Limerick, Ireland: Oscar Harvey finds the body of a woman in a car boot, beaten and bloody. But let’s start at the beginning…

Kate and Mannix O’Brien live in a lovely Limerick house they can barely afford. Their autistic son is bullied at school and their daughter Izzy wishes she could protect him. When Kate spots a gorgeous New York flat on a home-exchange website, she decides her family needs a holiday.

Hazel and Oscar Harvey, and their two children, live on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Though they seem successful, Hazel has mysterious bruises and Oscar is hiding something.

Hazel is keen to revisit her native Limerick, and the house swap offers a perfect chance to soothe both troubled marriages.

But this will be anything but a perfect break. And the body is just the beginning.

My thanks to Heloise at EDPR for my review copy

Twisted River opens with a punch – a car is standing in the driveway beside a house. A woman’s body is being bundled into the boot of a car when two children appear asking their father where their mother has gone…

Brilliant opening and it made me want to keep reading but Siobhan MacDonald gets nasty at this point and jumps us back in time to spend some time outlining the events that led up to that shocking opening.

Twisted River tells the story of two families. One from Ireland, the other from the US. The reader is introduced to the two households and we learn that all is not well on either side of the pond.  The mothers of the house, Kate and Hazel, each feel that a change of scene will do their respective families the world of good. With Hazel keen to return to her native Ireland and Kate desperate to allow her son the chance to see New York City, the two families agree a house swap.

But Kate and Hazel will soon learn that leaving your problems at your doorstep isn’t as easy as they would hope – particularly when crossing someone else’s doorstep means you inherit some of their problems too.

I found Twisted River to be a pretty enjoyable read. As a speed reader, with multiple books on the go at any one time, I did struggle initially keeping up with which character belonged in which family.  That is more a reflection on me than on the author (I am terrible with names) but it did mean that I had to back track a couple of times to place the scene.  As I got deeper into the plot this minor inconvenience faded and I enjoyed where the story was going.

Dysfunctional families throw up some interesting dynamics and the author managed to capture and convey the sibling rivalry and domestic grief well.  I also thought the scenes where both families arrived at their new ‘homes’ were very well constructed and I actually felt the enjoyment and wonder that the two families were experiencing as they explored their new environments.

This is Siobhan MacDonald’s debut novel and I would definitely be inclined to pick up more books by this author. The characters were well realised, the story was well paced and kept me guessing. By the time we were back at the boot scene I can confess I was totally wrong about what I thought would have occurred to lead us up to that point.

Definitely a book which is worth your consideration.

Twisted River is published by Canelo and you can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Twisted-River-unmissable-psychological-thriller-ebook/dp/B01DUPBA3W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465256131&sr=8-1&keywords=twisted+river