The Affair by Claire Allan
Another great psychological thriller by Londonderry author Claire Allan. There are two main characters in the book, Christina and Sorcha. Christina is a lonely accountant who works mainly from home, has virtually no social life and is still recovering from a broken relationship which ended two years ago. Her relationship had been with a married man, hence the book’s name “The Affair”. Sorcha is a single mother but is completely different to Christina and is extremely sociable living in a huge house overlooking the River Foyle. She is a social media influencer and has set up a successful woman’s network called Soul Sisterhood.
Lonely Christina decides to join Soul Sisterhood and is taken under Sorcha’s wing at the first coffee morning which Christina attends. Sorcha then invites Christina to go seawater swimming in Donegal with some of the group and Christina starts to think that her days of loneliness are over. But all is not what it seems, and Christina starts to receive warning phone calls from an anonymous caller to leave the group which she ignores.
Despite the warnings, Christina continues to participate with the group both on Facebook and WhatsApp and then decides to join their Book Club. At the first meeting, she becomes violently ill and has to be rushed home by one of her new friends, Carla. Sorcha also gets sick and she is rushed to hospital. The next day Christina struggles into work and when she returns home, she discovers that her flat has been trashed. Kind-hearted Sorcha invites Christina to lunch the next day but things get nasty. The story ends with a completely unexpected twist which I certainly didn’t see coming!
