Who Did You Tell? by Lesley Kara is a combo: mystery/thriller and grief/recovery guide. The main character, Astrid, has moved home with her (helicopter) mother and is trying not to drink, being sober for over six months. And it’s a struggle: as she puts it, “If I have to come home and sit in this dreary little cottage night after night without drinking, my head will explode.” She’s going to 12-step meetings, but isn’t really working the steps. She doesn’t believe in God, so she’s stuck at that second step, the one about the Higher Power. And she’s mourning the loss of her boyfriend Simon.
Her grief is over the death of her boyfriend Simon, who was her addiction partner. They were a mess: broke, drunk, and so desperate for money she vaguely recalls them robbing a mother out walking her toddler. The Simon got sober, got a new job and a new relationship. After a chance encounter with Astrid, all his hard work was gone. He started drinking again, and within a few weeks, he was dead.
At her 12-step meetings, she meets interesting people, and then one day, she meets Josh, and begins a new relationship of her own. She begins to feel like she is being stalked, and gets VERY edgy and paranoid…but maybe it’s justified? She keeps feeling pulled back her self-destructive ways.
So, this is pretty good as a mystery/thriller. And while it’s a good telling of a woman trying to live better , it is HEAVILY focused on the specifics of the struggle to recover from addiction. If the author isn’t a member of any 12-step program, she has a great imagination. If she is, I wonder if she is violating the whole anonymity thing with the level of detail she provides. Maybe that only applies to revealing specifics about actual people, and not the ins and outs (or ups and downs) of fictional characters. In any case, for me this worked better as a suspenseful novel than a grief/recovery guide, but it’s well plotted with characters whose struggles are well told. Thanks to Random House/Ballantine and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my review. Four stars.