Emotions run high within the book, at times I felt like I was actually going on this journey with the characters.

I knew a fair bit about Huntington’s Disease before starting the book, so I was really interested to see how it would work within the plot. I thought that it was used really well, enough information was given about it so that anyone who didn’t know anything about it would get a good idea of the disease and its effects but there was no irritating info-dump or the feeling of a public service announcement.

I thought that Rosie was a really interesting character. She’s been through so much and that’s clearly shaped the person that she is. I found Holly to be an equally interesting character, she also was driven so much by her emotions and the situation she is thrust into. I found at times it was hard to agree with the actions of both girls, but I could completely understand why they did the things they did. I loved Andy, I liked the way he wasn’t some perfect knight in shining armour but a flawed young man too.

I found that I couldn’t read this book fast enough, I got completely caught up in the story and couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen next. I loved the way that so many times the characters had to make really difficult decisions and I found myself wondering what I would have done in the same situation. The way the plot is full of these moral dilemmas means that you’re thinking about it even after you’ve read the final page, always the sign of a good book.

This is a great debut, I’m definitely going to be picking up Katie’s next book. ( )