#Domevember #BookshelfSpotlight ‘Twin Truths’ by Shelan Rodger

About the book…

‘Provocative, unsettling and beautifully written, this clever story is instantly involving and utterly intriguing. Twin Truths kept me thinking long after I’d finished it. I highly recommend this book, but I’m not giving my copy away!‘ Janet Ellis

What is the truth? And how do you recognise it when you hear it? Jenny and Pippa are twins. Like many twins they often know what the other is thinking. They complete each other. When Pippa disappears Jenny is left to face the world alone, as she tries to find out what happened to her other half. But the truth, for Jenny, can be a slippery thing.

‘Twin Truths’ by Shelan Rodger is available from Dome Press in paperback  at a frankly unbelievable half price (£4.50!) plus free post and package whilst stocks last.

It is also available in ebook edition from the usual sites but please, if you can, buy directly from Dome.

Jenny lives in Buenos Aires, weaving a fabric of stories about her life and why she has come to live there, so far away from England. Her narrative is interwoven with that of her psychiatrist, Ignacio, and how her tales begin to effect and disrupt, his life. Whilst Jenny talks in the first person, Ignacio is in the third, leaving you see-sawing between the dual perspectives, giving intimacy and then taking it away, making the reader both voyeur and confidante.

‘’Have you ever watched baby twins when they first take an interest in what’s going on around them, when they start to react to faces and shapes and sounds? They don’t react to each other, they almost seem to ignore each other, and that’s because in a way they are one. You don’t react to the sound of your own tummy rumbling, do you? Because she was there, I never really needed other people in the same way as others do. I never learnt to trust or invest in relationships, because I didn’t need to. They were a pastime, a luxury.’

The reader is never quite sure what parts of Jenny are real and which aren’t which relates to the title , ‘Twin Truths’. It references both the reality of what Jenny first, and then Pippa, relate as their childhood upbringing, what the truth means to them and how it has been twisted so horribly to create a truly unhappy upbringing.

From being blamed for their father leaving to refusing to acknowledge what both twins have experienced, you vacillate between horror, shock and deep, unabiding sadness at what both Jenny and Pippa have been through.

The short, pacy chapters give the book a sense of urgency as you eagerly turn each page, desperate to find out what happens next-as well as what truly happened to get both twins to the places that they end up in-and as such, it is very hard to discuss plot points without giving the whole thing away.

What I can say is this-if you enjoy reading challenging books that take you dark sometimes uncomfortable places, then is the book for you. Deeply moving, convincing and authentic, I was thoroughly moved by the rich, evocative style of Shelan’s writing and am very much looking forward to reading her other Dome Press novel, ‘Yellow Room’

About the author…

Shelan’s life is a patchwork of different cultures. Born in Nigeria, she grew up among the Tiwi, an aboriginal community in Australia, and moved to England at the age of eleven.