Close To Me: Now a major TV series

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Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. The story was told from Jo's point of view, and I enjoyed discovering what had happened over the year along with Jo. For all its adherence to the psychodrama/mystery genre, Close to Me is gratifyingly full of realistic grace notes.

Close To Me by Amanda Reynolds | Goodreads

Jo is having a few flashbacks though and although they seem to be rather erotic in nature, she has always been a faithful and loving wife……hasn’t she? I really loved how Amanda Reynolds has told this story - the before and after chapters are clear and easy to follow. Jo starts digging to uncover the truth, but the more she learns about her missing months, the more convinced she becomes that her family members aren’t the only ones keeping secrets. The six-part series – based on Amanda Reynolds’ 2017 book of the same name – follows her as she attempts to piece her life back together, and work out whether those closest to her are telling the truth. Wife and mother Jo Harding ( Gladiator's Connie Nielsen) has to recover a year’s worth of missing memories in Channel 4’s Close To Me following a fall down the stairs that left her with nasty bruises, a grisly head wound and amnesia.And as the plot progressed I actually came to like Jo and felt an empathy with her that came easier than I had thought it would.

Close To Me by Amanda Reynolds | Goodreads Close To Me by Amanda Reynolds | Goodreads

Chapters set in the present are interspersed with flashbacks, tension mounting as the storylines converge, but while Reynolds’ structure is elegant and her plotting is precise, the book’s interpersonal conflict feels soapy and manufactured. While the characters are not exactly likeable, they are compelling, and as different scenarios ran through my head I wasn't sure which way the story was going to go - and I love the fact that I was kept guessing! Jo's memory loss ensures that the reader is kept guessing about what really lead to the night of the accident along with Jo herself, with clues and suggestions coming in flashbacks. As the plot unfold in the days following her “accident” we also get glimpses of the life Jo was living leading up to it.

You get to know Jo almost as she gets to know herself and I found I really connected to her and could relate to some of what she is experiencing in the early days before her fall. In this very well executed debut thriller, Jo Harding wakes from a head injury with no memory of the past year.

Close to Me by Amanda Reynolds - Fantastic Fiction Close to Me by Amanda Reynolds - Fantastic Fiction

Are Jo’s sudden rages a sign of post-traumatic head-injury disinhibition, suppressed experience, or that she wasn’t as nice a person or a mother as she thinks she was?

Jo is having difficulties remembering the night she fell and what she does remember are bits and pieces she does know she keeps getting the feeling of fear towards her husband Rob and a relief every time he goes to work.