‘Burn This’ by Sophie McKenzie

Published by Canelo.co,
24 July 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-83598030-98 (PB)

Burn This is the latest offering from Sophie McKenzie, the prolific, award-winning author of over thirty books ranging from suspense novels and murder mysteries for teens to fast-paced psychological thrillers aimed at adults. Her initial focus on an audience of young adult readers is reflected in this novel in characters who seem never to have properly grown up or who remain frozen in the past. Its protagonist, Bella Wilkins, for example, has never recovered from the murder of her best friend, Vicky Daniels, in the summer of 1995, when the two were ten. It is a trauma compounded by guilt. The two girls had been out playing with a ball; Bella’s wild throw landed it in a nearby wood; Vicky volunteered to find it and disappeared. Her body, covered by branches, is discovered in the woods a few hours later.

Thirty years on, her parents dead, Bella is back with her nine-year-old daughter Tora, clearing out her childhood home, when she discovers a notebook with the words ‘Burn This’ on the cover. The scrappy old book contains poetry and short stories written in her mother’s hand but also, intriguingly, an entry that appears to provide an eyewitness account of Vicky’s murder. Frustratingly, it is incomplete, with several pages torn out.

Bella eagerly presents her discovery to her brother and sister-in-law and is disappointed and dismayed when they refuse to take it seriously. She faces the same reaction from her best friend Mercedes and from the police. Incredulous, Bella soldiers on, trying to solve the mystery herself, stirring up anger and hurt as her family and friends try to make it clear they have no wish to rake up the unpleasant past. It is only when her relations with her nearest and dearest deteriorate, when she feels personally threatened and her daughter is kidnapped, that Bella begins to understand the dangerous depths of the dark passions she has aroused with her amateur investigations into Vicky’s death.

This is a book enjoyably replete with red herrings, dead ends and wrong turnings. But it is also peopled by characters difficult to love and care about. Bella’s emotional obtuseness can be irritating, and her family and friends are often less than likeable themselves. They also harbour secrets and lies, and they can be aggressive in ensuring their skeletons remain securely hidden away in the closet.

The story concludes with an astonishing – plot twist. It’s a roller-coaster ride of a book, a proverbial page-turner reminding us that the greatest threats to our safety can be posed by our loved ones us rather than by strangers with homicide in mind.  
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Reviewer: Wendy Jones Nakanishi/aka Lea O’Harra.

Sophie McKenzie is the Richard & Judy selected author of psychological thriller Close My Eyes and Sunday Times bestseller Trust In Me. An author of over thirty titles, Sophie lives in London and has worked as a journalist, editor and creative writing tutor. Her many teen thrillers include the best-selling, multi-award-winning Girl, Missing. 

www.sophiemckenziebooks.com
And here: facebook.com/sophiemckenzieauthor
Twitter: @sophiemckenzie_  

Lea O’Harra.  An American by birth, did her postgraduate work in Britain – an MA in Lancaster and a doctorate at Edinburgh – and worked full-time for 36 years at a Japanese university. Since retiring in March 2020, she has spent part of each year in Lancaster and part in Takamatsu on Shikoku Island, her second home, with occasional visits to the States to see family and friends. An avid reader of crime fiction since childhood, as a university professor she wrote academic articles on it as a literary genre and then decided to try her hand at composing such stories herself, publishing the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue mystery series’ comprising three murder mysteries set in rural, contemporary Japan. She has also published two standalone crime fiction novels.