Spineless little rich girls and endlessly angry, rapey men don’t really do it for me, but I hung on to this novel to get to The Big Reveal.
Basic plot:
- Two identical twins, separated at birth. Evil twin Nathan grows up rich, “Good” twin Jake grows up poor. They meet later in life.
- Evil twin Nathan marries Rich Girl Caitlin, abuses her and cheats on her, but never reveals he’s a twin.
- Evil Nathan then persuades “Good” Jake to take his place on a flight due to some drug deal gone wrong.
- Plane crash + amnesia = “Good” Jake thinking he’s married Caitlin, who in her turn has no idea he’s not Evil Nathan.
So obviously what everyone is waiting for here is The Scene. The Big Reveal. Where Caitlin guesses or Jake confesses the truth.
BUT WE NEVER GET IT!
Instead, Jake finally screws Caitlin which recovers his memory. Then he skips off to the US. Caitlin has no idea why he’s gone. It’s left to Nathan’s ex-mistress (who guessed instantly that Jake wasn’t Nathan) to tell her.
What a damp squib. The one scene you read the bloody book for, and Anne Mather limped out of writing it.
There are three other really toxic themes in this book:
1. Misogynistic patriarchs
There are no less than four different fathers in this book bypassing their daughters and favouring sons, and/or using their daughters as brood mares. I assume that Anne Mather was trying to make a points, but I’m not sure what it was.
2. Weak women
Caitlin, who supposedly had a business degree, was passed over by her father for an executive job in the family firm for the dodgy Nathan. So what does she do? She gets some crappy little shop assistant job in an auction house, which she later loses to the work experience. In fairness she can’t even manage a bit of pen-and-paper bookkeeping, so God only knows where she got her MBA from. Then there are various weak wives who put up with their husbands’ abuse and affairs and fail to advocate for their daughters.
3. Angry rapey men
This is mainly Jake. He’s supposed to be the hero, but he’s vile. It’s obvious he (or rather Nathan) did something terrible to Caitlin, but despite the fact he has amnesia he keeps trying to force himself on her and getting angry when she wears a more modest nightgown to bed, and then sexually assaults her in her sleep. I don’t mind a bit of “ravishment” in a novel, but not with an entitled ex-junkie jerk like Jake.