Publishers Weekly
02/26/2024
Barker-White debuts with a flimsy domestic thriller about a British mother’s unnerving experience with vanishing twin syndrome. Lucy Hamilton’s life seems perfect: she lives in a large house on the outskirts of England’s Lake District, where she dotes on her handsome, successful husband, James, and precocious 14-year-old daughter, Eden. Then tragedy strikes. After Eden nearly drowns in a small lake near the Hamiltons’ home one afternoon, she loses consciousness and it’s touch-and-go at the hospital as doctors attempt to revive her. When she finally wakes up, she tells the medical staff that her name is Eli—the same name Lucy chose for Eden’s brother when she learned she was pregnant with fraternal twins. Due to a rare condition called vanishing twin syndrome, Eden absorbed Eli while both were still in Lucy’s womb, but it now appears that the unborn boy has emerged from the depths of Eden’s consciousness. Unlike his sister, he’s less willing to keep family secrets and prone to violence. Chapters alternate between the perspectives of Lucy and a friend of Eden/Eli’s, but Barker-White never quite utilizes the dueling viewpoints or Lucy’s unsettling plight to ignite a properly nerve-shredding thriller, and the plot reversals are too obvious for things to take flight. This misses the mark. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
My Name Was Eden is a compulsive, didn't-see-it-coming thriller—and a tender take on parenting, isolation, and intergenerational trauma. Barker-White creates the kind of claustrophobic dread you only find in the unhappiest of families, right to the final, sucker punch few pages.” — Abigail Dean, international bestselling author of Girl A
"In this captivating and highly original novel of psychological suspense, Eleanor Barker-White takes the reader on a journey into the heart of maternal grief and intergenerational trauma. My Name Was Eden is a fantastic debut—unpredictable, tense, and absorbing." — Rose Carlyle, #1 international bestselling author of The Girl in the Mirror
“This strong debut successfully explores intergenerational trauma in a twisty thriller with enough notes of horror to require reading with all the lights on. For fans of Zoje Stage and Lucinda Berry.” — Library Journal
“This debut thriller delivered. It had me questioning which narrator to trust while figuring out which character wrote the menacing prologue.” — Reader's Digest
“This darkly atmospheric thriller in the vein of Nicola Marsh's The Scandal (2020), Helen Klein Ross' What Was Mine (2016), and Nicole Baart's Little Broken Things (2017) puts a family's long-held secrets in jeopardy under mysterious circumstances…. Exploring the shared burdens of grief, recovery, and misplaced loyalties, My Name Was Eden is a compelling debut.” — Booklist
“Gorgeously written and brimming with spine-tingling tension, My Name Was Eden hooked me from the first page. This is not just a first-rate thriller but also a fascinating dive into questions of identity, perception, and who we choose to hold dear, be they living or dead. Barker-White is a major new voice in psychological thrillers.” — Mindy Mejia, bestselling author of Everything You Want Me to Be and To Catch a Storm
“My Name Was Eden takes a deep dive into parental guilt, the messy emotions of love and mourning, and it’s also genuinely creepy and uncomfortable with a unique premise. Clever writing and insightful observations make this a great read.” — Helen Fields, bestselling author of Perfect Remains and The Institution
“Shifting fluidly between family drama and thriller, My Name Was Eden is a haunting exploration of motherhood at its most tested. Tragic and unnerving in equal measure, Barker-White’s debut had me gripped from its heart-breaking opening chapter through to its shocking end. Brilliant!” — Amy Beashel, author of Spilt Milk
“Spellbinding, captivating, and entirely unique. I flew through this book, second guessing my every suspicion along the way. A brilliant story of psychological suspense, motherhood, and friendship.” — Nora Murphy, author of The Favor and The New Mother
“Eleanor’s characters had me at the edge of my seat. I became submerged in the murky world so beautifully depicted. A story of memories, longing and of heartbreak. Stunning debut.” — Kelechi Okafor, author of Edge of Here
“I really, really enjoyed this book. It's dark and creepy but still manages to stay realistic and within the confines of domestic noir. Nightmarish, but in the most compelling way. A proper page turner.” — Katy Brent, bestselling author of How to Kill Men and Get Away with It
“Complex, dark, utterly gripping. Barker-White compellingly peels back the layers of family life revealing the diseased heart at its core. Had me reading far too late into the night.” — Tammy Cohen, author of The Wedding Party
Library Journal
11/01/2023
DEBUT The unreliable narrator in Barker-White's debut has good reason to be uncertain about what she thinks is true. Housewife Lucy is mildly concerned when her teenage daughter Eden doesn't show up after school. Concern turns to horror when Eden is pulled unresponsive from a nearby lake. When Eden is revived, Lucy and her husband James are thrilled. Then Eden's behavior changes radically. She insists that her name is Eli, which alone wouldn't be too alarming, as teenagers explore identity all the time. But Eli was Eden's twin who vanished in the womb. As Eden's behavior becomes more alarming, it seems that only Lucy is concerned. After postpartum depression, she has always felt disconnected from Eden, made worse by Eden's closeness to James. This new version of her child is so different—and now Eden/Eli is taking steps, sometimes dangerous, scary ones, to make sure things go her way. VERDICT This strong debut successfully explores intergenerational trauma in a twisty thriller with enough notes of horror to require reading with all the lights on. For fans of Zoje Stage and Lucinda Berry.—Jane Jorgenson
Kirkus Reviews
2024-01-20
When a teenage girl is revived after nearly drowning, she insists on being called by a new name. Is it trauma—or is she possessed by the spirit of her dead twin?
When Lucy Hamilton’s daughter, Eden, is pulled from a nearby lake in the English countryside, it looks like the worst has happened—until she begins to breathe again. But while still in the hospital, she starts to insist that her name is Eli, which was the name of her unborn brother lost to vanishing twin syndrome. When Lucy and James bring their child home, she cuts her hair, begins to dress more androgynously, and continues to insist that her name isn’t Eden. On one hand, Lucy is relieved, because her relationship with her child has been combative for some time, and this new incarnation is sweet and demonstrative; on the other, she’s concerned, understandably, about what’s really going on. James has no time for this drama; he’s super busy with work (and maybe an affair?) and then his mother dies in a fall down the stairs. Then a boy from Eden’s school is hit by a car. Across these spikes of action, Lucy is also dealing with her own repressed childhood trauma. The strangest thing about this novel is that, despite the title, Barker-White never directly writes in the voice or perspective of Eden, focusing primarily on Lucy as narrator with an occasional chapter dedicated to Charlie, Eden’s best friend. Instead, we are left to try to solve an unsolvable mystery, with insufficient clues and a twist at the end that offers no clarity. The other discomfiting thing is that we are offered a character who seems to identify as male, totally out of sync with his female body, and we are asked to consider this strange and even villainous. At one point Charlie asks whether Eden “want[s] to actually be a boy,” but Eden rebuffs the question; it seems tone deaf not to explore this possibility more directly.
Some interesting exploration of the “evil twin” cliche, but ultimately too ambiguous.
