Yesterday by Felicia Yap

Summer is the time when we all tend to relax with a good book, well I am now going to let you in advance of a book that is hitting the bookshops in a few weeks’ time that is going to be THE thriller of the summer. Those that follow my Twitter feed will know that I have been talking of the stunning debut thriller Yesterday by Felicia Yap. This is a name that you will be hearing a lot more about.

The premise for this book is ‘How do you solve a murder when you can only remember yesterday’ and this is where the title of the novel comes from. This is a future world with two types of people, Mono’s those that can only remember yesterday and the more elite group of people called Duos who can also remember the day before yesterday. I world were iDiaries are the must have for everyone as this is the only way of knowing what you have been doing on a daily basis, just imagine every night before bed if you were a responsible adult you completed your iDiary filling in your day’s activities. Welcome to a dystopian mystery that is just brilliantly written with such unique characters unlike any I have come across in a thriller.

In this engrossing novel we have two central characters in Claire who is a mono (can only remember yesterday) and is married to Mark a Duo (remembering two days). This is a couple with their own personal marital problems which are all too plain to see from the opening pages. Then a young beautiful woman is found dead in the River Cam she has been murdered and the detective is standing on the doorstep of Claire and Marks home. It appears that on the dead woman’s I Diary she claims that she is Mark’s mistress and now Mark is the prime suspect in her murder. So we go back to the premise of the novel in ‘How do you solve a murder when you can only remember yesterday.’

We now find Claire trying to piece together the days leading up to the murder of the young woman and the story is told from the perspective of all four of the leading characters and a story so well thought out and told, an incredibly well balanced debut thriller based in a future world were memory really is short term. There are many twists in the story to keep you on your toes and some you will not expect.

Great characters are important to me in novels and in Yesterday Felicia Yap has created some very strong characters that make this an unforgettable book and one that you will not forget easily. I was lucky enough to meet Felicia Yap earlier this year at a get together at the publishers and learnt more of the story from her directly. One of my major books of 2017 and one I know many people are going to be reading on the beaches through this summer. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

432 Pages.

Thank you to Millie Seaward for the advanced review copy.

Yesterday by Felicia Yap is published by Wildfire on 10^th August and is available to pre-order through Waterstones, Amazon and all good bookshops.