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One Puzzling Afternoon - Emily Critchley

Description

A mystery she can't remember. A friend she can't forget.

I kept your secret Lucy. I've kept it for more than sixty years . . .

It is 1951, and at number six Sycamore Street fifteen-year-old Edie Green is lonely. Living alone with her eccentric mother - who conducts seances for the local Ludthorpe community - she is desperate for something to shake her from her dull, isolated life.

When the popular, pretty Lucy Theddle befriends Edie, she thinks all her troubles are over. But Lucy has a secret, one Edie is not certain she should keep . . .

Then Lucy goes missing.

2018. Edie is eighty-four and still living in Ludthorpe. When one day she glimpses Lucy Theddle, still looking the same as she did at fifteen, her family write it off as one of her many mix ups. There's a lot Edie gets confused about these days. A lot she finds difficult to remember. But what she does know is this: she must find out what happened to Lucy, all those years ago . . .

Review

I read this book with Pigeonhole. Being close to someone who has dementia meant at times this book hit home a little too hard for me. It is probably the best writing I have read regarding someone with dementia, as it was very true to life. It was also told from the perspective of Edie who has dementia and that has actually helped me a lot in real life. 

I could have stopped reading but the mystery that Edie recounts kept me going, as I was so intrigued as to what had happened in 1951.

A book that will stay with me for a long time.

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars.

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