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    The Accusation
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    The Accusation
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    The Accusation
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Accusation

    Written by Wendy James

    Narrated by Casey Withoos

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Somebody is lying.


    After eighteen-year-old Ellie Canning is found shivering and barely conscious on a country road, her bizarre story of kidnap and escape enthrals the nation. Who would do such a thing? And why?

    Local drama teacher Suzannah Wells, once a minor celebrity, is new to town. Suddenly she's in the spotlight again, accused of being the monster who drugged and bound a teenager in her basement. As stories about her past emerge, even those closest to her begin to doubt her innocence.

    And Ellie? The media can't get enough of her. She's a girl-power icon, a social-media star. But is she telling the truth?

    A powerful exploration of the fragility of trust and the loss of innocence, from the author of The Golden Child and The Mistake.

    PRAISE

    'James brilliantly takes this historical true crime and updates it to the internet age' Cameron Woodhead, Sydney Morning Herald

    'This satisfying novel perfectly captures our current world, saturated by social media, obsessed by beautiful victims and easily identified villains, and quick to judge and condemn ... This is a gripping novel with plenty of twists, underpinned by acute observations about society.' Good Reading magazine

    'The Accusation will grip you from page one ... Intelligent, suspenseful, and masterfully paced, with a killer twist in the tail, The Accusation is domestic noir at its best, perfect for fans of Adele Parks, Caroline Overington and Liane Moriarty' Better Reading

    'The Accusation is Australian crime writing at its best, showcasing the great talent of Australian women writers out there today. It deserves all the hype! A brilliant book, very highly recommended.' But Books are Better blog

    'The way the book was structured really gave it an inventive feel ... Highly recommended' Katrina Ferguson and Kathryn Ryan, Radio New Zealand

    PRAISE FOR THE GOLDEN CHILD

    'The novel is cleverly constructed, the characters are extremely well-drawn, the use of social media as a plot device is very sophisticated, and the resolution is a genuine surprise' Judges' report, Ned Kelly Crime Awards, 2017

    'This is domestic noir at its most intelligent and sharp' Sydney Morning Herald

    'It takes 48 hours to pulse through Wendy James' rollercoaster 21st century story about parenting' Australian Women's Weekly

    'an engaging and intimate read that will appeal to fans of Liane Moriarty and Jodi Picoult, with nods to Lionel Shriver and Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap . . . 4 Stars' Books & Publishing

    'This book is utterly brilliant' Nicola Moriarty'

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMay 20, 2019
    ISBN9781460790397
    Unavailable
    The Accusation
    Author

    Wendy James

    Wendy James is the celebrated author of eight novels, including the bestselling The Mistake and the compelling The Golden Child, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Ned Kelly Award for crime. Her debut novel, Out of the Silence, won the 2006 Ned Kelly Award for first crime novel, and was shortlisted for the Nita May Dobbie award for women's writing. Wendy works as an editor at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation and writes some of the sharpest and most topical domestic noir novels in the country.

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    Reviews for The Accusation

    4/5

    12 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

      Suzannah is the new caregiver for her mother, Mary who suffers from dementia as well as a drama teacher who is new to her area. At the same time a young girl, Ellie, goes missing and manages to escape her abductors - a middle-aged woman and her insane mother. Soon Suzannah is arrested due to the girl's accusations and a wealth of DNA evidence found on her property. Is she guilty of the unimaginable - kidnapping of a teenager?

      While the storyline was different from any other I had read I still did not feel drawn to the characters or care about them. It was interesting to watch the path the author went down to cover the plot twist, I just didn't feel attached to the story and only finished it for the sake of finishing it.
    • 5/5
      Middle aged Suzannah Wells, once the star of a soapie on Australian television, has come to a small country town in Victoria to teach drama at a local high school. She has bought an old house on the edge of town, bringing with her her elderly mother Mary who has dementia. She and her mother have few friends in the town, and her mother has a carer drop in three days a week while Suzannah is at work.But their relatively comfortable life is shattered when Ellie Canning tells the police that she has been imprisoned for three weeks in the cellar of Suzannah's house. Suzannah can't work out why Ellie is telling such patent lies. What does she hope to gain by it?The story results from a number of narrative sources: Suzannah herself, transcripts from interviews held with Ellie for a documentary series, and a friend of Suzannah's called Honor who eventually takes Ellie under her wing. The story begins in August 2018 when a local farmer finds Ellie in a derelict hut on his property, and continues into 2019.It was only when I was talking to a friend about the plot of this book, that she told me that it was very similar to that of a book that she had recently read. I researched the name of the author that she gave me, and I found there was indeed a connection. And then confirmation came at the beginning of Part Three. And then in an Author Note at the end came indeed the final confirmation of what my Google research had implied. I realised too that there had been a quite major hint in the body of the novel, but until my friend told me of the similarity, I hadn't realised the significance.But I'm not going to spoil the "story" for you - rather leaving it for you to discover for yourself.
    • 5/5
      The Accusation is author Wendy James’ contemporary take on the Canning Affair, an eighteenth-century criminal case that titillated the Victorian public, a compelling story of trust and betrayal, guilt and innocence. Susannah Wells, a high school drama teacher, has been living with her mother in the small rural community of Enfield Wash for a just a few months. It’s a quiet life, her mothers dementia driven outbursts aside, in contrast with the years she spent as a young starlet on a popular TV soap.Susannah, like the rest of the residents in Enfield Wash, expresses her shock when news breaks that a frail, bedraggled young woman has been found on the outskirts of town, claiming to have been abducted, drugged and chained to a bed for more than a month. When presented with the initial results of the police investigation, Ellie tearfully confirms the identity of her captors- Susannah Wells, and her mother, Mary.Susannah vehemently denies the accusation, but with her arrest, her friends, even her closest friend, her colleagues, the townspeople, and the public at large, judge her guilty. Only her lover, Chip, is willing to believe in Susannah’s innocence, but even his faith begins to waiver as seemingly irrefutable evidence against Susannah builds.If Susannah is innocent, why was evidence of Ellie’s ordeal found in her home? If Susannah is innocent, what possible motive could a stranger, especially a beautiful and bright young woman like Ellie, have to accuse her? If Susannah is innocent, who is guilty?I raced through The Accusation, utterly engrossed by the question of Susannah’s guilt or innocence. James skilfully keeps the reader guessing, even while probing the possibilities of truth and deceit.The story is structured in three parts, covering a period of about 12 months, for the most part progressing linearly, with the occasional slip backward and forward in time. Primarily the narrative unfolds from the perspectives of Susannah, and Honor, Ellie’s PR representative, with brief excerpts from a documentary produced about the case, after its resolution.Of particular interest is the way in which James explores the role of ‘spin’ and social media in contributing to Ellie’s new found celebrity status, and Susannah’s public vilification. It’s an all too real scenario that demonstrates how easily the public can be manipulated, and how easily truth is dismissed.The Accusation is provocative and gripping, a contemporary psychological thriller that should be moved to the top of your reading list.