I Know My Name by C.J. Cooke

I Know My Name by C.J. Cooke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Komméno Island, Greece: I don't know where I am, who I am. Help me.

A woman is washed up on a remote Greek island with no recollection of who she is or how she got there.

Potter’s Lane, Twickenham, London: Eloïse 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, with no signs of foul play. Every clue the police turn up means someone has told a lie…

Does a husband ever truly know his wife? Or a wife know her husband? Why is Eloïse missing? Why did she forget?

The truth is found in these pages…

This is one of those novels that is not what it seems initially. On the surface you have a mystery of how a woman ends up on a beach in Greece with no recollection of how she got there and no memory of who she is. After a storm wrecks her boat she is washed up on the beach and found by a group of writers who have come to the island (which is apart from them uninhabited) to find themselves in their writing. The group seem to want to help Eloise or at least some of them appear to.

Back in England Lochlan Shelly's neighbour calls him at work to say that his wife is missing and his two children Max and Cressida who should have been at home with her were in fact found alone in the house by the neighbour. The story then slowly unfolds told from the perspective of Eloise and Lochlan interspersed with occasional chapters being told by Gerda and Magnus (Eloise grandparents) and a couple that give some insight into Eloise childhood. Each perspective is crafted well, Eloise battling her amnesia and her desperately anxious desire to piece together how she got to the island of Kommena and the driving force to get home wherever that may be coupled with her unease with the people who have found her on the beach. Lochlan's perspective shows the confusion and desperation of not knowing what has happened to his wife and exposes his insecurities and betrayals.

Beautifully descriptive in parts and good characterisation propels this forward; to say anything more really would give away the essence of this novel and possibly spoil it - it does become apparent what is going on but really not until right at the end. Very enjoyable novel and deserves 4 stars.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.