Synopsis:
Kommno Island, Greece. I don’t know where I am or who I am. Help me.
A woman washes up on a remote Greek island with no recollection of who she is or how she got there.
Worse, she has no way of leaving. As she’s nursed back to health by the island’s only inhabitants, four friends on an annual retreat, she detects tensions between the group that suggest not all is quite as it seems. Her new acquaintances each appear to be hiding something. And it may relate to the mystery of her identity.
Potter’s Lane, Twickenham, London. Eloise Shelley is officially missing.
Lochlan’s wife has vanished into thin air, leaving their toddler and twelve-week-old baby alone. Her money, car, and passport are all in the house. There are no signs of foul play. Every clue the police turns up means someone has lied.
Her husband, Lochlan, is desperate to find her. But as the police investigation proceeds, it becomes clear that Lochlan and Eloise’s marriage was not as perfect a union as it appeared.
As Lochlan races to discover his wife’s whereabouts, Eloise conducts her own investigation. What both discover will place lives at risk and upend everything they thought they knew about their marriage, their past, and what lies in store for the future.
Does a husband ever truly know his wife? Or a wife know her husband? Why is Eloise missing? Why did she forget?
Review:
Author C.J. Cooke (also known as Carolyn Jess-Cooke) grew up in Ireland and began writing at the tender age of seven, pounding out manuscripts on her grandparents’ old typewriter. she went on to earn a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Queen’s University in Belfast, and enjoyed a career in academia, lecturing on Film Studies at the University of Sunderland. Before launching her career as a novelist, she published four academic works on Shakespearean films and movie sequels. Since publishing her debut novel, The Guardian Angel’s Journal, in 2011, she has won numerous awards. She now serves as a Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow, and researches how creative writing can help with trauma and mental health, and serves as the founder and director of the Stay-at-Home! Literary Festival, which is dedicated to providing people with accessible, inclusive, and eco-friendly ways to access literature. Her work remains focused on trauma, motherhood, loss, and social justice. Herself a mother to four children, she resides in Glasgow, Scotland.
I Know My Name is an impressive thriller in which she employs two narrators. Eloise describes her ordeal on the small Greek island where she suddenly finds herself with absolutely no memories of how she got there or the life she left behind. Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, her husband, Lochlan, describes her sudden disappearance, his frantic attempts to discover her whereabouts, and learn why she suddenly abandoned their home and young children. He also details his dealings with Eloise’s grandparents who raised her.
But Lochlan also divulges secrets he kept from Eloise. And reveals that their marriage was strained. Those stressors may or may not have contributed to Eloise’s departure. As Eloise struggles to remember who she is, bits and pieces of her memory gradually return to her. She soon she’s also fighting to survive.
Cooke deftly accelerates the pace of the two narratives, chapter by tense chapter, until eventually merge. At that point, answers about what transpired and why are revealed. But new, pressing questions about the future emerge.
Consistent with Cooke’s ongoing work, I Know My Name is dark and atmospheric, and Eloise is a fascinating and memorable protagonist. Cooke maintains the suspense right up to the conclusion, exploring the story’s disturbing themes through her characters’ narratives.
With I Know My Name, Cooke has constructed a taut, evenly-paced, and very clever thriller. It is replete with plot twists, turns, and surprises. And she expertly constructs the tale in a manner that leads to an emotionally satisfying and thought-provoking conclusion.
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