Release Date: April 30th 2020
Publisher: Orion Books
Pages: 382
Find it on: Goodreads. BookDepository. Waterstones.
Source: The publisher kindly sent a copy of this book to review
Rating: 4.25/5 stars

Synopsis

No matter how far you run, some secrets will always catch up with you…

The remote Antarctic island of South Georgia is about to send off its last boat of the summer – which signifies safety to resident glaciologist Felicity Lloyd.

Felicity lives in fear – fear that her ex-husband Freddie will find her, even out here. She took a job on this isolated island to hide from him, but now that he’s out of prison, having served a term for murder, she knows he won’t give up until he finds her.

But a doctor delving into the background of Felicity and Freddie’s relationship, back in Cambridge, learns that Felicity has been on the edge for a long time. Heading to South Georgia himself to try and get to her first is the only way he can think of to help her.

Review

This is my first time reading a book by Sharon Bolton and I can absolutely say it won’t be the last. This fast paced psychological thriller is a complex tale full of twists and turns with an ending I absolutely didn’t see coming. The Split follows scientist Felicity Lloyd who has taken a job in the remote Antarctic to escape the horrors of her past. She fears that even South Georgia isn’t remote enough to escape her ex-husband Freddie who has recently been released from prison. But Felicity has gaps in her memory and as a doctor begins to unravel the truth of her past, he heads out to Georgia in an attempt to help her.

The Split is a really quick paced book and I couldn’t put this one down. It was so compelling and the short chapters had me turning pages late into the night. It follows two timelines – when Felicity lived in Oxford and the events leading up to her leaving for the Antarctic as well as current day as she feels someone had followed her to South Georgia. I was fascinated by both timelines and couldn’t wait to see how everything connected up. The story if full of twists and turns and pretty much every guess I made was wrong – I love getting to the end of a story and haven’t a completely surprised ending and that’s exactly what happened with The Split.

Felicity is a fascinating protagonist – she’s an unreliable narrator and I was never really sure if what she was seeing was true. Overall I liked Felicity and felt quite sympathetic towards her given she had all these moments of memory loss and no idea what was wrong. I similarly liked Dr Grant who was also an interesting character that I really liked. One of the things I liked most was the setting of South Georgia in the story. The harsh remote landscape really comes to life and combined with the sense of doom that Felicity feels knowing someone might step off one of the ships to look for her really came through in the story. It was an addictive read and one I didn’t want to end.

If you’re looking for a compelling thriller to keep you hooked over the winter this is absolutely a must read. I enjoyed every minute of this and I cannot wait to read more from Sharon J Bolton.