Call Me Evie by J.P.Pomare, a chilling psychological thriller

I have a soft spot for New Zealand, even though I’ve never been there, nor do I have any friends or family there. I’ve invested so much day dreaming into it that at this point I’d be afraid to go, in case my preconceptions are spoiled. It used to comforting to have some corner of the earth in mind to run away to if I were minded to run away. Maketu Beach, the setting for Call Me Evie, is the sort of picture postcard place I imagine when I think of New Zealand, that and the filming locations for Lord of the Rings. Unlike Mordor, Maketu appears a scenic, friendly place, yet J.P. Pomare, the author, has turned it into the setting for a chilling psychological thriller. The horrors that the protagonist ‘Evie’ tries to work through in her own mind, are eerily juxtaposed by this place where people walk their dogs on the beach or go surfing.

It’s a fascinating story, plotted over two alternating timelines, past and present, with an unreliable narrator reflecting the uncertainty of the teenage girl’s memories and flashbacks. ‘Evie’, who has a large gap in her memory, finds herself in a small house in Maketu Beach with Jim, who says he’s her uncle protecting her from the ramifications of some horrible event she was responsible for. Imagine not knowing what your real name is or what had in fact happened and being dependent on someone who calls himself your uncle, but you don’t remember him. Did she truly commit such a horrific act that she now has to change her appearance and hide from the police? 

The anxiety in not knowing if you can trust your uncle, your neighbours, or even your own thoughts and memories, is spine tingling and mysterious. This psychological thriller, which has been compared to the work of Gillian Flynn, has a slow burning start, but the reader’s patience will be richly rewarded! If you don’t read the book in one go as I’m certain many readers will do, you will find thoughts about it creeping into your mind, filling the oddest moments as you go about your daily life. Who is Evie and is she innocent or guilty? Between Mordor and Maketu, I now feel I need to find a different location as my ‘happy place’.

‘Call Me Evie’ is the cracking debut novel by New Zealander J.P. Pomare. It generated much interest down-under leading to a bidding contest among antipodean publishers. After first being published in 2018 by Hachette Australia, the rights were sold world-wide and it is now available in the UK via Sphere (Little Brown) in audio book and paperback (£8.99).