This was one creepy, chilling story. A psychological thriller... a crime and ghost story combined. Or, better said, is there a crime and... is there a ghost? What happened exactly, who can be trusted and who did what exactly...Well written. 3.5 going to 4. Loved the Scottish surroundings, wild, uncontrolled, beautiful, threatening, all in one. Especially the behaviour of the kid (Lydie-loo or Kirstie-koo?) makes you feel you are in the middle of a creepy ghost story. Loved the simple black and white photos in the book, painting a picture of the atmosphere, great addition. I liked the to the point language, building tension exactly in the right way. Easy to read too. Behind the name of S.K. Tremayne there is said to be a well known British author, even Julian Barnes, J.K. Rowling and Ian McEwan are mentioned, best bets on journalist and writer Sean Thomas.The story:One year after one of their identical twin daughters, Lydia, dies in an accident, Angus and Sarah Moorcraft 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 identitythat she, in fact, is Lydiatheir world comes crashing down once again.As winter sets in, life on the island gets hard, windy and cold. Sarah is feeling isolated, and Kirstie (or is it Lydia?) is growing more disturbed. Sarah and Angus have started to mistrust each other. What happened exactly, was their daughters death an accident or.. When a violent storm leaves Sarah and her daughter stranded, Sarah finds herself tortured by the pastwhat really happened on that fateful day one of her daughters died?

You know those books you consider a "sure thing"? They're in a genre that's your sweet spot of book-liking; they get a lot of (recent-ish) 5 star reviews (including from your friends) that are sufficiently detailed you have confidence in their credibility. You've just finished a really demanding book and you're looking for a no-brainer, wonderful, "I can count on this to be a great read" experience for your next selection before you start another really demanding book? Yes, well. That was The Ice Twins for me, and it didn't work on any level. Hence, frustration and disappointment.I'll skip the basics of the tragedy and the "we don't know one twin from another" mystery. The Ice Twins presents two parents who are unappealing and seem to not talk to one another about a danged thing that matters, or even the mundane conversations that fill every marriage. Even when they argue, nothing significant gets on the table, including the truth, however they see it. The book is told in alternating perspectives, but with Sara's perspective providing more than 50% of the content. It's quite odd, quite early on in the book, when one discovers that Gus has had an extraordinary and key conversation with the remaining twin - and never told his wife a word of it. Not the theme, not its occurrence, not. a. word. That's the point where Tremayne lost me in terms of the authenticity of his characters. Assume a really lousy marriage with lots and lots of secrets. Okay? Yeah, not telling one's spouse about this event still doesn't ring true. It's just that "off" from human nature, even for psychopaths. The alternating perspectives allows Tremayne to tell instead of show, never a good thing. We're in the heads of both adult characters, and that's how we learn most of what we learn. There's also a significant part of The Ice Twins that's devoted to Kirstie/Lydia failing to interact successfully (understatement of the year) at her new school - the rejection, the loneliness, the shunning, the awful playground lost-ness. Realizing that we all bring our dirty lenses to our reading, I was absolutely baffled that these parents would continue to drop their child off at this school the second day, the third day, the -- don't bring her back for a week - fourth day. Gus and Sarah, as presented to the reader, wouldn't put their child through this. But they do, which removed all trace of likeability from either of them - for me, as a mother. The Ice Twins went off the rails for me at this point - even parents who don't speak to one another would immediately call off the school experiment and home school or do nothing until they figure out what's going on. Hell, they don't even know which daughter they're forcing to go through this. Okay, one of them knows, but enough about that. I couldn't feel anything for either of them from this point on. I did feel very sorry for their child, stuck with these parents. Pity for Kirstie/Lydia likely wasn't the primary emotion S.K. Tremayne - a pen name of Tom Knox, an author searching from genre to genre for the best-selling fit that will set him up for life, and concealing his gender none to subtly in the process - intended readers to experience. The ending is well-done and unexpected. By then I didn't care, though. I stayed up too late to finish this novel because I wanted to finish it, for all the wrong reasons.Writing this review, I've almost talked myself into a 1 star rating, but that would unfairly discount Tremayne's skill. I suspect he's capable of 4-star work, but his plot and characters were so inadequate in this novel that I doubt I'll explore another book of his to find out.

For my complete review visit my blog: FictionophileS.K.Tremaynes novel The Ice Twins exhibits a pervading sense of menace. Not the overt kind of menace where the protagonist is feeling threatened by harm, but the insidious kind born of a mixture of mistrust, suspicion, social isolation and self-doubt.The narrative contained many red herrings, with suspicion and doubt abounding. The story was told mostly from Sarahs point of view, but some passages were from Guss viewpoint. The atmosphere was creepy and the Moorcrofts predicament distressing.I was so invested in the story that I took my book everywhere I went and read during my coffee break and lunch at work. I appreciated the photographs contained within the novel as they brought the imagery into an even sharper focus. The Ice Twins was a genuine page-turner that held my interest from beginning to end.