Final Cut by S J Watson

Blackwood Bay. An ordinary place, home to ordinary people.

It used to be a buzzing seaside destination. But now, ravaged by the effects of dwindling tourism and economic downturn, it’s a ghost town – and the perfect place for film-maker Alex to shoot her new documentary.

But the community is deeply suspicious of her intentions. After all, nothing exciting ever happens in Blackwood Bay – or does it?

Blackwood Bay. An ordinary place, home to an extraordinary secret.

S J Watson writes:

In writing Final Cut I wanted to move away slightly from the entirely domestic, urban and claustrophobic feel of Before I Go To Sleep and open the story world a little. I’m returning to my preoccupations of memory, narrative and identity, though bringing a fresh spin and new maturity to them.

The story follows a young ambitious documentary film maker whose first film was lauded and her second less so, and who is struggling with her third film. She hits on the idea of making a film about life in a small, northern village and is persuaded, against her better judgement and for reasons unknown, to film in Blackwood Bay.

Once there she discovers a town shrouded in mystery and full of secrets, that threaten to engulf and ultimately destroy her. She has to dig deep to save herself, as well as the lives of others. In researching the book, I was drawn to the idea of the way we document our lives now, on Instagram and Twitter etc., and the downsides of that, as well as the darkness that can hide in plain sight and the abuses that people can visit on their fellow humans.

The sad fact is I had to tone down some of the horrific atrocities I read about, or else the book would’ve been too dark, even for me.

About the Author:

S. J. Watson’s first novel, Before I Go To Sleep, became a phenomenal international success and has now sold over 6,000,000 copies world- wide. It won the Crime Writers’ Association Award for Best Debut Novel and the Galaxy National Book Award for Crime Thriller of the Year. The film of the book, starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and Mark Strong, and directed by Rowan Joffe, was released in September 2014.

S. J. Watson’s second novel, Second Life, a psychological thriller, was published to acclaim in 2015.

S. J. Watson was born in the Midlands and now lives in London.

Review

I loved this book. It was chilling, scary, suspenseful, full of twists and turns and captivated me from the first page.

This was a very easy book for me to visualise as it was set just up the road from where I grew up. Blackwood Bay was obviously influenced by Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire a place I have visited all throughout my childhood and numerous school trips. The descriptions matched and it’s a great place to set a book like this. See the below picture of Robin Hood’s Bay typical street for an idea of how it looks!

The plot of this book really resonated with me as being authentic and horrifying at the same time. I can’t really say too much as otherwise we will enter the realm of spoilercity but let’s just say there is a lot of issues hiding in this wee village. What I will say is that S J Watson has handles the issue of mental health, especially a certain disorder with empathy and understanding. I have a family member with this condition and some of the actions of that character were certainly on point.

I flew through this book and I don’t hesitate to recommend it to people!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review!