Identical Convolutedness

Finished a good little book called The Twins Daughter.  It is a gothicish, Victorian era type mystery 'cause that's not confusing at all.  I will try and warn you when I get to the spoily parts 'cause if you haven't read it yet and you have some time, you most definatly should and it would not be half as fun if you knew the ending, on the other hand it will be really hard for me to give you my impressions of this book if I didn't discuss the end...so...you have been warned.

This story is told by a 13 year old Lucy who has grown up the only child of a wealthy family.  Her father is an independantly rich author and her mother is a beautiful socialite who dotes on her only daughter.  Our story starts with Lucy giving us a quick overview of her parents and her life, which seem comfortable and normal, if not a bit boring for the lack of other young people in the area.  Life takes a bit of a dramatic turn when a knock on the door turns out to be Lucy's mothers unknown identical twin sister. Apperantly they were born to a maid and the well to do couple who employed her decided they would raise one girl as there own and sent the other to an orphanage.  Aunt Helen is a bit rough around the edges but is invited to live with Lucy and her parents.  Aliese (Lucy's mother) decides to teach her new found sister deportment, manners, style, and so forth so she can also be passed of as a lady of standing.  Eventually after all the training and dressing up it becomes almost impossible to tell the two women apart.  The family decides to hold a party for Aunt Helen and here is where Lucy meets the new neighbor boy Kit, whom she at first finds boring, but eventually becomes friends with. Time passes and we see Lucy grow from a child to a young woman, and her friendship with Kit turn into a bit of a crush on both sides.  One day after sneaking out to the park on her own Lucy comes home to find a horrific scene in the parlor.  The twins each tied to a chair, one with her throat slit and dead, the other in a daze...but who is who?
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

This is where if you want to really enjoy the book you should read no further 'cause this is where it gets twisty.  So obviously the big mystery here is supposed to be which twin survived and which twin was brutally murdered.  Lucy goes in and the woman who is alive claims to be her mother, and the dead woman Aunt Helen. Lucy notices that the woman is not wearing a wedding ring, but she soon spots it on the floor and gives it back. Aliese claims that a man was robbing them and tied her and Aunt Helen up and killed Helen.  As part of the investigation an autopsy reveals that Aunt Helen was pregnant, which since she was unmarried at the time is more than a bit scandoulus.  Time goes on and Lucy notices a great change in her mother, she is sharper and more outspoken then she ever was before.  She treats Lucy's father with border line contempt

and is always off to some party or another.  Lucy grows into her late teens and her relationship with Kit continues to develop, even as her fathers health starts to decline, he dies from a heart attack no more than a couple of years after Aunt Helen is murdered.  After her fathers death, Lucy notices her mother dissaperaing and staying out very late.  One night Lucy waits up for her and see's her with a man she remebers seeing with Aunt Helen before she died.  Lucy realizes that the woman is not her mother, but Aunt Helen posing as Aliese.  Lucy decides that she is only impersonating her mother as to not lose her home and be turned out into the streets so Lucy makes the descision to not tell her she knows who she is and instead covertly help her maintain her cover.  Aunt Helen/Aliese soon remarries the man Lucy saw her with, a man who is not from the same class as Lucy's family.  Lucy takes an immediate dislike to him, but has no real say in the matter.  Aunt Helen/Aliese soon becomes pregnant and relies heavly on Lucy to help her through the birth and the babies first couple of years.  Kit heads of to war after declaring his love for Lucy.  Lucy essentially becomes her little sister/cousins Emma's nurse maid and becomes very attached and bonded with her.  A couple more years pass, Kit comes back wounded, but alive from the war and proposes to Lucy who accepts.  They decide to wed quickly and as she is getting ready Aunt Helen/Aliese says something to Lucy that only her mother would know and all at once Lucy realizes that it is her mother and not Aunt Helen that survived after all, and putting all the pieces together realizes that something horrible occured in the death of her Aunt.  After the wedding she confronts her mother who confesses everything.  She met her now husband and fell in love with him around the time
Aunt Helen showed up, she also discovered that Aunt Helen and her husband were having an affair which resulted in Aunt Helen becoming pregnant.  Aliese not wanting the scandal convinced her lover to come up with a plan to get rid of Aunt Helen and stage it a botched robbery. Aliese said she also purposly acted like Aunt Helen at times to confuse people so that they would not ask to many questions and to drive away Lucy's father. Aliese's new husband sneaks up on Lucy and decides they have to kill her now that she knows there secret, she is saved by Kit and they turn the pair into the police.  The pair end up hanging for their crimes and Lucy raises her sister Emma along with her own daughter wondering how they will tell her about her real parents when she is older.

Ok so that was a long one, but the last third of the book threw out some very well written twists that I have to say I loved.  You really think you have it figured out pretty early, in fact you may even be dissapointed in how easily you figured it out, then BAM new twist thrown in.  I loved watching Lucy grow from a 13 year old girl into a 20 year old married woman.  The growth and progression seemed to make a lot of sense and her romance with Kit followed an equally reasonable progression growing in stages as she did.  The only thing I had a really hard time with, is the seeming ease that Lucy turned her beloved mother into the authorities knowing full well that she would be hung for her crimes.  I know the author established a bond between Aunt Helen and Lucy, but there was also a very tight bond between mother and daughter as well.  Even though Aliese seemed to get a bit more distant after Aunt Helen died she seemed to maintain her bond with Lucy.  To me it just seemed a little abrupt for all of that to dissapear in an instant, even with the horror of what her mother had done.  All in all I found it to be a good little book, it was a fairly quick read, the pacing stayed at a nice brisk pace and the story made sense.  Good curl up in a comfy chair during a rain storm book. I give it four out of five toasted marshmallows.
Do you like mistaken identity stories?  What is your favorite book with a twist?  What would it take for you to turn in your own mother?