Forty years ago Frances Ashley wrote Kitty the book that would propel Frances, and eventually her daughter Megan, into the public eye for decades to come. In Kitty a young girl murders her best friend and wrecks havoc on the lives of those around her at the hotel her parents own on a Southern island. Kitty is a cult classic inspiring the Kitty-cult, obsessed fans who visit the real world locations from the novel, since the novel is loosely (we think) based on the truth.
Megan has never felt close to her mother and Frances’s recent actions put even more distance between the two. When the idea to write her own book, what life was like growing up as the daughter of Frances Ashley as well as to research the real story behind Kitty, oddly enough a book Megan has never read, she embraces the idea. Revisiting the island her mother worked at as a hotel maid while writing her breakout novel Megan is a guest of Dorothy Kitchens, the real life inspiration many assume for Kitty. During her stay, digging into the secrets of the past, Megan uncovers information that makes her look at her relationship with her mother, her sense of identity and the long ago murder in a new light. Will Megan finally discover who killed the young girl all those years ago? And will the murderer strike again to keep their secret safe?
At the heart this is a book about identity. What groups we identify with, how we envision our place in the world, who we choose to align ourselves with and why. Megan has lived a sheltered life, and she’s self aware enough to know it, but her investigations into her own life through her mother’s past brings her face to face with herself and how she chooses to identify herself.
Fans of psychological thrillers will find a lot to enjoy here; a great choice both on audio and in print -- I went back and forth between the two to see what would happen next!
