#BlogTour ‘The Imposter’ by Anna Wharton

About the book…

Chloe lives a quiet life. Working as a newspaper archivist in the day and taking care of her Nan in the evening, she’s happy simply to read about the lives of others as she files away the news clippings from the safety of her desk.

But there’s one story that she can’t stop thinking about. The case of Angie Kyle – a girl, Chloe’s age, who went missing as a child. A girl whose parents never gave up hope.

When Chloe’s Nan gets moved into a nursing home, leaving Chloe on the brink of homelessness, she takes a desperate step: answering an ad to be a lodger in the missing girl’s family home. It could be the perfect opportunity to get closer to the story she’s read so much about. But it’s not long until she realizes this couple aren’t all they seem from the outside…

But with everyone in the house hiding something, the question is – whose secrets are the most dangerous?

I am beyond thrilled to bring you my review of ‘The Imposter’ by Anna Wharton, published by Mantle on April 1st and featured as a Random Things Blog Tour

Good lord but I loved this book, it speaks to anyone who feels that the life they are living is not what it should be, that the path you are walking on has a massive sense of disconnection and not belonging anywhere.

Chloe spends her entire life under the radar, constantly reminded of her mother’s absence in her life by her dementia stricken Nan, and eeking out a living in a newspaper who are about to replace her with a computer.

She cuts out and archives clippings, reading and paying witness to the lives of others whilst desperately trying to fool the world that she is coping with her Nan,social services being kept at arms length in one direction and her demanding boss in another.

In between, she is just going through the motions until a story, one which she remembers from childhood, pops up with huge similarities to the life Chloe used to have. The missing girl, a life unlived could be the chance that Chloe has to set herself on a path to having the opportunities she never had. And it’s an act borne of desperation, of wanting the things which others take for granted.

However, Angie Kyle, the girl who disappeared, actually was taken and the person or people who took her soon notice that an impossible situation has occurred. Loneliness, isolation and never really being noticed plays in Chloe’s favour as she fits herself into the life unlived by Angie, but how far will she go to keep this deception going? And when she becomes one of the news articles that she has been constantly cutting out, what happens when those who took Angie notice her?

And, what actually happened all those years ago?

It is a thrilling and intoxicating blend of mystery, character study and emotionally wrought story telling which pulses from each page. I absolutely loved it.

About the author…

Anna Wharton has been a print and broadcast journalist for more than twenty years, writing for newspapers including The Times, Guardian, Sunday Times Magazine, Grazia and Red. She was formally an executive editor at The Daily Mail. Anna has ghostwritten four memoirs including the Sunday Times Bestseller Somebody I Used To Know and Orwell Prize longlisted CUT: One Woman’s Fight Against FGM in Britain Today. The Imposter is her first novel.

Twitter @whartonwords @MantleBooks @RandomTTours