Spotlight on Someone Else's Life, by Katie Dale

Katie Dale lives in England, but still managed to get me an advanced copy of her new book Someone Else's Life via NetGalley online. I was so happy to get a chance to read her ARC and was immediately taken by the subject matter. The main character, Rosie Kenning, is dealing with an issue that has also been present in my life, although I personally identify more with the Andy character at the time (the supportive best friend). Rosie's mother was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease, something I know a lot about, but a disease about which most people know very little. It is hereditary, it is tragic, and there is no cure. Someone who suffers from Huntington's Disease is usually diagnosed late in life and faces a slow deterioration of brain cells and consequently body function. Take all this info, add in death, heartbreak, romance, road trip, and birth swapping, and you've got Someone Else's Life... and all of the big questions that go along with the age old dilemma of, "Is ignorance really bliss?"

When seventeen-year-old Rosie’s mother, Trudie, dies from Huntington’s Disease, her pain is intensified by the knowledge that she has a fifty-per-cent chance of inheriting the crippling disease herself. Only when she tells her mum’s best friend, ‘Aunt Sarah’ that she is going to test for the disease does Sarah, a midwife, reveal that Trudie was not her biological mother after all... Devastated, Rosie decides to trace her real mother, hitching along on her ex-boyfriend’s GAP year to follow her to Los Angeles. But all does not go to plan, and as Rosie discovers yet more of her family's deeply-buried secrets and lies, she is left with an agonising decision of her own - one which will be the most heart-breaking and far-reaching of all...

You'll definitely want to check out this book. And you can find out more about Katie at her:
Website: http://katiedaleuk.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Someone-Elses-Life/103833336373546

Kirkus says: An actress as well as a writer, debut novelist Dale clearly has a flair for the dramatic. Rosie's first-person account is punctuated by narration in another, mysterious voice; leaving this narrator unidentified contributes both to the building suspense and character development. All in all, it is a far cry from the typical disease novel. It reads the way a haunted house might, with the unexpected lurking behind every door.
Though in the end readers' patience might be tried by having the rug pulled out from underneath them one too many times, they’ll be hard pressed to let Rosie out of their sight until the last page is turned. 

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just bought the UK edition the other week. The story sounds great.

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