Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Silver Falls Library | LP FIC CANDLISH | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Salem Main Library | LP Candlish, L. | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
An Internationally Acclaimed AuthorThere's nothing unusual about a new family moving in at 91 Trinity Avenue. Except she didn't sell her house. From an internationally acclaimed author comes a disturbing and addictive novel of domestic suspense where secrets kept from spouses cause shockin
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
British author Candlish makes her U.S. debut with an artfully plotted, affecting page-turner. Fiona Lawson gets the shock of her life when she returns from a brief getaway to the beloved London townhouse where she alternates custody with her estranged husband, Bram, of their two children: another family seems to be moving in. Bram has apparently sold the home out from under her and the kids-and vanished, along with the £2 million payday. Even more devastating betrayals await the doughty Fi. Alternating narratives-one Fi's, the other Bram's-raise the tension. In a particularly inspired move, much of Fi's account comes via her emotionally raw tale on a true crime podcast, The Victim, with tweets from the audience serving as a kind of Greek chorus. Movingly chronicling the decline of a marriage that once looked as solid as the couple's stately red-brick residence, Candlish manages to stash a couple of trump cards, setting up a truly killer climax. American fans of domestic suspense will want to see more from this talented author. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents/ICM Partners. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
When a woman discovers strangers moving into her London home, her estranged husband and sons nowhere to be seen, it's only the beginning of the nightmare that will upend her life.Fiona "Fi" Lawson loves her house in the fictional posh Alder Rise neighborhood almost as much as she loves her picture-perfect family: husband Bram and adorably rambunctious sons Harry and Leo. Candlish (The Swimming Pool, 2016, etc.) digs deep for both suspense and compassion but comes up empty with Fi, whose almost stubborn cluelessness about the state of her marriage (Bram is a serial adulterer, among other things) and, later, her insistence on being a victim (so much so that she goes on a podcast called The Victim) make her a sour protagonist at best. When Fi catches Bram having sex with someone else in the children's garden playhouse, she throws him out but decides to try a custody arrangement known as a bird's nest, where the children stay in the family home and the parents alternate living there and at a newly acquired flat. While the setup seems great on paper, it doesn't take into account the depths of Bram's liesthe yearlong driving ban he's hidden from Fi soon becomes the least of his concernsand the lengths he'll go to save himself. With the narrative confusingly split into sections from Fi's podcast segment, a Word document that's allegedly Bram's suicide note, and perspectives from both spouses, it's difficult for readers to keep a firm grip on the timeline and to truly care as Bram enters into an unnecessarily complicated blackmail scheme and Fi remains annoyingly oblivious on all fronts even when Bram disappears, having sold the Alder Rise home without her knowledge.In a novel concerned with connection and trust, Candlish fails to connect with readers on either level, serving up characters so wrapped in their own problems that "family" is merely a word to them. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Fiona Lawson's picture-perfect life started to fall apart when she caught her husband, Bram, cheating. Newly separated, the Lawsons agree on a bird's-nest custody arrangement, alternating their time in the house to minimize disruption to their two sons. Sharing the house goes smoothly until one afternoon, Fiona returns home to find all of her possessions missing and a new family moving in. The story unfolds via Fiona's version of the events, which she tells on a popular true-crime podcast, and Bram's version of the events, which he meticulously documents in a suicide-note confession. What seems at the outset to be a troubled husband swindling his wife is something far more complex and disturbing, featuring untrustworthy characters whose deepest secrets become their undoing. Candlish (The Second Husband, 2013), already a best-selling author in her native England, is likely to hit the U.S. best-seller lists with this twisty domestic thriller that features everything readers enjoy about the genre: dark secrets, unreliable narrators, a fast-moving plot, and a terrifyingly plausible premise. This could be summer's breakout hit.--Nanette Donohue Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
