The Ice Twins by S.K Tremayne – a review

The Ice Twins by S.K Tremayne was a recent ‘listen to’ rather than actual read. As I’ve previously mentioned I walk most places and occasionally attempt to jog. Both of these are hobbies that are made better with an audible book. Being read to can often be a bit hit and miss though. You are as reliant on the person who is reading it, as you are on the actual quality of the writing. I’ve started listening to a number of books over the years that I have had to give up on due to the really annoying voices of the readers.
This however was not one of them, and despite some of the fake Scottish accents sounding a bit comedy this was a really interesting listen.
Sarah and Angus are mourning the death of one of their identical twins. In order to try and move on with their lives they relocate to a remote island in the Scottish highlands (I think!) with their remaining twin Kirstie. However things don’t go as planned when Kirstie states she is actually Lydia and that they have been mourning the wrong twin.
I really enjoyed this book despite a few reservations. The main one being that I didn’t really like or get a proper feel for any of the main characters. There were times that if I had been reading the actual book, I would have had to flick back through to see if I’d missed something key as to why the characters acted as they did. Obviously it is not that simple when you are listening.
On the plus side, the Ice Twins was incredibly atmospheric. There was a lot of description of the surrounding area which added to the creepy feeling throughout the book. You got the impression of the bleakness and despair that the family felt as they spiralled further down into weirdness. The book was quite slow going, but this added to the overall feel. It was almost like it was written in slow motion, you can see what is about to happen but you can’t stop it.
I did think it was a bit odd that the parents couldn’t tell the twins apart, I don’t know anything about twins so I may be wrong but you’d think that by the time they are 6 there would be something distinctive enough about each of them to tell them apart. Saying that however, our main narrator is Sarah and she is clearly unreliable. It’s almost a chicken and egg situation, what came first, was it Kirstie saying she is Lydia, or did Sarah give her the idea?
I’m usually not a huge fan of ghost stories but this was more thriller than ghost and even by the end I wasn’t really clear was it a haunting or was it just confusion. This story was definitely worth a listen to and made my walk to work much more interesting.