Him is a story of obsession, love and guilt.  It's dark and uncomfortable and a great debut from Clare Empson.  Told through the two main characters, Catherine who is currently residing in a hospital in a state of elective mutism and Lucian, Catherine's first and only true love.

Something horrific has happened to Catherine to cause her to shut down entirely, unable to communicate with her husband and 2 children and in order to help her she has to delve deep in to her past to find a way back to her family.

Told through Catherine's point of view in the present and flashbacks 15 years ago when she first meet Lucian and then  to 4 months prior to the trauma, HIM has an underlying theme of an all consuming passion and obsession between the two main characters.  Throughout the book the reader is aware that something awful has happened but it isn't revealed until much later in the story.

This book has all the ingredients for a dark, psychological thriller - intrigue, suspense, trauma, obsession, lies, guilt and shame.  An impressive debut and I look forward to reading more from this author.

I’ve heard so much hype about this on Twitter, so was excited to read this. However ultimately I found this slow moving, predictable with very generic, contrived, selfish, unlikeable posh characters that recycles Bridehead Revisited like a lot of contemporary novels these days. I found the selective mutism aspect of the story gimmicky, and the ending was so anticlimactic and convenient. Also this isn’t quite a thriller either, it’s more of a love story gone wrong.

I was given an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is another woman’s fiction melodrama incorrectly marketed as a psychological thriller. It’s not even that bad of a book for the genre, but that’s not the genre I want to read. There really isn’t that much in the way of thrills or even psychology. Just a very very maudlin collection of overly-dramatic relationships.