Ever since running away from her home town of Eilidh Falls, her family who still live there and the memories of the brother she lost there and the childhood sweetheart she turned her back on, Alex Foster has avoided going back. But when her mum is taken ill, she’s left with little choice but to return to the sister she left behind and the father she ran away from. Anouska Knight is going from strength to strength. With fully realised characters, bags and bags of drama and secrets, and epic romances, there’s something of the Nicholas Sparks feel to this book and I really felt with this book that Knight had carved out her very own niche. She manages to create the same sense of place and community too that Sparks has made his own, but amazingly Knight’s fictitious world feels authentically transatlantic. The story is just sublime and keeps delivering all the way to the end in what is a fairly long book that simply flies by. Towards the end I didn’t think it could get any better but there are two final plotlines at the close that cemented Knight’s brilliance in this novel and I felt utterly bereft at having finished it. We may just be seeing the coronation of a new queen of romantic drama. (JC)
Letting You Go, by Anouska Knight, asks can you ever leave the past behind? The summary says: "What if a tragedy occurred and you only had yourself to blame? How do you move on from the past? Alex Foster lives a quiet life, avoiding the home she hasn't visited in eight years. Then her sister Jaime calls. Their mother is sick, and Alex must return. Suddenly she's plunged back into the past she's been trying to escape. Returning to her hometown, memories of the tragic accident that has haunted her and her family are impossible to ignore. Alex still blames herself for what happened to her brother and it's soon clear that her father holds her responsible too. As Alex struggles to cope, can she ever escape the ghosts of the past?" Letting You Go is out in September 2015.