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A review by paulabrandon
The Fire Child by S.K. Tremayne
2.0
Rachel, clearly never having read Rebecca or the 400,000 other similar thrillers on the shelf these days, marries David, a man she's only known for a couple of months, and heads back to his castle estate overlooking several mines, where he lives with his son, Jamie. Both are haunted by the death of David's first wife, Nina - and soon Rachel is too. Jamie is making weird predictions that come true, and Rachel wonders about the true nature of Nina's death.
This gets two stars by virtue of the fact that for a large part of it, I was truly in the dark as to where it was headed! Unfortunately, I was dreaming up far more intricate scenarios than what is finally delivered at the end, that's for sure! My beefs (and they're big ones) contain spoilers!
Apparently she lied about being raped by her father to explain away her pregnancy, as her father had indeed raped her as a child, so she knew the lie would be believed. However, it turns out she knew all along that she was acting as a surrogate, so what exactly did she have to hide?!? Surrogacy isn't exactly some deep, dark, shameful secret from the 1960s. For Christ's sake, there's been TV movies about it since the 1990s!!! And I love those TV movies, by the way. But, in any case, there was no need for her to lie in the first place!
It's put to us that Rachel was suffering postpartum depression and imagining seeing Nina and smelling her perfume, and her own psychosis was feeding Jamie's. Except David's mother smelt the perfume as well, so what the fuck was going on there?!? Excuse my language. Also, apparently all the times that Jamie saw Nina, he was actually seeing Rachel, because Rachel looked a little bit like Nina and was, in fact, Jamie's birth mother.
Yes, you heard that right. The baby that Rachel gave birth to - which she knew was to be given to a rich, childless couple - is Jamie. She was told the baby was a girl and died, and just never bothered to inquire, even once, about what was going on. Of course. This is probably why she ended up marrying an abusive jerk in the first place, as she clearly has very little brains. In any case, why couldn't that little shit Jamie just say that Rachel reminded him so much of his precious first mummy? Ugh, my head hurts just thinking about it.
So there you have it. All of Rachel's fears that she was being stalked by either Jamie and his weird predictions or first dead wife Nina were simply because she was suffering postpartum depression. Except it wasn't postpartum depression because she hadn't even given fucking birth yet. Whatever. It's a cheap, lazy trick to try and cover up the fact Tremayne's plot made zero sense. It also contributes to that tiresome trope that "crazy" equals "dangerous". As a society, we're trying to overcome hurtful casual ableism such as that, and trash like this does that movement no service.
So, while I thought those first two thirds were really quite impressive, I was massively let down by that lousy outcome, which was just bitterly, bitterly lazy, cheap, stupid, offensive and disappointing!
This gets two stars by virtue of the fact that for a large part of it, I was truly in the dark as to where it was headed! Unfortunately, I was dreaming up far more intricate scenarios than what is finally delivered at the end, that's for sure! My beefs (and they're big ones) contain spoilers!
Spoiler
What do you do when you've written yourself into a corner and can't think of a way to explain everything that's happened? You make your main character "crazy", of course! It made my blood boil. All the things don't add up is apparently explained away by the fact that Rachel had postpartum (post-natal) depression. Except, even the book itself says her type of psychosis generally only happens after the baby is born, so that explanation was pretty much full of shit as well!Apparently she lied about being raped by her father to explain away her pregnancy, as her father had indeed raped her as a child, so she knew the lie would be believed. However, it turns out she knew all along that she was acting as a surrogate, so what exactly did she have to hide?!? Surrogacy isn't exactly some deep, dark, shameful secret from the 1960s. For Christ's sake, there's been TV movies about it since the 1990s!!! And I love those TV movies, by the way. But, in any case, there was no need for her to lie in the first place!
It's put to us that Rachel was suffering postpartum depression and imagining seeing Nina and smelling her perfume, and her own psychosis was feeding Jamie's. Except David's mother smelt the perfume as well, so what the fuck was going on there?!? Excuse my language. Also, apparently all the times that Jamie saw Nina, he was actually seeing Rachel, because Rachel looked a little bit like Nina and was, in fact, Jamie's birth mother.
Yes, you heard that right. The baby that Rachel gave birth to - which she knew was to be given to a rich, childless couple - is Jamie. She was told the baby was a girl and died, and just never bothered to inquire, even once, about what was going on. Of course. This is probably why she ended up marrying an abusive jerk in the first place, as she clearly has very little brains. In any case, why couldn't that little shit Jamie just say that Rachel reminded him so much of his precious first mummy? Ugh, my head hurts just thinking about it.
So there you have it. All of Rachel's fears that she was being stalked by either Jamie and his weird predictions or first dead wife Nina were simply because she was suffering postpartum depression. Except it wasn't postpartum depression because she hadn't even given fucking birth yet. Whatever. It's a cheap, lazy trick to try and cover up the fact Tremayne's plot made zero sense. It also contributes to that tiresome trope that "crazy" equals "dangerous". As a society, we're trying to overcome hurtful casual ableism such as that, and trash like this does that movement no service.
So, while I thought those first two thirds were really quite impressive, I was massively let down by that lousy outcome, which was just bitterly, bitterly lazy, cheap, stupid, offensive and disappointing!