Book Review: The Ice Twins

I was really excited to be sent a copy of The Ice Twins by Mumsnet for review, not least because it came with a cute little bag containing a tealight candle, a Kit Kat and a camomile tea bag!

The Moorcrofts were a happy, middle class couple with beautiful, happy, identical twin girls – until one of them died in a freak accident. At this point, everything goes a bit off the rails for them and they decide the best way to resolve all their problems is to move to a remote Scottish island. Their surviving daughter seems to be displaying traits of her dead sister, even telling her mother she’s calling her by the wrong name. Creepy, to say the least.

Early on in the book, the mother explains that the twins were completely identical, with no distinguishing characteristics – and that for minozygotic twins, they are closer genetically to each other than any other siblings, their parents or their own offspring – a very close bond. When her surviving daughter starts to act like her dead sister, Sarah questions whether perhaps there was a terrible case of mistaken identity when her daughter died. Perhaps they’ve boxed up the wrong twin’s things.

The fact it’s set on a remote Scottish island, in a house that’s all but derelict, makes this story even more eerie. And then Sarah’s husband Angus has to leave the island for work, and it all gets a lot more eerie.

Throughout the book there are photos of the landscape of the island. To start with, you look at them and think “wow, what a beautiful place…” but as the book draws on the same images make you think “I’d hate to be stuck there…”

I know the blurb on the back of a book often says this, but this book really is hard to put down. I ended up having a fair few late nights, thinking “I’ll just read this one chapter…”

This is one of those books where you’re not really sure what it’s about, or where it’s going, until you turn the last page. It’s fraught with tension, almost from the very first page.

Note: I was provided with a copy of this book for the purposes of review, but all words and opinions are my own.

Thanks for reading.

You can read my other book reviews here!