THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR by Rose Carlyle

 So scary reading stories about sisters. Such an emotionally drenched relationship on a standard day, let alone when things go spectacularly off the footpath. I thought The Good Sister was spine tingling and mind blowing, but this one blew all that away with the intense co-dependent and intimate relationship between identical twin sisters at its center.  It's a complete cracker of a novel with every page having you almost breathless as the story unfolds, the twists, shifts, deceptions and lengths people go to. So good.

At it's heart is the impossible for us non-twin folks to understand bond between twins. Identical twins is the apex of the intimacy of sibling relationships - the secret language, means of communicating, swapping roles, It is almost freaky and of course lends itself perfectly for sinister doings. In this story the twins are Summer and Iris. They are very rare identical twins in that they are mirror images of each other. Summer has her organs on the usual side of the body - heart on the left, liver on the right, kidneys on the left and so on. Iris has hers the other way round. This would seem to be the only way of identifying one from the other. Even their mother and brother cannot tell them apart. 

The narration is from Iris' point of view. She has a serious inferiority complex over her relationship with her sister, although to the reader Iris appears to be ever bit as beautiful, smart and likeable as her sister.  She loves her sister dearly, but does not feel that she can ever be as fabulous and adored as Summer. Unlike Summer however, she has a deep love for the sea, and is also an extremely good sailor, a talent and passion that she inherited from her father. 

There are however some weird family issues going on. Their father left the family some years ago, remarried and had a second family. By chance Iris found out after the father's death that his $100 million fortune would only go to the first of his children to have a child. So the race is on, and with the oldest child in the second family now in her mid teens, pressure is mounting on Iris and Summer to marry and breed. Not so easy for Iris whose own marriage has recently ended -naturally she sees this failure as her own fault - so she is doing all she can to help Summer. 

But nothing is easy or straightforward in this murky world of blended families and twin hood. I can't say anymore or too much will be revealed! This novel is so tightly woven, with very well drawn and developed characters, red herrings and clues so discreetly planted that you wonder how on earth did you miss that. And I bet you look sidewise at every set of twins you meet from now on.