Little Face - Sophie Hannah

Reading the blurb on the back of the book, I was looking forward to reading it, and sure enough it started well. As the book progressed, however, the plot seemed to veer off in odd directions. I realise that part of the narrative was intended to confuse the reader until the end, but there were scenes in it that were never explained nor resolved. The reader was not given enough information to follow the plot and feel just one step ahead. Exceptional thrillers allow the reader to work out the plot a page or two before it happens, rather than dumping it on them out of the blue. I found the characters were sketchy, and a couple, who I perceived to be important to ...  Read the complete review

**Story Summary...** Two weeks after the birth of her daughter Florence, Alice Fancourt returns from a short trip out into her worst nightmare. Whilst her husband has been sleeping, her baby has been swapped and the baby in the cot is not her daughter. Alice is confronted with increasing hostility from her husband who insists the baby is in fact Florence whilst the police are convinced she is either crazy or lying. How can Alice convince everyone that the baby in her home isn't hers before it is too late? **Review...** I randomly picked this book from someone's RISI list when they requested one of my books because ...  Read the complete review

I have been waiting to read this for almost a year since I first read the blurb, and I was certainly vindicated: it is superb. The story unfolds via two narratives set a week apart in which a race against time develops. In the first chapter, new mum Alice Fancourt describes the horror of arriving home to discover that the baby in the nursery is no longer her own. Within this chapter, the writer subtly positions Alice as a slightly on-edge character who seems frightened simply to be out of the house without her child, before the revelation of the strange baby. Already the reader is questioning Alice's control, which helps to understand why the local detective ...  Read the complete review

I bought this book with no idea of what the works of Sophie Hannah had to offer, though what intrigued me was the mystery that lay behind the cover picture, which was incidentally very well chosen indeed. Often stories don't live up to the covers, though we as buyers are still pulled into buying books based on what they seem to be offering. The words upon the cover were tempting too that quoted "It's every mother's nightmare". I wanted something gripping, something that would hold my interest, and it showed promise. The Story This is a very well constructed piece of literature. The story revolves around the lives of Alice and David ...  Read the complete review

A new novel by Sophie Hannah is cause for great celebration, at least as far as I'm concerned. I loved her three previous novels - "Cordial and Corrosive" (probably my favourite), "Gripless" and "The Superpower of Love" - and am also a big fan of her poetry. So I was absolutely delighted to get my hands on this latest novel. "Little Face" is, however, something of a departure from Sophie's previous work. It's described on the jacket as a "psychological thriller" and is clearly packaged and marketed as such, with one of those cover pictures - common to missing-child thrillers - of an empty corridor with an ...  Read the complete review