4.25-4.5⭐️ I loved the last thing to burn so I was excited to read this book. Identical twins who personality wise are polar opposite’s. Molly is over cautious to the point of paranoia, and anxious too. She risk assesses everything! She lives in London. The laid back easy going twin Katie, also known as KT lives in New York. Only KT dies suddenly and Molly has to travel to New York to be with her parents. Molly decides to investigate for herself interviewing friends and known acquaintances. Molly’s anxiety and paranoia are palpable, there’s a sadness as it demonstrates how it has restricted her life, and at other times had me chuckling. It’s a slower paced book than my norm as it’s strongly character driven. I was so invested in Molly and her quest to find answers that it didn’t matter. It’s a complex and a slightly convoluted plot which takes some concentration to follow. My favourite quote because it’s so ironic is ‘not everyone is as level headed as I am’ If you like slower character driven burns, and engage with quirky characters you will love this, as it mostly drives the first half. It also comes packed with a complex plot which comes to the fore in the second half. So it’s a book of 2 halves, but in a good way

There were so many twists in First Born! The first half of the book went as I expected and then the first twist was revealed which I was not expecting at all, then they just kept coming! First Born was well written and kept me engrossed in the story of Molly and her murdered twin sister.

Molly and Katie are twins, born only a few minutes apart. They have always been together, until Katie moved to New York, leaving Molly behind. Katie and Molly are twins, but they couldn’t be more different. Katie is free-spirited and lively, while Molly lives her life in safety, hyper aware of all the possible dangers around her. There are fire extinguishers in every room in her flat, she makes her own self-defense weapons, and she avoids all situations in which she could be in danger. She’s never taken a plane in her life until she is forced to fly to New York after Katie is found dead in her bedroom. The police is convinced Katie was murdered and Molly, despite her anxieties and fears, starts to dig into her twin’s life, meeting her boyfriend, friends, professors, trying to figure out who would want her sister death. As she does so, she starts to realize that maybe she didn’t know her sister as well as she thought… I do love Will Dean’s novels because they take you right into the protagonist’s mind and yet it still manages to take you by surprises with the twists and revelations that I certainly didn’t see coming. The story is told in first person from Molly’s point of view so we experience first-hand all her fears, her anxieties, her doubts, her suspicions. First Born is a psychological thriller with capital letters. The unpredictable and multi-layered protagonist kept me glued to the pages and the plot is very well-written, intense, intriguing, suspenseful, and with a final twist that took me completely by surprise. Highly recommended!!!

I am sort of a twin. And by 'sort of' I mean not a twin at all. But I have an older brother who is ten months older than me, and I was born with hours to spare before I would have been in the school year below him. So, being in the same school year, and the concept of ten months age difference between siblings being too crazy for people to accept meant that we were often viewed and treated as twins (and there are dozens of people who still believe we are to this day). That means I have a significant amount of experience in spending my formative years being considered only as part of a package, a yin to a yang, a reflection and projection of my brother's reputation, and he of mine. It was safe and suffocating. Annoying and a buffer. It meant little privacy in our uncomfortably overlapping social circles (my now-husband was a football friend of his first). When I saw First Born featured twins I didn't really give any thought as to whether I'd relate to it personally, simply assuming I wouldn't. But I found myself having mini flashbacks to claustrophobic sibling struggles as I was invited into the mind of Molly on her mission to discover the truth behind her twin's sudden death. 22-year-old Molly Raven wakes up to a nightmare: her parents calling from New York during their visit to Molly's twin sister, Katie, to inform Molly that her twin has been found dead. Perpetually and irrationally fearful, Molly embarks on a trip from London to New York to join her parents for mutual support. Before she and her parents return home, she also hopes to assist the police in the murder investigation they open, working to keep the case moving forward before it's buried beneath the inevitable arrival of new 'young dead girl' cases. Molly quickly finds herself tied up in dangerous circumstances, uncovering more than one explosive revelation during her investigations, and discovering that all with Katie was not as it seemed. It's really difficult to talk about this book without giving away a load of spoilers! So I'll try to do it justice while keeping its narrative safely intact. I found Molly to be a really unusual character who I couldn't warm to at all, and I think this is intentional. She goes to extreme measures and research to ensure she is safe at all times, such as keeping a fire extinguisher in every room and learning how to make a monkey fist weapon. But then I found myself questioning the believability of some of her actions that seemed to not fit with that level of safety compulsion at the start of the book. I suffer from Generalised Anxiety Disorder myself, so I could recognise some of her irrational safety behaviours (even if I don't go to those extremes myself). But then, in other places, she seemed completely unfazed by doing things that would have rendered me, personally, immobile. I found myself frustrated with these juxtapositions for much of the beginning half of the story...but had lightbulb moments later on when subsequent plot points explained much of that. I also don't generally like lots of place names in fiction, and there were a lot once Molly reached New York. I feel like when place names are dropped without elaboration they are meant to have some significance to me and feel frustrated when they don't because I don't know the place (I notice novels set in London do this a lot). However, as the story progressed I found my mental map of New York to be rather vivid and colourful. It actually made me want to visit! And, again, it makes sense with later revelations why the city itself is significant to the narrative. There was some tasty food description too, which I highlighted to return to later in case I want to try to recreate some recipes. My favourite feature in this novel was the stark change of pace and perspective around halfway through. I thought that was very cleverly done and it was at this point the novel really picked up for me. There is a lot of duplicity within the story in place of extensive prose on Molly's deeper thoughts on her relationship with her sister. I really appreciated that, particularly with reflection after the ending. The story makes you question the natural assumptions you have about twins. I could relate to a lot of the feelings the twins may have had toward the pressure that comes from outsider assumptions. All children, I think, have a natural inclination towards pleasing and receiving praise from adults. Our culture trains them that way. But with twins, and possibly siblings extra-close in age, like my brother and I, I think there's an added layer: wanting to affirm grown-ups' happy assumptions that siblings close in age are mutually, lovingly close too. And that, as First Born highlights, can have devastating impacts post-formative years. Many thanks to Will Dean, NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC.

Molly and Katie Raven are identical twins. But that’s where the similarity ends. Molly lives a quiet life in London. Lives her life without risks as, she is paranoid that something is going to happen to her. Whereas he sister Katie lives her life to the full and lives in big town New York She gets a call from her parents that Katie has been found dead in her apartment, suspected suicide. But when she gets the courage to take a flight out to New York to meet her parents she finds out that her sister has been murdered. As the investigation takes place, Molly is determined to start her own investigation to find her sisters killer. She goes through her sister’s social media and email accounts and meets up with the people most close to her in New York. Who did this to her and why? Thank you, Hodder and Stoughton, for and ARC. I was really looking forward to reading this after reading his previous standalone Last thing to burn, which was amazing. This was another fabulous book from the author. It has a tense, unique storyline which was I was gripped throughout. I felt a bit sorry for the character Molly being overshadowed by her sister Katie. But what a twist at the end. This reminded me of that proverb. ‘Never judge a book by the cover’ because the truth will surprise you. 4 stars from me.