Dear Hanna, a review by Joanna

After being sent away to a residential treatment centre for disturbed children by her broken and terrified parents, and learning how to function in a socially acceptable way, at least outwardly, Hanna is now grown up. Having found a kind widower to marry and provide the lifestyle she wants, she’s comfortable with her work as a phlebotomist, her art projects and her relationship with his teenaged daughter Joelle. Then Jo makes an announcement which threatens everything, and Hanna reverts to thoughts of murder as the best solution…

This had a great premise – I was curious to see how the voluntarily mute 7 year old from Baby Teeth would behave as an adult wife and stepmother, but unfortunately it took so long for anything to happen that I was just bored for most of it. Unlike the first book, where we also got her mother Suzette’s perspective, this is all told from Hanna’s third person point of view and in a series of letters between Hanna and her younger brother Goose. You know that the relationship is not a normal sibling one when he cheerfully encourages her murderous impulses, and the main suspense centres on whether she will go ahead with it or not. I was disappointed by the ending which was a bit of a damp squib, and was unsurprised by the twist. If you loved Baby Teeth, you may yet enjoy this more than I did, but if you haven’t read it and like dark psychological suspense, read it instead of this. Apart from it being a better book, reading this one first would spoil the suspense and twists, such as they are, of the first book. On the other hand, it would make it easier to read, by reducing the uncomfortable sense of dread that accompanies it when you don’t know how things will turn out – but that was what made it so good!
Thanks to Thomas & Mercer for the ARC.