Review: The Hidden Beach

When a book can make you forget you're sitting on the tarmac waiting for your delayed flight to take off, it's a good one. That happened to me when I started reading Karen Swan's latest novel, The Hidden Beach. I began reading while waiting for my flight home from London and it kept me company as the boarding time was delayed and then, eventually, as we waited on the plane to be cleared for take off. I legitimately do not know how long we were waiting for...an hour?...because Swan's novel had me so riveted. Definitely a good sign. A note: this flight was back on March 7, just before the world blew up and COVID-19 really started to affect North America. It caused some issues for me but my trip was great and my family and I are still healthy.

Here's the synopsis:

In the oldest part of Stockholm, Bell Everhurst is working as a nanny for an affluent family. Hanna and Max Von Greyerz are parents to 7 year-old Linus, and 5-year old twins Ellinor and Tilde, and Bell has been with the family for over two years.
One early Spring morning, as she’s rushing out to take the children to school, she answers the phone – and everything changes. A woman from a clinic she’s never heard of asks her to pass on the message that Hanna’s husband is awake.
Bell is confused. She clearly just saw Max walking out of the house a few minutes earlier, but the woman mentioned Hanna by name . . .
When she gets hold of her employer, the truth is revealed: Hanna’s first husband fell into a coma seven years earlier, following an accident. But now he’s awake. And life is going to change for them all.

Sounds pretty intense, doesn't it? The synopsis doesn't lie. The story IS intense. It actually got a lot darker than I anticipated but it worked. It exposed characters as being more grey than black and white, which is super realistic even though it's sometimes hard to read about characters who are less than perfect.

I've never been to Stockholm so I couldn't say if the way Swan wrote about it was accurate but I choose to believe it is. I know she travels to every place she writes about and does her research (even if she got some facts wrong about Canada in a book a few years ago...and apparently this Canadian can't let it go *shrugs*). The Stockholm she wrote about, especially the archipelago, was so swoonworthy. It sounded so idyllic and really fit the story Swan told.

The story is told mostly from Bell's perspective. There are a few parts that are told by a man in the past that shed a little bit of light on the current situation Bell and her employers find themselves in. I liked that Bell was the focus of the story or, rather, it was her perspective the reader viewed the story from. She was directly involved in the drama but she was also kind of an outsider. It was an interesting way to do it - and you eventually realize she's way more wrapped up in this family than any of them care to admit.

This is two back to back winners from Karen Swan. I really, really liked The Christmas Party (review here). Her books are hit and miss for me but I always want to try them out because when they're a winner, they're such great stories that you're completely immersed in. It's not that the others are misses, really, it's that the ones that are hits are SO good.

Karen Swan's latest novel, The Hidden Beach, clearly illustrates that humans are flawed. Familial and romantic relationships are really hard to navigate sometimes. The story is sweet and sad and you'll feel all the other emotions while reading it (including serious wanderlust, especially now) but it's worth the heartache.

*A copy of this novel was provided by the Canadian publisher, Publishers Group Canada, in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*