The Open House by Sam Carrington. A book review of twists and intrigue.

Thank you to Netgalley, the Author and publishers for my copy of this book. I was attracted to the book by the intriguing sounding description.

Description

Everyone’s welcome. But not everyone leaves…

Nick and Amber Miller are splitting up and selling their Devon family home. But despite the desirable location, the house isn’t moving. Not a single viewing so far.

When their estate agent suggests an open house event, Amber agrees, even as she worries about their gossiping neighbours attending and snooping around their home.

But Amber has more to worry about than nosy neighbours. Because thirteen people enter her house that afternoon, and only twelve leave.

Someone doesn’t want the house to sell, and is willing to do anything to stop it…

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My Thoughts:

This book was great, full of twisty plots, sub plots and an array of interesting characters.

When Amber and her Husband decide to split up, they need to sell their house. Its been on the market for a while but there hasn’t been any interest yet. When it’s suggested to Amber that she has an open house to attract more interest, although not thrilled with the idea of people nosying around her house, she agrees. The only problem is it seems that 13 people went into the house, but only 12 came out. I was intrigued as to how this would make the premise of a whole book. But there were many subplots which were based around this idea.

There were lots of creepy things happening in Amber’s house and I thought she was brave to stay there alone with her children. When weird things happen, do you convince yourself that you must have done it yourself and forgotten or do you remember that only 12 people came out of your house and where is that last one? Did you count wrong? Were you seeing things? Questions questions! Perfect for a thriller.

There were lots of great characters, not necessarily likeable ones but lots of interesting ones. The chapters alternated between different characters points of views. I think this made me consider lots of red herrings which is always fun in a thriller. I read this book on my own and having participated in lots of book club reads recently, I found there were many thoughts that I would have liked to discuss. This would be fab for a book club read.

The end of this book ties up all the loose ends properly and the many twists that come up throughout the book all make sense. I found myself suspecting many of the characters, from the husband to the new boyfriend to the nosy neighbour who wants to know everyone’s business to the annoying busy body of a mother in law to the estate agent. In fact the only characters I didn’t suspect was Amber herself and her 2 friends ( whose names were mentioned in the acknowledgement as having their names taken from the authors friends). I did guess some parts towards the end but I didn’t see all the twists coming.

A great read with twists, sub plots and a page turning finale.

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