Hey there, Curious One! I realized that I have been doing a lot of YA and Fantasy talks recently, so I decided to do a mystery/suspense Curiosity! A few weeks ago, I ran into this book while browsing on Amazon it surprisingly sparked my inner curiosity. I typically go for longer reads that take a few days or a week to get done, but this one wasn’t too bad. Written by NC Marshall, See You Soon is categorized as a gripping psychological thriller. The question I have for you is…did it grip you?
A Change Will Do You Good
See You Soon is based in England, which was a nice turn of events for me. Sometimes I stray from reading crime or suspense novels not based in the United States because the terminology is just enough different that even though I know what they are referring to, it does happen to take me out of the moment. Fantasy or other categories I am generally better with, but for some reason, sitting on my couch terrified is easier for me to handle when I don’t have to leave the world I’m immersing in to wait for my brain to catch up with me.
Saying that, See You Soon didn’t give me that hesitation or break from the immersion; it was pretty good. I say “pretty good” because I was a little bored with the style of writing. I would give the author another chance, for sure, but I kept shifting positions, noticing my outside surroundings instead of ‘biting my nails’ while I wait for the twists and turns to present themselves. It was also really short. Taking me about 3 hours total to read (including water and distraction breaks) so maybe more like 2-2.5 hours of actual reading time.
Does the See You Soon Protagonist Act Logical?
From the start you get pretty wrapped up in Emily’s past, asking yourself why she is hiding from commitment and love. My mind immediately went from sexual assault to an abusive relationship. As you know, those are typically the most prominent cases in crime novels; so her abusive ex didn’t shock me. I did like how it wasn’t revealed till later on that the cause of her relationship phobia was due to an abusive and cheating ex. It gave you room to guess a little about what could have happened to her. Especially since she was hiding the existence of her child to everyone in her life except her immediate family.
Emily was drawn to her home town of Sandbroke because of an email from an old friend asking her for help. After what seemed like a little over a week, she finally contacted the police in Sandbroke to ask about Ali (the friend) since she hadn’t heard back from her. She travels down there to talk to the detectives in charge of the missing person’s case. Over the span of a week, Emily gets more emails, letters and witnesses small changes around her, making her feel like she is going insane.
This is a problem that I had. Realistically, the average person, when dealing with a missing person’s case, will give forth all information that arises. Yet, Emily proceeds to hide literally everything that is happening to her in regards to Ali’s disappearance. She tells her sister, who is in Scotland, but she doesn’t tell the detectives a single thing. Not until they find Ali, who left for a few weeks to visit and old friend.
I just… I mean… it was just hard for me to accept I suppose. Here we have a super cautious, introverted, stressed out young woman who is being mentally harassed and she doesn’t notice it? Maybe the first time or two, disregarding the circumstances could be acceptable, but I’m sorry, it just is not realistic to me at all. Especially after she got clipped by the car! I mean, why would that not just make you confess everything right there, even if you viewed it as a coincidental threat to your current actions. She was going to the police station to tell them everything, got clipped by a car, viewed it as a sign, and decided against telling the detectives anything.
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See You Soon‘s Plot Thickens
I can understand how it would make you fearful, but if I faced the life threatening moment of being purposefully run over, I wouldn’t care if it would make me more of a target. I’m sorry, but after you become a target, you are a target. And if the police believed you, then they would be more capable of helping you monitor the situation. I’m just saying…. Especially after she gets back to her hotel room to find various things not where she left them and a distinct smell in the air.
I don’t know about you, but if that happened to me, I would have dropped everything after realizing that things weren’t right and booked it to the police station. Especially after her ex and her current situation! Yet, that is not what she did…
She only went to the police station in the first place because she had read the diary of Ali and recognized a charm she mentioned in the jacket of the chief detective who let her borrow it one night. She rushes to the station to confront the detective about why he didn’t tell her he had a relationship with Ali when he wasn’t there. Only after all that did she tell the other detective on the case about what she had been seeing and experiencing.
Anyways, Emily finally tells the police what has happened to her and after getting her statement(s) of the events, she finally leaves for home; heading back to her daughter. During her train ride, she gets a message from an unknown number with an image attachment of a photograph of her daughter. She calls and calls and calls but no one answers so she finally gets connected to the detective and after an “oh, by the way, I had a daughter with my crazy ex and I think he has found her” conversation, he calls the police there and updates them on the situation.
A Twist!
Turns out, her ex is in jail, so it’s not him; her friend Ali (who I will admit I suspected for a chapter or two) was now at the station in Sandbroke, so it’s not her; and Tom, the charming man from her past who was pushed off his balcony is in the hospital, so it’s not him either.
Turns out, it was the woman in charge of the hotel she was at! Did you see that one coming, Curious One? I honestly didn’t, even after looking back a bit to see if there were any obvious clues that I missed. Other than the access to her room the one time she entered it, I couldn’t find anything. It was a blessed twist to me! Especially since she had a child with Emily’s ex and that the ex was in jail serving the sentence he was dealt for driving drunk with her in the car. He survived the crash, but their daughter didn’t, which is what caused the whole thing to transpire.
Rose (the owner of the hotel) became friends with Ali (who she knew was friends with Emily back in the day) because she wanted to lure Emily (who her ex never truly got over) to Sandbroke so that she could see her. I hope you followed that thought process Curious One! Rose faked the disappearance of Ali, knowing she would be gone for a few weeks and befriended to get access to her house in order to lure Emily back to town. You aren’t told what Rose’s original plan was, in regards to Emily, because while she was moving stuff in the hotel room, she found the picture of Lucy (Emily and her ex’s daughter). That picture is what prompted Rose to change course and find Lucy.
Turns out, Lucy knew who Rose was! She had done research and found out whom her father was; what he had done and that Rose was the mother of her half-sister. Rose pulled a gun on Lucy and ended up shooting herself.
Final Thoughts on See You Soon
For me, personally, it was a loose ending. With probably 10 minutes left in the book, all the action went down and the twists and turns were all revealed and sealed nicely in little envelopes. I realize that the book was short in general, but I would have liked to have a bit more before the epilogue sealed it shut.
I would give this author another shot with another book, but I will probably be safe to conclude that I enjoyed this book, but would not read it again. Maybe the writing style is what cinched it for me; being too slow and causing some slight boredom or maybe it was the shortness of the book in general. I can’t say for certain, but I hope you liked reading it. It had some beautiful points and lessons to be learned and would be a great book for someone just branching out into the suspense or psychological thriller genre.
Keep on reading, Curious One, and if you haven’t looked at See You Soon by NC Marshall, give it a shot. Who knows? Maybe it will be a perfect quick read before falling asleep or while waiting for a friend to be done in an appointment. Give it a shot and let me know what you think! I don’t know about you, but…
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