The Pupil

Our Review

The Pupil by Dawn Goodwin was not quite what I expected it to be, for starters the blurb implies that the book is written from the point of view of Viola when in fact readers mostly experience things from the point of view of Katherine. Despite this I enjoyed reading it as it was full of suspense.

Literary agent Viola is certain she's met Katherine Baxter before, so when her husband, bestselling novelist Samuel Morton, introduces Viola to the woman he has offered to mentor, she knows their paths have crossed before. The question is where?

As the bond between Samuel and Katherine deepens, Viola realises she must take control.  If Viola is right, then Katherine needs to pay for something that happened twelve years ago.

The Pupil begins with Katherine waiting to go to the last day of a creative writing course and anticipating her return to the drudgery of her daily life.

“This is it Katherine. One more day then it’s back to reality tomorrow.”

The course is taught by bestselling crime novelist Samuel Morton who’s on break came with the help of his wife Viola Matthews whose dad was a giant in the publishing industry. Sam has given Katherine and the others valuable insights into the writing process.

“Writers are selfish creatures. We take our inspiration from everyone and everything around us without permission…We are always observing, taking notes in our head, wondering if the scene playing out before us can be used and manipulated into plugging that gaping plot hole. We are predators, stalking the lives of others, using and abusing, bending and shaping at will.”

After the class Sam mentions to Katherine that he found her writing promising and would be interested in helping her to get it published.

Initially Katherine is over the moon, but she soon comes back to reality with a thud when she mentions it to her husband who mentions that he probably wants money from her in return and that he is unsure she can cope with it.

We learn that Paul had only agreed to her taking the course on the condition that she could fit it around their children’s schedule.

“I had never given him reason to think I could be successful at anything other than being a mother…I played the part of the subservient housewife pretty well too.”

I took an immediate dislike to Paul. Initially he seemed to be just dismissive of Katherine and a little bit selfish but as the book progressed it became easier to see that he was exerting a form of control over Katherine to make sure she fit into the neat little hole he had assigned for her.

In fact, this seemed to be a theme with the closest people in her life. Her best friend Helen reluctantly helps to keep it secret from Paul when she continues to see Sam to work on her manuscript but makes it clear that she thinks Katherine is wasting her time.

Even Katherine’s mum repeatedly emphasises how unlikely it is that she will succeed in getting published.

During the course of her meetings with Sam Katherine is introduced to Viola. Viola shows interest in helping her but despite her warm words is curiously cold towards her and we soon learn that Viola believes she knows her and has cause to want to cause her pain.

It isn’t long before Katherine begins to receive anonymous notes from someone who claims to know what she has done in the past and letting her know she is being watched. She doesn’t realise how much danger she is in.

I struggled with The Pupil at times, torn between being absorbed by the story and beginning to be a bit bored. I am not sure how much of this was to do with how little free time I had to read it though, so I didn’t get chance to read it in big chunks of time I just had to read the odd chapter here and there. This disjointed manner of reading might have contributed to how I felt about it.

Having said this, I would recommend reading The Pupil as the plot is a good one.

 

Our Final Rating...

Sat, 21st July 2018