Our House - Louise Candlish

Genre: Fiction/Thriller
★★★★
Synopsis: On a bright January morning in the London suburbs, a family moves into the house they’ve just bought in Trinity Avenue. Nothing strange about that. Except it is your house. And you didn’t sell it.

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.



*** 

Review: I was happily surprised by how good this book was. It's not a fast paced thriller, at times it's more like a character study, but with a thrilling start and end. There are some beautiful and some chilling turns of phrase in the book - sadly I didn't mark any of them to share but more than once I found myself thinking this is an author who knows how to write. 

I've never bought a house so I don't know how credible the ownership transfer is, but it seemed legitimate  to me. While the whole thing is a little far fetched in the way the thriller genre generally is, it's such a wonderful slow burner that builds and builds, or perhaps digs and digs deeper into a hole of crime and deceit from which there is no escape, that I found it very believable. My only qualms are that it was at times a teeny bit too drawn out, and also that I would have liked to know what happened after it ends. You can guess, but I'd like to have known for sure. Overall though, great book.

Rating: 4/5 

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