The Sham Review

The Sham by Ellen Allen




Synopsis

When love leads to death, be careful who you trust…

Eighteen-year-old Emily Heath would love to leave her dead-end town, known locally as "The Sham", with her boyfriend, Jack, but he's very, very sick; his body is failing and his brain is shutting down. He's also in hiding, under suspicion of murder. Six months' ago, strange signs were painted across town in a dialect no one has spoken for decades and one of Emily's classmates washed up in the local floods.

Emily has never trusted her instincts and now they're pulling her towards Jack, who the police think is a sham himself, someone else entirely. As the town wakes to discover new signs plastered across its walls, Emily must decide who and what she trusts, and fast: local vigilantes are hunting Jack; the floods, the police, and her parents are blocking her path; and the town doesn’t need another dead body.

WARNING: THIS BOOK IS UNSUITABLE FOR YOUNGER READERS. IT DEPICTS ADULT SITUATIONS, MURDER SCENES, CONVERSATIONS ABOUT SEX AND PROFANITY.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The idea for this book came to me in a nightmare... It was so vivid that I imagined I was 17 again, at school, in the same group of 4 friends that I used to hang around with. We were involved in a murder and cover-up. I started writing partly as a way to get it out of my head and then the characters turned into real people... and Emily and Jack were born.


Lisa's Review - 2 out of 5 stars

I was sent a free copy of The Sham in return for an honest review. I agreed to read it as it seemed something very dark and gritty which makes a difference from a lot of the books I have been reading lately.
The first chapter of this book is one I was warned about before agreeing to review - it has some truly disturbing visualisations and is not recommended for the weak stomached readers out there! But if you can handle it, it seems to be the promising start of a very good book.
Unfortunately, from there and on I was thrown into a dark and sinister world but also into a very confusing and complicated story. While the idea of this book is a very good one, more often than not I found myself struggling to read on as I quite literally lost the plot of the story altogether. Although there were some really terrific scenes played out, it was filled with many pages that just didn't make any sense to me at all.
It is also very hard to write a good review of this book without writing any spoilers. The last chapter is, like the first, extremely good, but I cannot go into details without giving anything away. I can honestly say that I never saw the ending coming and it was a very good spin on the whole story. All that being said I couldn't find myself giving The Sham any more than 2 stars.

Links

Goodreads      Ellen Allen

Purchase Links

Amazon.com      Amazon UK       B&N      KOBO