#BlogTour ‘The Accident’ by Julia Stone

About the book…
The police ruled it as misadventure. A young woman falling from a bridge onto Janice Thomason’s car was not an act of suicide or murder, it’s just an accident. But for Janice, it feels like fate has thrown them together.

As a genealogist, Janice is used to tracking down clues – is even a little obsessive, one might say… The police know so little about the Jane Doe that fell on her car that she decides to start her own investigation into the victim and the people she knew. Surely someone must be to blame?

Sometimes the only way to uncover the truth is to lie… and for Janice, living a lie comes all too easily.
Huge thanks to the wonderful Tracy at Compulsive Readers for the blog tour invite and publishers Orion Dash for my gifted review copy of ‘The Accident’ by Julia Stone which is published in paperback and e-book formats.

I was completely drawn into Janice’s first person narration, from her shock over having been involved in a fatal accident, to her relentless need for closure.

As she uses her skills to unravel who this girl was in an effort to gain peace, she slowly reveals her own history of emotional abuse, thwarted love and missed opportunities.

There are foreshadowings and allusions to a breakdown and obsessions, via her narcissistic mother who has moved to Spain and still manages to dig her claws in from a distance. The biggest concern Janice has after a horrendous accident is missing her mother’s weekly phone call. She has grown up, but not away from the person she was and cradles it within her as proof that she does not deserve nice things. This relates strongly to how she wants to create historical family trees for her clients, finding connections where herself has none.

But what comes from the accident is intent-she digs deeply into the things she noted about the girl who died on the roof of her care, and in doing so, finds herself pulled into a life she could never have lived. With her need to understand why Sunny was on that bridge, with those balloons at that exact moment Janice was coming under the bridge, this is a relentless moving towards a conclusion that you, the reader , fear may not be what Janice wants , or deserves from her life.

You are slowly, inexorably pulled into this twisting, turning narrative or contrasts and consequences and I felt tremendous empathy for Janice. What she does may seem inexplicable to an outsider, but thanks to the intimate insights we gain from her internal dialogue, we relate to her very strongly and wish for a happy ending.

I 100% intend to go back to Julia’s debut novel and also to follow what she does next!

About the author…
Julia Stone applies her creativity in her work as a writer, ceramic artist, coach, supervisor and therapist. She has had a long career in psychology and psychotherapy and now works part-time.
She loves learning and frequently attends courses to acquire new skills. Recently she studied British Sign Language and was thrilled to pass her Level 1 exams.
The Accident is her second psychological suspense novel, published by Orion Dash as an ebook and paperback October 2022.
‘Her Little Secret’02 was her debut novel, also published by Orion dash Autumn 2021 and is available in ebook, audio and paperback formats.
Links-https://www.juliastonewriter.com/
Twitter @JulesTake3 @books_dash