His & Hers – Alice Feeney

There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying.

When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect in his own murder investigation. Someone isn’t telling the truth, and some secrets are worth killing to keep.

Review

Absolutely first thoughts: I can’t. Why.

I don’t understand why this is titled the way it is. Title has nothing to do with the actual plot; it only makes sense because the chapters are told from both male and female POVs.

After my very unsuccessful history with Alice Feeney, this was a just fine read—nothing groundbreaking as everyone makes this book out to be. I’m still glad I read it and didn’t let my past disappointments get the best of me. I guessed the killer literally on my first try; still, nice red herrings, to be fair. But as always, there were some plot holes and, are you for real? moments, but the author can do worse.

“Loose threads should always be dealt with.” Yeah, for sure. Totally. So why do you deal with them nicely only to undo and mess them up.

I will never, ever understand why authors INSIST on getting last gotcha moments at the very end of books, completely destroying all their hard, good work.

Actual rating would be 2, but I did like the majority of the book; it just makes me mad when endings mess up the whole book for no reason other than the author wanting to be “clever.”.

Goddamn Alice Feeney, I just can’t win with you at all… After everything was nicely wrapped up, sigh.

Click for spoilers!

Cat Jones (the colleague Anna was filling in for) was Catherine, a fellow classmate of Anna’s who was bullied intensely by Rachel and was gang raped on Anna’s sixteenth birthday. Cat is married to Richard, Anna’s cameraman and affair lover.

In the final scenes, Anna assumes that Cat is the killer acting in revenge, but then changes her mind and gaslights herself to believe she was actually the killer but forgot all of it. However, in the very end, it is revealed that the real culprit is Anna’s mum.

The mother was faking her dementia. After learning what had happened on Anna’s birthday, Anna’s mother prepared to kill the victims. She intended to blame Jack for Rachel’s murder since she hated him for “taking away” Anna from her. In addition, she admits (to the reader) that she killed Anna’s father and buried him in the backyard.

The ending is open but it indicates that Priya suspects the truth and the mum plans to get rid of her as well.