The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly – a review

I ordered this book online but for some reason I obviously clicked the wrong button (yes I know that’s why you should always check your order before pressing send but where’s the fun in that) so I was very disappointed when this arrived instead of the Sick Rose as I’d actually watched the Poison Tree on tv. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the tv show but I never normally like to read a book if I’ve seen it already as I think it ruins the enjoyment. However I had bought and paid for it so I was going to read it.
The book centres on Karen and flits between her current life with her daughter and husband, and the flashback scenes of her time as a student. After finishing University Karen gets caught up in the world of self absorbed, lazy Biba (I think the correct term is bohemian and carefree, but personally I think annoying and weird would be better) along with Biba’s brother Rex who live on their own doing very little. Unsurprisingly after Karen moves in with them things start to go downhill for her.
Despite my previous reservations at having seen the tv show I enjoyed this book. It took a little bit of getting into as I found myself at the start not always realising I’d skipped between present day and flashback. However once I got into it I thoroughly enjoyed it. Luckily for me having such a bad memory means I couldn’t fully remember the plot anyway so there were still some surprises. It does mean however that this book is actually harder to review than normal. I thought that bits of the plot were quite obvious, but that may have been because I already knew it. It was a pretty quick read, and although I thought it was a little slow in the middle I can imagine that if you didn’t already have an idea as to what happens then it may all have come as a bit of a shock.
I would say that this book is definitely worth a read and I’ll certainly read her other novels (as long as I remember to click the right button next time!)