Helen (@HelenByles):
After I’d finished reading this book I started to worry that whatever I wrote for this review wouldn’t do the book justice.
I started to worry I won’t be able to find the words needed.
So maybe it’s best to start with the cover, a cover that lovers of spooky books will love.
It is so eye-catching with the pink and purple that you won’t be able to stop yourself grabbing it off the shelves. So that’s the easy part of the review written. Janine Beacham was also a new author to me so I was pretty excited.
It was time to go in….
Una Wexford is thrilled to be adopted after the great war, but an eerie secret lurks in her new home – a life sized animated copy of herself. Is ‘Ani’ as innocent as she seems or does she want to steal Una’s new family – and her life?
What an amazing set of main characters. Una and Ani were very intriguing and they took some figuring out, but as you got more into the story Una’s adopted parents Mother and Father piqued my interest. I kind of got more intrigued by then and started to wonder what was going on. And what a twist which to be honest I never saw coming. But all the clues were there and slowly everything began to add up.
I liked the character of Mary as Una’s best friend but would like to have seen more of her in the book, and that ending that came out of nowhere but I was happy with the conclusion, though I do feel there could be more adventures for Ani and Una left to come.The story is action packed with a good pace.It was interesting that the main character was an orphan. And we got to see a different side of life.
This is definitely going to be one of my books of 2024.
Sam (@SamJDThomas):
This book is just incredible, and is one of those books that you will remember long after finishing it, and reflecting back on to others for years to come too. We meet Una in the orphanage she has become resigned to never leaving. Losing her dad to the great war and her mum to influenza, Una no longer dwells in the familiar surroundings of the Lighthouse she has known all her life, helping keeping it operational and ensuring the safety of passing ships as a result. Una longs for the smells and sounds of the ocean, and to put the many skills she has acquired during her time in her childhood home, and when a couple arrive at the Orphanage intent on her going home with them it seems her luck is about to change. No longer Una the Unwanted, she has become Una the Loved.
The house she goes back with Mr and Mrs Smith to, Copperlins is its name, is perfect in Una’s eyes. It is located beside the sea that is knows so well, and she is afforded her own bedroom. It may be cold inside but the love she feels from her new ‘mother and father’ compensates for that. It definitely becomes apparent that Una is willing to compromise on much if the result is staying at Copperlins, and not being returned to the awful orphanage. Before she left that dreadful place she was warned about her new abode by a young boy, seemingly able to foretell upcoming horrific events. This is the first time I felt a prickling of goose bumps, and anticipated this being a suspenseful spooky read, and I am delighted to say I got that tone correct. The extent of the unfolding events was not something I could have ever imagined. Utterly fantastic, chapter after chapter.
Una realises there is more to the house she now calls home and begins investigating and exploring the top floor of the house where unused rooms lie. Mrs Smith had deterred Una doing so sooner by explaining they do not go up to the second storey of the house, but sounds that disturb Una’s sleep on a near nightly basis are enticing her up there. What she finds however is not rodents or an open window with wind blowing through and moving things as a result, Una finds herself face to face with a doll…one that looks identical to her! If that wasn’t creepy enough then the doll moving…and then speaking…definitely is! Wow! The plot of this book captivated me, and I became so invested in finding out the intentions of Ani, the doll twin, and Mr and Mrs Smith. There were so many ways in which this story could have gone given how strongly author Janine Beacham had laid the groundwork and getting readers so enraptured by the mixture of childhood innocence and dark intentions, and none of them would have done the justice Una, and in turn Ani, deserved like the way this book’s ultimate conclusion, pulling together all the cleverly weaved threads that flow through the book and tying a nice neat bow.
Una makes a friend at the local school, Mary, and this is who the letter at the beginning of the book is addressed to from Una, a comforting detail that I would recollect when my concerns for Una’s welfare reached their peak, and Mary visits Una at home on just one occasion, ending with a hasty exit during the night back to the safety of her own home. Mary has been a truly loyal friend to Una from the offset, not even doubting the friendship when everyone else in their town of Knifely Stifling snubs Una for being the child from the weird house they all fear. Mary cares greatly for Una, echoing the feelings of the reader, and when Mary warns Una to be careful around Ani, and not to trust her so freely, it is like she is reading your mind and telling Una what you would if you had the chance. Una and Mary remaining close despite everything ultimately plays a pivotal part in a future for Una that is safe and includes her being wanted and cherished by someone in a genuine sense, and readers will welcome knowing what comes of Ani, and Mr and Mrs Smith too. Nothing is as it seems in this book, and when things are revealed as the story grows and grows it adds another diamond to Janine Beacham’s tiara, for nobody can write this level of spooky and suspenseful story quite like she has, and this is award winning content in the making.
I can see this being a standalone title, and it is powerful enough to have earnt that right, but it would definitely be a highlight of reading and reviewing children’s books if there was a sequel to this book in due course. Readers would delight in the knowledge of returning to these incredibly brave, fearless in fact, young girls, and the struggles they face in order to survive. Ani has been struggling in the shadows she has been ordered to stick to in order to ensure she is safe, confined to a room on the top floor of Copperlins, and longs to see and feel the world outside of that house, and her struggles mirror Una’s with her confinement to the orphanage, longing have given up the hope of rescue by a loving family, so when the pair unite and take each others welfare to heart it seems fitting that Ani looks identical to Una, her doll twin.
- The Doll Twin by Janine Beacham is published by Firefly Press and available to purchase from all good booksellers now. You can find further reviews and insight by checking out the rest of the blog tour, via information on the banner below, which is spread across Instagram and Twitter.
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