Sister Dear by Hannah Mary McKinnon

Sister Dear by Hannah Mary McKinnon
Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778309550
Trade paperback, $16.99, 368 pages

I've never read a Hannah Mary McKinnon book so I wasn't sure what to expect. Her latest, Sister Dear, is a psychological suspense novel that has a crackerjack ending that shocked me. (And I'm not easily shocked.)

As the story opens, Eleanor is visiting her beloved father at his hospice. When she arrives, she hears her estranged mother, trying to get her ex-husband to leave all his money in his will to their younger daughter Amy because, after all, Eleanor is not his real daughter.

After Eleanor confronts her parents, she runs out of the hospice and ends up getting attacked by a mugger outside her apartment building. Her handsome upstairs neighbor Lewis rescues her, but she is seriously injured enough to end up in the hospital.

While there, her father passes away and Eleanor is bereft. Her mother and sister are allied against her as they have always been, and Eleanor feels like she has no one.

She finds out that her biological father is a highpowered real estate developer, a man her mother worked for years ago. Eleanor confronts him, and he tells her that he never wanted to have anything to do with her and still doesn't. He threatens her if she comes near his family.

But Eleanor's curiosity gets the better of her. She follows Victoria, her father's only child, to a restaurant, and listens in on her conversation with Victoria's mother and cousin.

Victoria is everything Eleanor is not- beautiful, thin, wealthy. She turns heads wherever she goes. Eleanor applies to assist Victoria set up a website for her new company, and the two women become friends, although Victoria has no idea who Eleanor really is. Victoria loves having a new friend, someone she can trust.

As Eleanor insinutates herself into Victoria's life, I wondered where this story would go. Eleanor not only works for Victoria, but also for Victoria's husband. Eleanor's life is getting better- a good job, a boyfriend, she has lost weight, and changed her hairstyle to look more like Victoria. Lewis warns her that the longer this goes on without Victoria knowing who she really is, the harder the fall will be.

Sister Dear kept me interested, but the ending of the story knocked me out of my seat. I literally gasped and nearly screamed out loud. McKinnon takes us on this journey with Eleanor, and where we end up is somewhere we couldn't have guessed. She sprinkles the story with breadcrumbs that lead us to some things we can guess, but the ultimate reveal is a corker.

If you like to be surprised by the ending of a novel, pick up Sister Dear immediately.

Thanks to MIRA for putting me on Hannah Mary McKinnon's tour.