I Found You by Lisa Jewell
Rating: 5/5
Source: W H Smith
Released: 9th March 2017
Everyone has secrets. What if you can't remember yours?
'How long have you been sitting out here?'
'I got here yesterday.'
'Where did you come from?'
'I have no idea.'
Lily has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night, she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one.
Alice finds a man on the beach outside her house. He has no name, no jacket, no idea what he is doing there. Against her better judgement, she invites him into her home.
But who is he, and how can she trust a man who has lost his memory?
I Found You was my holiday read for my weekend in Spain and it was completely by chance that I picked it up, since I had forgotten my Kindle that had a different book lined up for me to read. I picked this up from the new releases stand and honestly it was because the cover looked so interesting, I don't think I read the blurb until I was in the queue ready to check out. I just had a good feeling about the book and went with my gut instinct.
Lets talk about Alice. Although in the book Alice describes herself as being a sort of anti-hero, I personally think she's awesome and would love to be more like her. She isn't a perfect mum or perfect human being in general, but she knows and embraces that and still tries to do her best. She's artistic, has kids and dogs and has made some bad decisions where men are concerned but she's a good person who just hasn't had the best of luck. Then she meets the man on the beach, Frank.
Lily on the other hand I really struggled to connect with despite her being my age, a student like me and she imagines her future to be some grand adventure. The issue I had with Lily is her naivety, and perhaps that was the point of her character but if the point was to empathise with her -my bad. If you've ever been in love or even just in a new relationship, you probably know how easy it is to get swept away by someone, Lily did this and ended up marrying someone she barely knew and then seems surprised when (small spoiler) the police tell her that her husband, Carl, isn't who he said he was.
The story is split between Alice and amnesiac Frank, Lily and the mystery of her missing husband Carl and a third story set twenty years before the other two featuring Gray and his sister Kirsty's family holiday in Ridinghouse Bay, which is where Alice lives in the present day. Gray and Kirsty's story unfolds when another holidayer, Mark, takes a keen interest in Kirsty.
I Found You keeps you guessing until the third act, when you think you've worked out who Frank really is, think again. I changed my mind every couple of chapters and each time I was so sure I had it worked out.
I love thrillers but this book was part thriller, part romance and a complete page turner which is unusual as I find with a lot of thrillers you need to put them down and take a break from the action in order to really appreciate them. I read half of the book on the flight there and finished it on the flight and car journey back home, if I hadn't been so busy on holiday I would have definitely sat and read the book late into the night/morning.
This was also the first book by Lisa Jewell that I've read so it's another new author for me to add to the 'must-read' pile, Jewell's next book is out in summer so I will definitely be getting that and The House We Grew Up In has been recommended to me on Twitter so I won't be short of Lisa Jewell reading material when I've finished university for the summer! I would recommend this book to any thriller fans, there's some dark themes in this book but some really nice and heartwarming moments too, so read at discretion.
Everyone has secrets. What if you can't remember yours?
'How long have you been sitting out here?'
'I got here yesterday.'
'Where did you come from?'
'I have no idea.'
Lily has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night, she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one.
Alice finds a man on the beach outside her house. He has no name, no jacket, no idea what he is doing there. Against her better judgement, she invites him into her home.
But who is he, and how can she trust a man who has lost his memory?
I Found You was my holiday read for my weekend in Spain and it was completely by chance that I picked it up, since I had forgotten my Kindle that had a different book lined up for me to read. I picked this up from the new releases stand and honestly it was because the cover looked so interesting, I don't think I read the blurb until I was in the queue ready to check out. I just had a good feeling about the book and went with my gut instinct.
Lets talk about Alice. Although in the book Alice describes herself as being a sort of anti-hero, I personally think she's awesome and would love to be more like her. She isn't a perfect mum or perfect human being in general, but she knows and embraces that and still tries to do her best. She's artistic, has kids and dogs and has made some bad decisions where men are concerned but she's a good person who just hasn't had the best of luck. Then she meets the man on the beach, Frank.
Lily on the other hand I really struggled to connect with despite her being my age, a student like me and she imagines her future to be some grand adventure. The issue I had with Lily is her naivety, and perhaps that was the point of her character but if the point was to empathise with her -my bad. If you've ever been in love or even just in a new relationship, you probably know how easy it is to get swept away by someone, Lily did this and ended up marrying someone she barely knew and then seems surprised when (small spoiler) the police tell her that her husband, Carl, isn't who he said he was.
The story is split between Alice and amnesiac Frank, Lily and the mystery of her missing husband Carl and a third story set twenty years before the other two featuring Gray and his sister Kirsty's family holiday in Ridinghouse Bay, which is where Alice lives in the present day. Gray and Kirsty's story unfolds when another holidayer, Mark, takes a keen interest in Kirsty.
I Found You keeps you guessing until the third act, when you think you've worked out who Frank really is, think again. I changed my mind every couple of chapters and each time I was so sure I had it worked out.
I love thrillers but this book was part thriller, part romance and a complete page turner which is unusual as I find with a lot of thrillers you need to put them down and take a break from the action in order to really appreciate them. I read half of the book on the flight there and finished it on the flight and car journey back home, if I hadn't been so busy on holiday I would have definitely sat and read the book late into the night/morning.
This was also the first book by Lisa Jewell that I've read so it's another new author for me to add to the 'must-read' pile, Jewell's next book is out in summer so I will definitely be getting that and The House We Grew Up In has been recommended to me on Twitter so I won't be short of Lisa Jewell reading material when I've finished university for the summer! I would recommend this book to any thriller fans, there's some dark themes in this book but some really nice and heartwarming moments too, so read at discretion.
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