Meant to Be Me by Wendy Hudson

I was curious about Wendy Hudson’s latest novel, “Meant To Be Me,” after reading its blurb and excerpt, even though I’m not a fan of love triangles but the potential darkness in the story especially when there was a stalker (crikey!) lurking about quickly overshadowed my weariness about it. Plus, footprints in the snow always give me a sense of foreboding, which the book cover alluded me to. So naturally, I had to oblige by exploring just what kind of new twisty story Hudson had created in her mind and transferred into words this time! I have to say, Hudson’s forewarning was not inaccurate. Her approach to “Meant To Be Me” was definitely a little different than her previous work. But I’d say, if you take a step back and cast a wider lens angle to view its overall feel and tone, you’d find Hudson’s familiar signature and psychological theme in the genetic make-up of the story. At least, that was how I interpreted it when I finished the book and pondered its overall creation. Needless to say, this book ended up getting darker, more twisted (and alas, more aggro for me, too), as Hudson cranked up the madness, the angst and the dubious acts, before all the chips fell into place in the end. Although Ylva categorised this book as a “romantic suspense,” it was much more of a suspense than a romance, really. Even with the romance, I must say, it wasn’t tackled in its usual prose. Twisty. This story was comprised of three primary characters – Darcy, Anja and Eilidh – Darcy being the main one and the centre of Anja and Eilidh’s attention. Whereas Darcy and Anja had been best mates and worked together as engineers in an energy company, Anja being Darcy’s boss and all, Darcy and Eilidh were both strangers until their path crossed one early morning totally by chance. An accident, actually. Accident by coffee, to be precise. Within the first two chapters, Hudson managed to establish some basic brief on the trio. Then there was the issue of Darcy’s mystery stalker whom Hudson also quickly put out there in the beginning which I appreciated because the intrigue for me was the stalker plot above everything else, really, and how it’d affect the MCs. Apparently, the coppers knew about Darcy’s stalker ordeal as she’d reported it ever since it happened two years ago. But to date, no joy in the capture, for some reason! All Darcy could do was to keep a record of all the encounters with the stalker, i.e. anonymous phone calls, texts, gifts, etc.. I absolutely enjoyed reading the first act because of the fact that right off the bat, Hudson jumped right into constructing all the necessary steps in the setup that would lead to the identity of the stalker, ending up with a breathtakingly intense car chase scene, acutely exacerbated by the fact that it happened in the middle of the night, in the dead of snow, on slippery roads and the ominous black ice! The entire sequence was written and described with vivid fervour, the images jumped out of the pages like they were happening on-screen! And as if what happened at the end of the first act weren’t enough, Hudson immediately dragged me into another intense sequence in the beginning of the second act. It was an edge-of-your-seat level of urgency as deftly described by Hudson. Every action was acute and potentially deadly. I utterly enjoyed Hudson’s style of constructing this whole intense sequence – describing the same scene via each involved party’s vantage point. It reminded me of the movie, “Vantage Point,” as far as how Hudson crafted the scene from different points of view including the parties’ internal monologue. In my mind, I saw the camera angle shots moving from one affected party to the next very clearly. I thought it was extremely effective to present such a highly nerve-racking situation in the way that Hudson chose to present. I only realised as I heaved a sigh of relief when the sequence ended that I was holding my breath the entire time both sequences were happening back-to-back! What an adrenaline rush, indeed! Phew! These two brilliantly written and depicted actions scenes ended up being my favourite moment of the book, really! Bloody well done, Ms. Hudson! For the rest of the second act in the aftermath of the aforementioned sequences, Hudson introduced a big obstacle to catching the stalker, involving Darcy. Because of potential spoilers, I can’t divulge or elaborate anymore. All I can say is, the entire sorry case of the setback then unwittingly developed into this slow burn aggravation for me because of certain behaviours, acts and prolonged confusion and angst that seemed to drag on a little longer than I would’ve liked. Although, I understand Hudson’s intention of doing so as it made the situation more intense and stressful by having the stalker still in the wind whilst nobody seemed to have any kind of suspicion or wanted to investigate deeper, hence making the situation more suspenseful for the reader. But for me, I was getting more annoyed by the minute. For me, I’d have preferred more action toward getting to the bottom of the mystery instead of having to read through all the miscommunications, misunderstandings, missed opportunities, aggro and persistent tentativeness happening with no recourse in sight as far as the characters were concerned, particularly the state of affairs concerning the stalker, Darcy and Anja’s increasingly weird relationship, and Darcy and Eilidh’s unsettling one. Although, I did appreciate that Hudson included the POVs of all the relevant characters, spread out throughout all the confusion, secrets and lies and prolonged undertones of “Will they? Will they not?”, “Is she? Is she not?” At one point, I wanted to give Darcy a hard shake and order her to pull her finger out already! But that’s just me, mind. I’m sure there are a lot of readers out there who wouldn’t mind this kind of angst and tension. In the midst of all the upheavals where the mystery/suspense turned darker as the stalker’s state of mind deteriorated, descending into a quagmire of delusion and obsession, Hudson also gave us Eilidh and Anja’s respective back stories, their past, which were told in their own POVs, thus, fleshing out their characters more deeply, which played into Darcy’s in different kind of situations, nevermind the progressing story. Also, there were a couple more action scenes which were impressively written and depicted. One was the boat scene which turned out to be something out of a thriller movie, I must say, what with the sinister and ominous result of one’s probable action toward another. An accident or intentional? It was a captivating scene to read! And then there was this big fire scene in the final act, leading to an ultimate confrontation with the stalker whose crazy, psycho act of deadly intention quickly became something out of a B-action movie – violent, bloody barmy and totally thrilling to read! Another adrenaline rush written effectively well! I thought Hudson weaved an interesting overall tapestry of the story involving some twisted revelations. Talk about warped! I just wish there were more specific cat-and-mouse situations involving the stalker, though. But what Hudson ended up incorporating into her tangled tale still worked in the end. Whilst “Meant To Be Me” (which is an apt title for this particular story, btw) was well-written, imo, and I’ve liked Hudson’s writing since “Four Steps,” I wasn’t as fully invested in how the plot unfolded as I wanted to. There were unresolved issues that were left without any clear closure or disclosure by the end of the story especially that one particular action by the stalker that set out a chain of events that changed the course of Darcy’s path in Act 1, which I thought deserved to be recalled and realised, if only for Darcy’s sake in the end. Also, I was a little surprised by the distinct contrast in Darcy’s attitude and behaviour in the wake of discovering the stalker’s deeds between two different time frames in the story – intense/fury in one vs nonchalant in the other. I couldn’t help feeling a little troubled by that unexplained change of behaviour, be it psychologically or emotionally. Maybe I missed something? And then, there was this weird thing between Darcy and Anja throughout the book that affected how I felt about the overall romance in the end. A bit ambivalent for me, tbh. But that’s just my own personal taste, really. Hey, to each their own, innit? Reckon most readers will be fine with it, I’m sure! All in all, I think fans who enjoy suspense/mystery (not to mention, slightly twisted romance), especially when it relates to deranged stalkers, will find “Meant To Be Me” to be a fascinating read especially if they don’t mind all the angst and elevated stress that I reckon Hudson intentionally injected into her story in order to put readers on their toes! I liked the book especially Hudson’s quality of writing. So I won’t hesitate to recommend readers to give this latest suspense story of hers a read. Because I like how Hudson writes, I will continue to look out for her future work as she’s got something there when it comes to creating thrillers and suspenseful mysteries, imo! Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed the location of this story! Inverness! Go, Scotland! *An ARC copy of this book was given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review*