WHO DOES WHAT? Readers usually wonder about the mechanics of smoothly successful collaborations like that of Jonathan Kellerman and his son, Jesse. There are no psychologically wounded children in a measure of darkness (Ballantine, $28.99), which would tip us to the hand of Kellerman pere. But a loving exchange between a college student and his grandmother (a homemade coconut cake as a reward for a quick visit) suggests a more youthful sensibility. As for the keen sense of drama, it must be a genetic trait. Clay Edison, an Oakland, Calif., coroner's investigator, makes a point of performing his sleuthing duties with "patience and diplomacy." Sensitive to both the living and the dead, he's gentle as he lifts the body of a transvestite dressed as an angel onto a gurney, noting that "she felt like nothing, like the body of a bird, hollow bones and down." Her death was the result of a party that got way too wild and claimed six casualties, one of whom is found in a shed by "the meat people," as the coroner's crew refer to themselves. This Jane Doe really gets to Edison, who shudders at the sadness of dying alone and unknown. Unlike most crime writers (not to mention most of their readers), who revel in the bloody aftermath of a violent encounter, the Kellermans show compassion for the survivors, including conscientious officials like Edison. "Deep down, we know we're powerless," he admits. "All of us, however, would like to imagine that we're contributing in some small way to keeping the world orderly. Then comes along a stark reminder to the contrary." Edison makes it his business to identify Jane Doe, find her killer and restore the dignity she's been denied. The man's got his flaws. (A silk scarf decorated with a pattern of human skulls might not have been such a great birthday present for his wife.) But he's got heart, caring not only for the lonely dead but for the cops, their living advocates: "I knew what it was like to live with victims - to have them take up residence in your head, nameless, insistent; to carry on a conversation no one else can hear." Except us. if you can overlook the high body count, THE BOUNCER (Mysterious Press, $26), by David Gordon, is a brilliantly goofy caper novel in the grand tradition of Donald E. Westlake. A terrorist plot to hit New York City is the only threat that would make confederates out of warring mobsters like Uncle Chen, who runs the Chinese street gangs in Flushing; Little Maria, who keeps the Dominican heroin trade cooking; Alonzo, who heads up the black gangs in Brooklyn; and Menachem (Rebbe) Stone, who oversees the Orthodox Jewish underworld. "We are all proud New Yorkers, patriotic Americans whose families came here from somewhere - Russia, Sicily, the Caribbean, Louisiana - fleeing poverty," says Giovanni Caprisi, the gangster known as Gio the Gent. But for all their professional expertise, hunting spies and defusing bombs aren't among the talents these tough folks have. Better they should hire a "gangster sheriff," like Joe Brody, a bouncer at Club Rendezvous who carried out classified military missions during a stint in Special Forces. In a case like this, Brody is definitely your man. Ghosts in the attic and skeletons in the closet are bad enough, but nothing in the realm of domestic horror beats coming home to find total strangers in the process of moving into your home. That's the heartbreak Louise Candlish dishes out in OUR house (Berkley, $26). Fiona and Bram Lawson have separated, but Fiona and the children are still living in the redbrick Edwardian at 91 Trinity Avenue in London - until the day Fiona discovers that another family has taken possession. Bram, meanwhile, has skipped off to Switzerland with the money from the sale, leaving his wife to sob out her story on "The Victim," a crime podcast that feeds on the misery of injured parties like herself. This terrific premise almost makes up for the fact that Fiona is such a pill and Bram is such a worm. As for the house, well, that's certainly worth a fight to the death. IMAGINE YOU'RE MARRIED to a handsome, charismatic teacher who's just been promoted to dorm master at an exclusive boarding school in New Hampshire. Now imagine that the students in Moreland Hall, informally known as "the slut dorm," are locked in a fierce competition to seduce their dorm master. If murder doesn't figure in your ruminations, it should, because that's what happens in SHE WAS THE QUIET ONE (St. Martin's, $26.99), Michele Campbell's cozy mystery with teeth - and nails. Sarah Donovan finds herself in this awkward situation when she and her husband, Heath, are assigned to monitor the raging hormones of the rich, entitled and unbridled Moreland girls. Among them are the 15-year-old twins Bel and Rose Enright. Bel, the bold twin, is mad for Heath. Rose, the quiet one, becomes attached to Sarah. Despite the annoying flips and flops in storytelling time (what is it with this trendy stylistic affectation?), the novel delivers a deadly crime, some surprising twists on said crime and several suspects who need a good spanking. MARILYN STASIO has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.
Library Journal Review
Fiona Lawson is stunned to see the house she loves in a posh part of London being claimed by strangers upon her return from vacation. It's instantly apparent that this was done by Bram, the cheating husband Fi is divorcing, who's just taken off for Switzerland. But the "how" and "why" are only gradually revealed in this intriguing novel. Fi and Bram had settled into a congenial custody arrangement known as bird's nest, alternately sharing the house and a nearby flat to keep life fairly normal for their eight- and ten-year-old sons, with each free to see others at the flat. As Fi tells her story on the popular podcast The Victim, flashbacks reveal the extent of the secrets Bram has kept from her, secrets more dire than dalliances, which land him in an intricate blackmail scheme. -VERDICT British author Candlish (The Swimming Pool) is skilled at portraying families in critical situations and ramping up the suspense. She does both here, in an absorbing plot with surprising twists until the final page. A sure bet for fans of family drama, mystery, and suspense.-Michele Leber, Arlington, VA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.