Twisted River

Author/Guide: Siobhan MacDonald

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: Two families in crisis and a holiday house swap gone terribly wrong. The Twisted River is twisted indeed…

ISBN: 978-0143108436
Genre: Fiction, Psychological

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What you need to know before your trail

Kate and Mannix Stokes and their children live beside Curragower Falls in Limerick, Ireland, in a house they love but can barely afford. What her family needs, Kate decides, is a badly needed holiday. So she goes on a holiday swap website and finds a lovely Manhattan apartment – imagine staying here for a while and getting away from everything for a while.

The apartment, on the posh Upper West side, is owned by Oscar and his wife, Hazel who live there with their two children. they are just as keen to swap homes and enjoy the differences between the two countries and lifestyles. However one discovery is more than they bargained for.

Locations

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Travel Guide

Limerick

This lovely part of Ireland is the link between the two couples and the scene of the crime. Kate and Mannix Stokes live here and Hazel has links to the place so Hazel is keen to return there to show her son her Irish heritage. There’s a lot of heritage for her to return to such as King Johns Castle and Thomond park

Ireland is supposed to be the place where there are lego-like office blocks nearby and the buildings along the river were a curious melange of old and new. It was a view Kate had grown to love as much as she loved this hose with its upside down layout.

The scenery however is something she needs a change from and that Hazel will find healing with its golden glint of ripples over the falls and bicycles going past.

Manhattan

A very different atmosphere and arrival:

Welcome to Manhattan, he said once inside the airy lobby with its wood paneling and marble desks”

At first kate and her family can’t think why someone from here would want to exchange their home for one in Ireland. The house the lifestyle her is all fancy and young in appearance. Leafy streets with their numbered canopies, street artists with ghetto blasters performing in the street. Fireworks at Halloween. And a change from the Irish weather too.