Book Review: "Between the Waves" by Hilary Tailor

At the moment, I have focused my thriller reading on the works of Hilary Tailor. I have unfortunately finished the bibliography of John Marrs, I'm working my way through Mark Edwards and I believe I have completed Lucinda Berry - I am giving others a bit of a break. Hilary Tailor writes a strange sub-genre of thriller which often involves islands and folkish settings. In her book These Dark Places she unearths secrets about a man after he has died through his widow. In the book Between the Waves, we have a missing child at the centre and three women who must rediscover what they have lost whilst trying to work out where exactly Hazel went on that fateful day 20 years' ago and whether she is alive or dead.

Rosalind Richardson (Roz) is mourning the loss of her younger sister which happened 20 years in the past. One day, whilst she and her friends were staying on an island with their families, Hazel disappeared never to be seen again. It is said that she fell from a cliff and got washed out to sea and yet, there have been no sightings of a body and nobody was a witness to what happened. She receives a phone call that day from a podcaster named Stella who wishes to do an episode after apparently uncovering new information that she conveniently cannot share, about the disappearance of Hazel. With her marriage in pieces and her relationship with her daughter strained, Roz reluctantly agrees after lots of hesitation and back and forth on the grounds that her two best friends (of the past) have agreed too - Catrin and Nina.

Catrin is an artist and seems like a free spirit but her family's business is broken by the past accusations that her father had something to do with the disappearance of Hazel so many years' ago. When she returns to the farm, her brother James is clear about the fact that not all is going very well and yet, Catrin is still upset that she was left out of the property rights in favour of her brother - which she considers an outdated and patriarchal concept. She's initially not sure whether she wants to return to the place where everyone last saw Hazel but she needs to clear her father's name. Her father though is aloof about it - stating that he thinks that Catrin initially believed what the press had to say about him. To prove him wrong, she must find him peace.

Nina is a television personality. She's beautiful and well-spoken yet, she is horrifically broken by the fact that Hazel disappeared all those years' ago. With a mother who moved her out of the grasp of the other two families the moment it happened and shifted her away to London, Sylvia also tells Nina her father is dead despite having no evidence to prove it. As Nina starts to uncover things about the whole situation, she learns more about who she is as well and unfortunately she doesn't really like what she finds down there.

Our author has done wonders with this shifting narrative. It goes from past to present, from character to character and we get to see every individual and all of their flaws. I love the fact that each of the women has a different reason to returning to the place where they all last saw Hazel in a way to clear names, to learn about new paths and to tell the truth. Things are being uncovered yes, but the writer does a great job at lending us symbolic secrets throughout the course of the narrative. For example: there's a huge symbol of journaling and writing that you probably want to pay attention to and then there's all that folklore about the island that I felt was very important in the way the characters understood what was happening. I found this book almost impossible to put down and I'm so glad I continued with this author's work. If you want a thriller that feels like a dark and pounding drum, which changes pace but sets out an eerie tone and that turns itself inside out then perhaps this one is for you.