The First Day of Spring: Discover the year’s most page-turning thriller

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I wasn’t able to put this book down, it burrowed deep under my skin, leaving me breathless and sad. I know this is a book of fiction, but Chrissie/Julia became real to me. The murder of the innocent little 2 year old was an act of absolute evil. Chrissie’s thoughts and behaviour were painful to read as a mother and as a human being. I listened to the Audiobook and I fully recommend you go this route if you enjoy audios. The narrator's tone and inflection and pauses are point on. Ann wrinkled her forehead and started to say, “Oh, I’m so—” but Mam interrupted. “You wanting to adopt a kid?” she asked. The beautiful woman nodded tightly while she took clean tissues from the box on Ann’s desk. Mam walked over very fast and pulled me up by the elbow so hard I spilled watery orange squash all over myself. She pushed me in front of her, toward the beautiful woman, and said, “This is Chrissie. She’s mine. But she’s being adopted. You can have her.” In the Julia sections of the book, Chrissie is barely holding it together, having grown up (for a huge portion of her life) in a child’s detention centre she was thrust into the world after her incarceration an “adult” in name only. Chrissie is used to having her whole world decided for her so when she is fending for herself she reverts to doing so in a childlike manner. Drinking litres of coke at all hours of the night until her teeth ache, eating whatever sweets she likes instead of real food and generally living a child’s life. year old Chrissie has, in fact, just killed a little boy, and it made her feel wonderful. While the townspeople are in an emotional uproar, wondering who could do something like that, Chrissie goes about her days flinging insults and treating her friends like utter crap. She loves to feel powerful. Knowledge is power, and she is the only with the knowledge of what she’s done...until others find out.

The First Day of Spring ‹ Literary Hub The First Day of Spring ‹ Literary Hub

year old Chrissie isn’t like most other kids, she’s mean, vicious, and extremely devious, and furthermore, she killed a little boy today! Such a heartbreaking and powerful psychological drama that will stay with me for a long time. I highly recommend. So that was all it took," I thought. "That was all it took for me to feel like I had all the power in the world. One morning, one moment, one yellow-haired boy. It wasn't so much after all."

The First Day of Spring

Firstly my thanks to Lisa Jewell for recommending this book and to Selina Walker for sending me an ARC copy.

The First Day of Spring: Discover the year’s most page

Twenty years later, adult Chrissie is living in hiding under a changed name. A single mother, all she wants is for her daughter to have the childhood she herself was denied. That's why the threatening phone calls are so terrifying. People are looking for them, the past is catching up, and Chrissie fears losing the only thing in this world she cares about, her child.Now she has a new secret. It gives her a fizzing, sherbet feeling in her belly. She doesn't get to feel power like this at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer. Everything is okay with both of us,” I said. “But you can’t speak to her. She’s busy. She’s working.” That's when the phone calls begin, which Julia is too afraid to answer, because it's clear the caller knows the truth about what happened all those years ago. A darkly dazzling debut, a harrowing story of neglect and cruelty written with a delicate touch and a big heart. As gripping as the tensest of thrillers and as moving and humane as the most intimate of memoirs, I loved this book." - Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of The Family Upstairs