The Ice Twins: A Novel

by S.K. Tremayne

Overview

In the tradition of The Girl on the Train comes the UK bestseller The Ice Twins, a terrifying psychological thriller with a twisting plot worthy of Gillian Flynn.

One of Sarah's daughters died. But can she be sure which one?

A year after one of their identical twin daughters, Lydia, dies in an accident, Angus and Sarah Moorcroft move to the tiny Scottish island Angus inherited from his grandmother, hoping to put together the pieces of their shattered lives.

But when their surviving daughter, Kirstie, claims they have mistaken her identity—that she, in fact, is Lydia—their world comes crashing down once again.

As winter encroaches, Angus is forced to travel away from the island for work, Sarah is feeling isolated, and Kirstie (or is it Lydia?) is growing more disturbed. When a violent storm leaves Sarah and her daughter stranded, they are forced to confront what really happened on that fateful day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455571024
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	02/28/2017
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	4.00(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

S. K. Tremayne is a bestselling novelist, award-winning travel writer, and regular contributor to newspapers and magazines around the world. The author has two daughters and lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/23/2015
The death of one of the twin daughters of Sarah and Angus Moorcroft jump-starts this superb tale from the pseudonymous Tremayne. A year after the tragedy, the once well-to-do Moorcroft family leaves London to live in a lighthouse on Eilean Torran, a remote Scottish island that Angus inherited from his grandmother. Angus’s fond memories of the island give way to harsh reality: the place, accessible only by boat, is nearly uninhabitable with rats, leaks, and mold. But the dilapidated building and the island’s eeriness pale next to the family’s deterioration. The surviving twin, seven-year-old Kirstie, insists she is Lydia, the child who fell to her death. The girls were monozygotic, or perfectly identical twins, but Sarah could tell them apart. Did the parents, whose fragile marriage continues to corrode, misidentify the deceased child? Tremayne effectively delivers a psychological gothic thriller with supernatural overtones while avoiding clichés. Grief’s debilitating effects on children and adults further elevate this gripping story. Agent: Jay Mandel, WME Entertainment. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"'The Ice Twins' is by turns a thriller, a mystery and a ghost story. Tremayne, the pseudonym for a London journalist and best-selling novelist, melds all these ingredients, coming up with enough twists, insights and chilly moments to make the story his - or her? - own and to keep a hungry reader savoring every spoonful. . . . A story set on an island known informally as Thunder deserves a thundering finish, which Tremayne deftly serves up, along with a touching coda that would play well on film."—Washington Post

"The family Moorcroft has taken up residence in a remote corner of Scotland not unlike The Shining's isolated Colorado mountains. It's a suitably eerie setting for the haunting incidents that transpire after one of the family's 6-year-old identical twins falls to her death."—O Magazine, "The Season's Best Mysteries and Thrillers"

"Will have you binge-reading to the end."—Redbook

"The death of one of the twin daughters of Sarah and Angus Moorcroft jump-starts this superb tale...Tremayne effectively delivers a psychological gothic thriller with supernatural overtones while avoiding clichés. Grief's debilitating effects on children and adults further elevate this gripping story."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"The chilling story of the death of one identical twin sister and the effect that it has on her family. . . . Filled with secrets and lies, this gripping psychological thriller will keep readers absorbed until the final page."—Library Journal

"Tremayne (a pseudonym) does a terrific job of building suspense until events reach their climax in the midst of a violent storm."—Library Journal

"Unbearably gripping and suspenseful."—Sophie Hannah, internationally bestselling author of The Wrong Mother and The Dead Lie Down

"Richly evocative and profoundly eerie, The Ice Twins is a mesmerizing story of grief, loss and betrayal set against a backdrop that's as beautiful as it is haunted, just like the tragic family at the story's center."—Kimberly McCreight, New York Times bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia

"The next Gone Girl . . . [An] eerie literary spine-chiller."—Sunday Times Travel Magazine (U.K.)

"With its creepy premise and bleak but beautiful settings, S. K. Tremayne has created a haunting, powerful thriller."—Paula Daly, author of Just What Kind of Mother Are You?

"Chilling and utterly compulsive . . . As the action plays out in the claustrophobic confines of the cold, creepy island, it builds to an incredibly tense and shiver inducing conclusion."—The Sunday Mirror (UK)

"Very eerie."—Marie Claire (UK)


"A tense psychological thriller that builds with every page."—The Sunday Post (UK)

"Stunning."—The Mail on Sunday (UK)

"Beautiful paced, teeming with psychological shivers, The Ice Twins is a notable debut."—The Times (UK)

"The Ice Twins has grip, pace and bags of atmosphere... It also has one of the cleverest endings of recent thrillers."—Sunday Times (UK)

"Strange and moving.... complex and dramatic... The advantages and hardships of island life are well depicted and the Gothic old is suitably creepy."—Sunday Herald (UK)

"A knife-sharp debut thriller . . . Gripping, sad and desperately poignant, this is a debut to die for."—The Daily Mail (UK)

"A well structured thriller with a high creep factor. . . . Spectacularly eerie and breathtakingly imaginative."—Toronto Star

From the Publisher

03/15/2015
British author Tremayne's first novel is the chilling story of the death of one identical twin sister and the effect that it has on her family. Angus and Sara Moorcroft and their surviving daughter, Kirstie, leave London for a cottage on a Scottish island that has been in Angus's family for centuries and that he hopes to eventually sell, having lost his job after the family's tragedy. Torran Island's isolation promises to give the Moorcrofts a chance to heal, and a new school for Kirstie is expected to help her adjust to the terrible loss of her sibling. However, things don't go as planned, and Sara is deeply disturbed by Kirstie's claims that she is actually her dead twin, Lydia, and the thought that perhaps she has misidentified her surviving daughter. Struggling with her concern for her daughter, her isolation and increasing doubts about her husband, Sara is tortured by the past and about what actually happened that fateful day when one of her children died. VERDICT Filled with secrets and lies, this gripping psychological thriller will keep readers absorbed until the final page. [See Prepub Alert, 11/24/14.]—Lisa O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg

Library Journal

2015-03-05
Still reeling from tragedy, the Moorcroft family leaves London for a remote Scottish island only to find their problems increase tenfold. Thirteen months earlier, one of Sarah and Angus' identical twin daughters, 6-year-old Lydia, died following a freak accident. Tremayne explores the circumstances of Lydia's death in retrospect as the novel alternates between Sarah's first-person perspective and less-effective third-person chapters focused on Angus. No longer the picture-perfect family, all of the Moorcrofts buckle under the strain of grief: Angus' increased drinking leads to a blowup at work and the subsequent loss of his job; Kirstie, Lydia's twin, is withdrawn and friendless; and Sarah is barely hanging on to her sanity. Then Kirstie tells Sarah something shocking and, for readers, requiring a healthy suspension of disbelief: "It was Kirstie that died. I'm Lydia." The revelation causes Sarah—she doesn't share Kirstie's secret with Angus—to re-evaluate everything she thought she knew about the accident and its aftermath. Looking for a fresh start, Angus and Sarah decide to leave London and start anew in a dilapidated lighthouse cottage on Eilean Torrran, a tiny Scottish island accessible only by boat. This is wise only in that it furthers the increasingly audacious plot—for the characters' mental health, it's a terrible idea. Tremayne ably spins numerous variations of the which-twin-is-really-dead idea, playing into the inherent creepiness of wholly identical twins like Kirstie and Lydia, indistinguishable even on a DNA level.

Kirkus Reviews

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