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Jo Boyle’s Cicatrice: New Eyes and Brave is a dark, unflinching novel about survival. It follows Brinda Anand, who also lives under the names Malavika Lal, Melinda Burman, and most often, Mel, with occasional POV chapters ffrom Jamie. The story opens in a Perth bar in 2014, where Mel sits with weapons hidden in her clothes and her scar plainly visible across her face. However, Boyle wastes no time in throwing the reader into heart-pounding action.
Danger comes swiftly. A flirtatious blonde named Sienna tempts Mel with the line, “Spend the night with me. I will be whoever you need,” only for Mel to reply, “I don’t believe you.” Her instincts prove correct. A man in a leather jacket is soon attacking her, calling her by an old name, “Vika,” and sneering, “End of the line, Vika. Not that it hasn’t been fun.” Mel’s hidden blade saves her life, but she knows it means another flight. Boyle then plunges the reader into flashbacks that reveal both Mel’s past and the wider political backdrop that has shaped her current treacherous situation.
Yet the novel is not only violence. It has a beating heart in Mel’s reunion with Jamie Stevens, her best friend from university and the woman she has never stopped loving. “Not crazy. If we didn’t behave in our own predictable ways, how would we know we were us?” Jamie asks. But Mel undercuts the moment with the bleak thought, “Sorry Jay, that woman you knew doesn’t exist anymore. Her body survived, but everything else… everything else was lost.” As the story accelerates, Mel is dragged back into violence time and time again. Captivity scenes are described in language as brutal as the acts themselves, such when Mel is about to be sexually assaulted, “She bit down, hard. His flesh popped like a grape and his hot blood rolled over her tongue.” It is quite extreme and gorey, and although I can handle most gore some may find it too much. Boyle refuses to romanticise her characters or tone down the violent scenes, and I can admire her for that.
Boyle’s writing alternates between cinematic, page-turning immediacy like the recent movie “Love Lies Bleeding” and more beautiful, tender moments like “Blue Is the Warmest Colour”. Action is presented in clipped fragments, “Clapping. Rapid. Boots on bitumen. Mel spun to glimpse the tall man charging toward her”, while moments with Jamie unfold intimately. The novel’s themes (as the title alludes) circle around scars and what they mean. Mel’s brow carries the physical cicatrice that cannot be hidden, just as her many aliases—Brinda, Malavika, Melinda—cannot erase the woman beneath them. Above all, the novel insists that love is the only force that can stand against such wounds.
At times, I admit I did slightly feel Cicatrice: New Eyes and Brave leans into familiar thriller tropes such as the scarred fugitive haunted by a violent past, the relentless pursuer and the love interest who represents both danger and salvation. Some readers may find these patterns predictable, especially when paired with cinematic action beats and survivalist grit. Yet Boyle’s execution rescues the material from cliché: namely, the brilliantly rendered characters you can root for and the vividly written action. If the scaffolding is recognisable, the story built upon it is still deeply compelling, and so overall I would highly recommend it.
Final Verdict: In sum, Cicatrice: New Eyes and Brave is both thriller and love story perfect for fans of LGBT characters or FF romance, or enjoyers of authors like Stella Rimington and Olen Steinhauer. This is a novel that pulls no punches till the the last word. It’s a tightly written, emotionally intelligent book that knows exactly what it wants to say—and says it well.
You can get your copy of “Cicatrice” by Jo Boyle for only $3.37 here!
