Title: Our House
Expected publication: 1 April 2018
My Rating:🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2
Book Description:
When Fiona Lawson comes home to find strangers moving into
her house, she's sure there's been a mistake. She and her estranged husband,
Bram, have a modern co-parenting arrangement: bird's nest custody, where each
parent spends a few nights a week with their two sons at the prized family home
to maintain stability for their children. But the system built to protect their
family ends up putting them in terrible jeopardy. In a domino effect of crimes
and misdemeanors, the nest comes tumbling down.
Now Bram has disappeared and so have Fiona's children. As events spiral well beyond her control, Fiona will discover just how many lies her husband was weaving and how little they truly knew each other. But Bram's not the only one with things to hide, and some secrets are best kept to oneself, safe as houses.
Now Bram has disappeared and so have Fiona's children. As events spiral well beyond her control, Fiona will discover just how many lies her husband was weaving and how little they truly knew each other. But Bram's not the only one with things to hide, and some secrets are best kept to oneself, safe as houses.
My musings:
My favourite genre is mystery / suspense, but it is getting
harder and harder to find an original story that hasn’t been done before in
varying shades of grey. So picture my excitement when I stumbled across the
blurb of Our House on Netgalley, it sounded so intriguing! Imagine coming home
from a weekend away to find that your home has been stripped of all your
possessions and strangers are moving in, claiming that they have legitimately
purchased the house. How is this possible? And who could have done it? This is
the situation Fiona finds herself in when returning from a romantic getaway
with a new boyfriend, leaving her ex-husband minding her house and her kids.
Scary, huh?
If you think the premise sounds a bit outlandish, don’t worry,
because Louise Candlish writes her story with such conviction and lays such a
solid foundation that you will think twice about ever leaving your house again!
I loved her writing style, which incorporates a “transcript” from a live true
crime podcast (in which Fiona tells her side of the story) and a document in
which Bram, her estranged husband, confesses his part in the events that
unfold. Incorporating social media has become a popular feature in contemporary
crime fiction, seeing how it plays such a big part in most of our lives, and
Candlish uses this to its full potential. What ensues is a she said / he said
type of story that is chilling and ingenious in equal measures.
Have you ever read a book in which one of the main
characters makes one bad decision, and that little flutter of butterfly wings
soon turns into a huge shitstorm of epic proportion that will alter everyone’s
lives? I love those stories, even though at times they make me cringe in horror
at the avalanche that is building momentum as you frantically turn the pages.
Candlish proves that immense suspense can be built through putting her
characters in everyday situations each and every one of us may find ourselves
in during the course of our lives. Here we have a couple with small children,
who try to work out their marriage problems amicably for the sake of their two
sons. I marvelled at the concept of bird’s nest parenting, a shared custody
arrangement of separated couples where parents take turns living in the family
home where their children live 100% of the time. Sounds good in theory, and I
can imagine that it is a good solution for the children involved (if it works).
But is it really possible to pull it off successfully? This is a suspense
novel, so of course things soon start to go wrong – and escalate with the speed
of a runaway train headed for an abyss, building tension and dread as the story
speeds along.
The most difficult thing in selling a contemporary mystery
is often character development, and Candlish excels in that department,
Although I am far from the suburban housewife Fiona is portrayed as, I could
easily put myself in her shoes and constantly questioned myself how I would
react. I felt her confusion and her pain, and marvelled at her constant
optimism and trust in the most dire of circumstances. Even Bram, with the part
he plays in the whole situation, was a likeable – if flawed – character, caught
up in a terrible situation. Our House is one of those books that made me wonder
why I had not discovered this author before, but feeling immensely glad that I
now have.
Summary:
Thank
you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Australia for the free electronic copy of this novel and
for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment