The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell – Gail Aldwin

Published By: Bloodhound Books
Pages: 310
Released On: 03/07/2023

A true-crime podcaster investigates a decades-old suspected abduction, in this powerful psychological suspense novel.

1979: Sixteen-year-old Carolyn Russell grows increasingly infatuated with her school mathematics teacher who is also giving her private lessons. Then she disappears.

2014: Struggling journalist Stephanie Brett creates a true-crime podcast focused on the disappearance of Carolyn Russell. By digging deep into this mysterious cold case, her confidence and flagging career are boosted. But after she confronts the suspects—and talks to a potential witness—the leads dry up. However, Stephanie refuses to let the story rest . . .

Can a small-time journalist with a shoestring podcast really hope to reconstruct the ultimate fate of Carolyn Russell after all these years, or are some secrets best left buried?

*****

Thanks to Gail for gifting me an advanced copy of her new book in return for an honest review.

I loved Gail’s book This Much Huxley Knows, which she also gifted me, and so I was excited when she contacted me saying she had written another.

This is very different to Huxley, but no less impressive. I was hooked almost instantly and that feeling didn’t leave me until I’d finished it.

There’s a few characters in it, but I shan’t go into too much detail here. The one’s we need to talk about are Carolyn and Stephanie.

We get to know Carolyn through flashbacks to the 70s as a teenager preparing for her CSE exams – so 15/16 years old. She’s a typical teenager I would say. Fighting with her mum, trying to fit in, wanting more friends, and most of all, trying to appear grown up. A teenager of that age, particularly a girl who is transitioning into more of a woman, is very aware of changes to herself and wanting to appear more grown up than she actually is. And Carolyn is exactly that. Throw in an unsuitable infatuation and desire, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a naïve girl in a dangerous situation. And especially in the 1970/80s time, you had a lot of freedom, but young girls were still expected to take a more traditional female route. So it was a tough time.

It’s really through Stephanie that we meet Carolyn. She loses her job very early on and decides to make a podcast about the disappearance of Carolyn Russell. So, without her, we wouldn’t be getting to hear Carolyn’s story either. I instantly warmed to Stephanie from the first few pages. She just glowed off of the page. She was tough but vulnerable, happy but sad, determined yet worried. She felt so very real and identifiable and I really enjoyed reading her sections.

I liked the flitting between 1979 and 2014. “Time travel” if you will, can often be a bit confusing in books, but this works. It’s every other chapter it changes, with each section neatly leading to the flashback or the present day. But it’s a seamless transition in this, and I think is the perfect way to tell this story. I’m not sure you’d have got as much out of it if it was just written in a linear narrative.

I’ve read a few books recently that include podcasts into the story, and this stands up to all of them. It’s a great modern way of integrating past and present threads together.

I usually have several books on the go at the same time and I tend to dip in and out of them all. And I tried to do the same with this one. My horrendous to-be-read list means I need to multi-read. But I couldn’t. It didn’t matter what I picked up, fiction, non-fiction, classic, poetry, whatever, I couldn’t forget about this one and inevitably I’d have to admit defeat and come back to it. It sticks with you. Not necessarily the plot as such – in my opinion – but the characters and the emptions and the love and passion that’s woven into each character and each section is just sublime. I’d quite like a workshop with Gail on character building and development because for me, she’s one of the best I’ve read.

I love the vulnerability of it all. Of the whole situation, of a missing girl, a mother missing her daughter, a missing sister, the vulnerability of an inappropriate relationship between a person in trust and a naïve young girl, the vulnerability of unemployment, or starting new, the vulnerability between family, friends and lovers.

Obviously I won’t give away the ending but, whilst it’s a satisfying one for me, I want more. This voice Gail has created in this story is excellent and I just wanted to keep returning to it long after I’d finished.

Whilst I’m not saying self-published/indie books aren’t as good as traditionally published books – absolutely not – but this is as good as any traditionally published book I’ve read, and it thoroughly deserves to have the attention that comes with being pride of place in a mainstream bookstore. I don’t know Gail’s story, whether she tried the traditional publishing route first or went straight to indie, I don’t know. But there have been some huge books published that get all the attention that just don’t do it for me, some even go unfinished. But I think this is wonderful and really needs to get the same level of attention.