"Daisy Darker" by Alice Feeney

An audio book.

The book begins with the agent saying the manuscript was hand delivered.

Daisy (her 1st person PoV), born 1975 with congenital heart problems (dying at least 4 times, and several operations), has sisters Rose and Lily. Their parents have divorced. All have financial problems. Daisy's grandma grew rich having written "Daisy Darker's Little Secret" - a children's book. Her grandma thinks she won't live to 81, and has invited them all to her Cornwall house (on a peninsula that becomes an island at high tide) for her 80th birthday in 2004.

There was an event that still causes friction between Daisy and the others. Father likes music. Mother wanted to be an actress. Rose has built up a vet practice. Lily (mother's favourite) had a child, Trixy, when young and has never worked.

Connor (a BBC crime correspondent) arrives by rowing boat. He's known the family since he was 9. Gran saved him from his abusive, widowered father Bradley. She also saved the father from an overdose. Bradley (reformed, an NT gardener) later became Nancy's partner for a while.

Gran reads her will - mirrors for Lily so she can see what she's become; art materials for Rose; Daisy with money for charities of her choice. Trixy gets everything else. Daisy shares a room with Connor. Her parents are discovered sleeping in the same bed. She sees Connor in the night looking at poems on his laptop. At midnight the 80 clocks in the hall chime and there's a scream. Gran is dead. A head wound? Fallen off a chair? She has the Daisy book on her hand, and chalk. There's a chalked ryme on the wall, nasty to the family, saying that they spend their final hours together. The boat disappears. The body disppears. There's a VHS to watch.

Near halfway through we learn that Lilly is a diabetic needing insulin twice a day. Her kit is found, but with drugs missing. Father is found dead, his baton tied to him. Poisoned? Maybe it was a suicide - guilt about killing the grandmother? A B key is missing from the piano. Trixy was supposedly asleep in the window seat (they'd put a sleeping pill in her tea), but she's gone.

There are flashbacks of family life - father returning with presents etc. Often these are provoked by video tapes left in a room. The first has "WATCH ME" on it. The second has "READ ME". Then "HEAR ME", then "NOTICE ME" There's some attempt to add emotional depth - family dynamics from the past, etc - but the reactions to the deaths might be from an Agatha Christie piece.

The poems have been changed, their premonitions becoming true. Connor had chalk on his jeans.

Gran said she'd started an honest book about the family. Bradley said he'd started a book about grief.

Dad's body disappears. Nancy goes missing. Dad's and Nan's bodies are found in a cupboard under the stairs. Trixy's there too, a puncture beween toes. Insulin? Rose finds an antidote. Rose has brought a gun. Nancy's found dead outside. On the 4th tape there's a birthday of gran's where her trusted agent is present. The gun's lost.

Another flashblack - Rose and Connnor are good friends, but Rose is soon off to Cambridge so Lily flirts with him. Daisy (13?) sees Lily and Connor have sex.

We learn the Connor is Trixy's father - a possibility Daisy hasn't considered. Connor's father disappeared - suicide it's assumed - when Connor was 18.

Connor falls down the stairs and dies. Rose is shot by Trixy. Trixy reminds Daisy she's been dead for years (which is why people ignored her). She's only seen by Trixy (who has the same heart condition as Daisy) and people who are about to die. Connor ran her over when he was drunk and without a license. His father thought he's killed her and killed himself.

Gran's not dead after all. She and Trixy worked together to get rid of their ghastly family. Gran poisons herself so she can see Daisy - "everything I did tonight I did for you"

Daisy can move scrabble letters, so she writes a book - the one that the agent was so surprised to get at the start.

I thought the plot was weak in places, but the final twist explains things. I think the start's rather slow at the same.