ARC Review: Childhood Sweetheart by Wendy Clarke

Genre ~ mystery

Release date ~August 23, 2022

POV ~ multiple ~ 3rd person

Page count ~ 381

Audio length ~ 11 hours 40 minutes

My rating ~ 4⭐

My review:

This one totally messed with my head and was slow going, at times confusing, for me and didn’t really pick up until somewhere in the 60% area. From there on it grabbed me and I was really interested in how it would all play out. I was mostly happy with the conclusion, but the last chapter ending before the epilogue was a little odd, rushed maybe?

Told in multiple 3rd person by Ailsa, Jonah and Callum in the present with some ‘then’ flashbacks. I think the fact that it was written this way made for some nice twists that I didn’t see coming, but also some repetitiveness. My mama heart was thumping real hard on some pages.

I can’t say I really liked many of the characters, especially the mean girls from high school. I really felt bad for Seth too. I enjoyed Kyle’s fun facts about dogs ~ such as “their noses have a special pattern, and no two dogs have the same.”

Overall, after it picked up and I got used to the Scottish terms it was a thrilling ride. First, but not my last time reading this authors work.

CW ~ parental physical abuse (off page), reference to rape (off page)

*Thanks to Bookouture, Wendy Clarke and NetGalley for the ARC. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*

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Bang. Bang. Bang. I jump as the knocks on the window crash above the roaring wind outside. Who could it be, at this late hour? I open the curtains and peer outside. ‘Hello?’ But the dark, the rain and the empty lane are all I see.

It’s been eleven years since I last saw Jonah, after his brother died that stormy summer night. And now, without warning, he’s back, living in his old house next door just like old times, on the remote Scottish island that is home. Where I used to imagine we’d stay, together, forever, sharing our lives and our secrets as we always had. But that was before.

Jonah’s not the sweet boy I once knew. His mood is changeable, his behaviour unstable, our brief conversations are forced and awkward. And then the knocks on my window begin. It can only be him, but why, and what does he want? I used to love him. Now I don’t even want to invite him in.

Because after all these years, I see our childhood secrets, the ones we swore never to reveal, in a newly terrifying light. Was his brother’s death truly an accident? Could Jonah’s secrets have been worth killing for? And how safe am I now, on this isolated island, with the man I used to love…?

A totally addictive and twisty psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Housemaid won’t be able to put Childhood Sweetheart down!

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