The Good Twin by Marti Green
Released: May 15, 2018 | Genre: Psychological Thriller
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In Marti Green’s twisting novel of psychological suspense, twin sisters become engaged in a dangerous deception…
Mallory Holcolm is an unfulfilled waitress and aspiring artist living in a Queens boardinghouse when she learns something astonishing about her she has an identical twin sister named Charly she never knew existed.
Charly is a Princeton graduate, a respected gallery owner, and an heiress married to her handsome college sweetheart, Ben. Charly got everything she ever wanted. Everything Mallory wanted, too. And now having it all might be easier than Mallory ever imagined. Because Ben has reasons of his own for wanting to help her.
It begins with his startling proposal. All Mallory has to do is say yes.
But as their devious plan falls into place, piece by piece, Mallory learns more about her sister and herself than she ever meant to—a discovery that comes with an unexpected twist. A chilling deception is about to become a dangerous double cross. And it’s going to change the rules of Ben and Mallory’s game to the very end.
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The Good Twin was originally titled Sisters. Author Marti Green changed it because she wanted to explore how people can be both good and bad, and how the identity of the “good” twin can shift depending on the circumstances.
REVIEW
⭐ ⭐ ☆ ☆ ☆
Okay… so this was supposed to be a thriller? 😔
The first half starts off decently enough, though it feels like a much less gripping knockoff of The Man in the Iron Mask. Twin girls are separated at birth: Charly grows up in luxury, while Mallory scrapes by. As adults, Mallory discovers she has a twin and becomes obsessed with meeting her. Instead, she meets Charly’s husband, Ben, who, unhappy in his marriage and driven by greed, convinces Mallory to help kill Charly so Mallory can take her place.
Quick tangent: Foreshadowing isn’t just an elegant storytelling device, it’s essential for continuity. It makes later events feel earned, rather than like they’re popping up out of nowhere.
And continuity is this book’s biggest problem. Around the halfway mark, the POV shifts from Mallory to Charly. Not only that, but the timeline rewinds to the beginning so we can see events running concurrently, a concept I actually liked. But then? Total narrative chaos. Suddenly, things happen involving Mallory, big things, like her and Charly meeting and spending time together that were never mentioned, hinted at, or even implied in Mallory’s own section. Where did this come from?
The only moment that actually delivered suspense came after the climactic confrontation, when Mallory actually follows through with assuming Charly’s identity. This twist worked beautifully, it was unexpected, heightened the tension, and gave the book the spark it needed to finally feel like the thriller it claimed to be. For a moment, I was hooked.
But that moment didn’t last. In the final chapters, the characters (and the author) backtracked, undoing the story’s one truly compelling turn, opting instead for a neat, happy ending that felt completely unearned.
Oh, what could’ve been.
