The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas - Review

I bought this on Amazon when it was only a pound or so, having enjoyed previous books I read by Claire Douglas. I read it while I was away on holiday and it didn't take me long to read, it was good holiday reading. I did mostly enjoy it, but I thought the ending was a bit weird. 

Most of the book is told from the point of view of Tasha. She is thirty something and married to Aaron. She lives in a village not far from Bristol I think called Chew Norton. They have twin girls, Elsie and Flossie, who are 'nearly three'. Keep this bit in mind for later. Aaron is a mechanic and Tasha works in a dentist clinic. Her dad has passed away. Her mum Jeanette lives in France. Her sister Alice is married to Kyle and lives in London. They are very rich and totally high flying. 

Alice and Kyle offer to look after the twins for a week so that Tasha and Aaron can go and stay in Alice and Kyle's apartment in Venice, have a break from the girls, and rediscover themselves a bit. So they set off. They love the apartment and they have amazing food and drink and Tasha borrows some of her sister's clothes. However, they are chased by a man with a knife down some back streets. He says something to them that Tasha thinks means 'you owe me'. 

However, in the early hours of the morning Tasha gets a phone call telling her that someone broke into their house and attacked Alice and Kyle. Kyle is dead. Alice has suffered awful injuries and is in hospital. Tasha and Aaron obviously rush home. Jeanette rushes from her home in France to be with her daughter too. She moved out there after her husband died. She has never got over the abduction of her youngest child, Holly, thirty years before. 

Some parts of the book are from Jeanette's point of view. She took Holly to the shop, left her in the pram outside the shop, and when she came out, the baby was gone. Viv, who is Aaron's mum, was there with one of her young kids, and she comforted Jeanette. A huge manhunt occurred, but there was never any positive sighting of Holly again. But, in the DNA of the blood after the attack in Tasha's house, the police find DNA that can only belong to another child of Jeanette's. Who else can it be except Holly? 

Aaron and Tasha have not always had an easy relationship and there is a woman at his workplace who seems to fancy him and Tasha is uncomfortable about the whole thing. There are so many ins and outs to this book and I won't give them all away, but I did find them compelling.

However. I have two main criticisms of the book. Firstly, the twins did NOT come across like 'nearly three' year olds. They speak in full sentences and they ask a lot of questions about how Kyle died which didn't ring true at all. Tasha also sends them upstairs to play for a couple of hours which sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. 

Secondly, I thought how the DNA issue resolved itself was kind of stupid. Not that it was wrong, it was just stupid. 

Because of those criticisms I am only giving this three out of five.