Twins sisters, Tilda and Callie Farrow are as different as day and night. One is a budding actress with aspirations of grandeur and the other works in a local bookshop (my dream job!) and is fiercely protective of her sister. When Tilda meets Felix, Callie is wary of him from the get-go. She reads into everything he does and says to the point where she accuses him of abusing Tilda. As the reader, you just don’t know whose side to take in this bizarre love-hate triangle. Who’s controlling who? Who’s the victim here? Who – if any – is genuine and are they telling the truth??

“After that, I decide not to swallow teeth in public, instead I do it in the bathroom with the door locked.”

The story is told from Callie’s point of view and you therefore get to know her better than the others. She is very strange (all the characters in this book seem to be either flawed or just odd!) and I was equally repulsed and fascinated by her. Due to her obsession with Felix and what he may or may not be doing to her twin, she is drawn into the world of cyber chat rooms about abusive relationships and controlling men. In this world, she develops a friendship with Belle, who is one of my favourite characters and seems to be the most genuine out of all of them.

This book is creepy and disturbing. I like books that start with the ending and work backwards from there (you know within the first few paragraphs that Felix is dead.) I wasn’t disappointed by the ending and I seemed to get there pretty quickly as it’s certainly a page-turner! I just had to keep reading ‘just another chapter’ to get to the bottom of the mystery to find out who was doing what to who. If you like your books dark and unsettling, then this could be the one for you.

Book blurb...
Callie loves Tilda. She’s her sister, after all. And she’s beautiful and successful.

Tilda loves Felix. He’s her husband. Successful and charismatic, he is also controlling, suspicious and, possibly, dangerous. Still, Tilda loves Felix.

And Callie loves Tilda. Very, very much.

So she’s determined to save her. But the cost could destroy them all…



My thoughts...
The twists and turns throughout White Bodies were chilling and clever. The author crafted a plot that was full of suspense and had me trying to guess where the story was going. The relationship between the characters was complex, well portrayed, and totally unpredictable. A captivating story.

EXCERPT: The two men were struck by the unnatural stillness of the room, its air of unreality; Julio said it seemed considered, or planned, like a tableau vivant with Felix as the centrepiece, lying on his back on the bed in a strange balletic pose, right arm cast out across the duvet, left leg bent, bath robe open like a cape,grey eyes gazing at the ceiling. His left arm was dangling down the side of the bed, fingers suspended above the floor, and the hotel manager, who had a degree in the History of Art, was reminded of the pre-Raphaelite painting of the suicide of Thomas Chatterton. Except this didn't look like suicide, there were no pill bottles or razor blades or other signs.

THE BLURB: Felix and Tilda seem like the perfect couple: young and in love, a financier and a beautiful up-and-coming starlet. But behind their flawless façade, not everything is as it seems.

Callie, Tilda’s unassuming twin, has watched her sister visibly shrink under Felix’s domineering love. She has looked on silently as Tilda stopped working, nearly stopped eating, and turned into a neat freak, with mugs wrapped in Saran Wrap and suspicious syringes hidden in the bathroom trash. She knows about Felix’s uncontrollable rages, and has seen the bruises on the white skin of her sister’s arms.

Worried about the psychological hold that Felix seems to have over Tilda, Callie joins an internet support group for victims of abuse and their friends. However, things spiral out of control and she starts to doubt her own judgment when one of her new acquaintances is killed by an abusive man. And then suddenly Felix dies—or was he murdered?

MY THOUGHTS: This is an extremely clever book. A book that is quite different from anything else I have read. But I can't say I actually 'liked' it. It fascinated me. It intrigued me. But I didn't like it and I couldn't get 'involved' in it.

I think part of the problem, for me, is the author's narrative style. Her sentences are inordinately long. And for suspense, nothing but short snappy sentences does it for me. Also large tracts of the book are narrated through emails/reading off a memory stick/searching the Internet/taking place in chat rooms.

However, Jane Robins has done a great job of keeping the reader off balance. Her characters are nearly all manipulative, some more overtly than others, and the reader never quite knows who is telling the truth. Is Callie protective of her sister Tilda, or is she jealous of Tilda's success, professional and personal? Is Felix the adoring lover who likes to shower Tilda with surprises and protect her from the world, or is he a violent control freak? Is Wilf really in love with Callie, or is he just using her to find out information about Tilda to feed to the press? And who is Scarlet really?

The plot is great. After a great deal of thought, I decided that I just didn't like how it was handled and rated it 3.5 stars. White Bodies by Jane Robins is due to be published October 23, 2017

Thank you to Harlequin Australia via Netgalley for providing a digital copy of White Bodies by Jane Robins for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own. Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the 'about' page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

oh my goodness... this book! so good!! great characters with an ending you won't see coming. i love the way it was written and got so caught up in this story, not knowing what was going to happen next. i will be looking out for more by this author. thank you to Harlequin Australia via Netgalley for a copy of this book to read and review.

Callie and Tilda are twin sisters but are as opposite as they could possibly be. Tilda is dazzling and magnetic, and Callie is dark and melancholy. Callie is obsessed with her sister and is afraid Tilda will leave her behind.

Felix and Tilda are a couple, but when Callie sees bruises on Tilda's arms, she believes that Felix is very abusive toward Tilda. Tilda no longer seeks acting roles, rarely eats well, and has become withdrawn. Callie witnesses these changes in Tilda as she withdraws and interprets that to be the result of Felix's rages and overbearing nature. Callie joins an online forum on abusive relationships to try to understand her sister's relationship and to try to help her.

The book alternates through the past and present, going back to the twins' childhood and teenage years. I was captivated by the book and couldn't wait to find out what happens. There are twists that keep the action moving along. The ending was both chilling and unexpected. I will be watching for more books like this one from this author.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.* 'White Bodies' is thriller in the domestic noire sub-genre. It grabbed my attention from the first page and did not let go until the conclusion. The novel, like so many others in this genre jumps between the past and the present as it weaves the story of twins Callie and Tilda. Given the suspenseful nature of the book, it is full of twists and turns and it is hard to summarise the plot without giving away any key plot twists. The characters are well written and come to life for readers. The novel also touches on the topics of domestic violence, mental health and dysfunctional families.