A stunning, dark and sexy debut thriller set in the winding lanes and underbelly of Brighton, centring around the social media world, where resentments and accusations are played out, identities made and remade, and there is no such thing as the truth

When India falls to her death from a bridge over a railway, her sister Poppy returns home to Brighton for the first time in years. Unconvinced by official explanations, Poppy begins her own investigation into India’s death. But the deeper she digs, the closer she comes to uncovering deeply buried secrets. Could Matthew Temple, the boyfriend she abandoned, be involved? And what of his powerful and wealthy parents, and his twin sister, Ana? Enter the mysterious and ethereal Jenny: the girl Poppy discovers after hacking into India’s laptop. What is exactly is she hiding, and what did India find out about her? Taking the reader on a breathless ride through the winding lanes of Brighton, into its vibrant party scene and inside the homes of its wellheeled families, The Other Twin is startling and up-to-the-minute thriller about the social-media world, where resentments and accusations are played out online, where identities are made and remade, and where there is no such thing as truth…

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First of all, how about we take the time to look at that cover and bask in the air of mystery it brings.

‘You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover!!!’

How many of us have spent our lives listening to that and flashback to when you were a child and presumed that this was actually regarding books so decided, even as an adult, that you shouldn’t just books by their cover? Noone? Oh…just me then….  Anyhow, this is one book that, you can most certainly, judge by its cover!

Time to break away from the cover, in all its splendour, and move on to the actual story. Brighton was the perfect setting for this book due to the LGBTQ presence. Freedom to be who you are is exactly what one expects from Brighton, such a shame that throughout the story we find that this isn’t what people expect from their family.  Poppy is called home when her sister commits suicide and discovers that her sister keeps a blog. She decides that the blog is the key to finding out what happened to India. She contacts Jenny, a friend of India’s, to learn a bit more about her sister and is not prepared for what unfolds.

‘Poppy?’

I wheel around. Matthew stands behind me, his face a picture a concern. The distance between us the last time we met seems to evaporate. I choke back a sob and lean against him, like my mother had against Tim; he lets me, folding his big arms around me.

Something snaps deep within me.

Raw grief hits me in the solar plexus, folding me over. Matthew tries to keep me upright, then gives up. He lets me squat down on my heels as I attempt to pour the grief out of myself with a low, animalistic moan, my whole body shaking. As light glints on the sparkling grass, a thought surfaces in my brain: How can the sun be shining when my only sister is dead?

I adore how this shows the social media age, in which we live, and how it affects our lives. We see online bullying is common practice. The author has inserted ‘screenshots’ of India’s blog posts and the comments that follow. Each of her posts has code names for who she is talking about and leads Poppy to try and work out the code.

Popping back to the statement above about judging a book by its cover, we learn the true meaning of that within this story.

The outcome of this book was not what I expected, however, it is one that I can, in part, relate to. This is a deeply haunting, mind-bending roller coaster of a story, one I believe with never leave me. Well done to Lucy Hay for writing such an amazing work of art.

Thank you to Orenda Books for my copy of The Other Twin for my review copy, my reviews are in no way influenced.

N.B. I want to point out that I generally don’t like books with an LGBTQ theme as any that I have read have very explicit sex scenes. I do not read any erotica and this most certainly had nothing like that within it.

 Lucy V. Hay script editor and blogger who helps writers via her Bang2write consultancy. She is the associate producer of Brit Thrillers DEVIATION (2012) and ASSASSIN (2015), both starring Danny Dyer. Lucy is also head reader for The London Screenwriters’ Festival. Lucy is also an author, writing both screenwriting books and crime fiction. Check out her website.