Identical twins can be a mystery and an enigma to many people. Are they telepathic between themselves? Do they like to be dressed alike or do they strive for originality? Do they cleave to each other or move heaven and earth to be unique?
Isolte and Viola, the twins in this story, have an usual childhood. Their mother is a free spirit living in a rundown cottage in the woods; their father unknown. The girls play together, whisper together and, yes, often feel each others feelings. In childhood they are also mildly prescient.
They meet, and become friends with, another pair of identical twins, this time boys from a dysfunctional, local, family. Together the quartet run wild and, as adolescence beckons, Viola and John become closer.
But this isn't Enid Blyton and things begin to change when Isolte and Viola's mother, Rose, meets a widower who has a young daughter, Poppy. The twins resent these intruders, especially when Rose insists that they allow Poppy to join their games. During this final summer of innocence, the 4 older children do all they can to discourage Poppy from following them until, quite unintentionally, they lose her. In the aftermath, Rose's new romance falls apart and tragedy follows tragedy.
Years later, Isolte is a fashion designer for a London based magazine but Viola is chronically ill, haunted by the past. In desperation, Isolte revisits their childhood haunts to try to resolve buried traumas. Can she succeed and, in the process, free both herself and her twin from shadows of the past?
This book illustrates how few of us leave our childhoods behind when we grown up, whether for good or ill. Childhood might be innocent, but it can carry the seeds of destruction. Blending joy and tragedy, light and a darkness of the soul, this book is a wonderful debut for this new writer.
Recommended
"The Twins" is published by Hachette, an imprint of Little, Brown, ISBN 978 0 7499 5869 5
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