Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher

Ketchup Clouds

by Annabel Pitcher

Zoe Collins has a secret - a dark and terrible secret that she dares confess to no one that she knows. But then one day she hears of a criminal on death row who knows all about secrets. And lies. And betrayal. Desperate to confide in someone, Zoe picks up a pen, and takes a deep breath.

These are the letters that she wrote.

Annabel Pitcher's second book 'Ketchup Clouds' deals with deception, romance, death and family. It is another stand alone book and it is somewhat longer than her previous book 'My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece'.  

The protagonist identifies herself as Zoe Collins, through the letters she sends to Stuart Harris- the american prisoner. She tells Stuart gradually of the events, which led up to her big secret and the overwhelming guilt, which accompanies it. She feels he is the perfect candidate to confide in, as he killed his wife out of a "crime of passion";as a result she believes he must feel tremendous guilt and regret in doing so.

Equally to Zoe slowly peeling back the layers of her secret, she also appears to moderately get comfortable in writing letters to Stuart Harris. First she refers to him as Mr S Harris then as her letters progresses:Mr Harris, Stuart, Stu, my dear Stu and finally my dearest Stu. To coincide with this she formerly signs off her letters with Zoe, a few letters later she is leaving an 'x', then another one and eventually three 'x's' are displayed. 

She never receives a letter back from Stuart Harris as she clearly states that 1 Fiction road, Bath is a non existent address and I searched for it on Google Earth to prove it...

'Zoe' always tells Stuart about her family: her deaf sister Dot, her attention seeking sister Soph, her overly controlling mother and her severely stressed father. Not to mention her loud friend Lauren and her two potential lovers- Max and Aaron. And there's Sandra who always unintentionally brings a wave of grief with her and blows it in 'Zoe's face...

Cat Catch Book Rating Scale above- I really liked it.(4/5 cats) 

Cat Cat Rating Scale- http://minstrelcrazy.blogspot.ie/p/re...

To wrap it up, I thought it was a unique way to tell a secret - not to just someone through letters, but to someone through letters who happens to be a convicted convict on death row. 

The title wasn't particularly relevant to the overall story but a quirky title at that. Stupendous work by John Fordham in designing the cover, as it works beautifully with the book title.

                                  

Pitcher did not quiet pitch the ball accurately enough for me. In her defence- the letter writing to a convict was somewhat unique but the overall simple honesty of the story was disappointing. More specifically, I thought the comparisons weren't as brilliant as in My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece. One could argue, that in that case the narrator was an imaginative young boy so of course his comparisons would be more quirky and interesting but 'Zoe' is supposed to be an aspiring author so why aren't her comparisons extremely  interesting and quirky? In saying that, the uniqueness and satisfactory ending to the story is more than enough for my reading standards as I always finish a book that I find is worth reading.