If She Did It by Jessica Treadway

Advance Reader Copy via Netgalley included.

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What if you began to suspect your child of an unspeakable crime?

Three years ago Hanna Schutt was almost bludgeoned to death in her bed. Her husband, Joe, didn’t survive the attack. Hanna was left with a disfigured face and no memory of the night in question.

The man convicted of the crime was her daughter’s boyfriend, Rud. Dawn was never charged for the murder of her father and the attempted murder of her mother but that doesn’t stop people believing that she played a significant role in the crime, especially since she stood by Rud throughout his trial.

Rud has now been granted an appeal. Following this news, Dawn decides to move home to support her mother.

If She Did It* (which is published as Lacy Eye in some territories) follows Hanna as she tries remember what happened that night in order to testify at Rud’s retrial.

What do the brief flashes and shadows that Hanna has started seeing mean? Is she actually remembering what happened or are they false memories of what she thinks happened? Can her memory be trusted?

While we are taken immediately into Hanna’s world the story starts slowly, but the pace quickens as Hanna starts to ask questions that she hasn’t faced up to before. While I sympathised with Hanna throughout the book, there were times when I wanted to shake some sense into her.

At the novel’s conclusion, there were one or two niggly details about Hanna’s flashbacks and memories that I was unsure about but over all I enjoyed If She Did It*.