One night, at Newington House, the Madley family are disturbed by intruders. It’s the mother who first realises someone is outside and calls the police, but it’s a remote location and it will take them some time to arrive. Once the intruders are in the house they accost the mother downstairs and she sees them for the first time, in sheep masks and carrying knives. She tells them to take anything they want, jewellery and antiques, but they haven’t come for that. Now she’s sure she’s going to die. That night the only survivor in the family was the baby, placed in the priest’s hole by their sister waiting quietly for someone to find them. Written in blood on the wall is ‘tell me where it is’. Several years later, Cass is staying with her boyfriend James for the weekend when he suggests they go out for a drive. She’s surprised when he takes her to a hidden manor house on the edge of a village and tells her they’ve come to view it. An agent comes to meet them and shows them around and it’s weirdly still full of contents. The agent explains that it’s owned by a company who hope to turn it into a retreat, and while this is in the planning stage they need someone to caretake the house. They must live in it, as well as looking after and creating an inventory of it’s many contents. James wasn’t going to tell Cass straight away about the house’s sad history, but the agent does and at first Cass isn’t sure she could live somewhere such a violent act occurred. However, they certainly couldn’t afford anything like this normally. James assures her it will be fine and they agree to take on the contract, an easy thing to do in broad daylight on a lovely day, but Cass will be here alone while James is at work. Can a house hold trauma within it’s bricks and mortar or is Cass just being fanciful?
It doesn’t help that Cass’s father is very protective and isn’t sure about James or Newington House. James and Cass met in a club when she was standing in the shadows watching her friend enjoy her hen night and she is surprised when the attractive man she has just met, stands beside her and holds her hand. Yet it feels completely natural, like they’ve held hands before. Since then, her distance from James has been an issue as they can only see each other at weekends and Cass’s father worries about her travelling so far and being away from his watchful eye. It felt Iike there was something we didn’t know about her because her father’s concern seems out of all proportion. We start to learn that Cass has had issues with her mental health and there’s an allusion to her worrying that someone might be watching or stalking her. This really muddies the waters when it comes to knowing what is real and what is imagination as the couple move into Newington House. Cass is the one who has some strange experiences, perhaps because she’s home more than James or maybe because she’s susceptible to suggestion. Or is something more sinister going on and the house is singling her out? The house itself doesn’t feel creepy at first, but there’s always a sense that something more is going on than meets the eye, as if it’s traumatic past is still playing out within it’s walls. Like a faulty video recording that’s imprinted forever, leaving glimpses and feelings behind.
The previous family’s belonging don’t help, with Cass finding a long dark hair in the silver hairbrushes on her dressing table and the name Rose scribbled on a piece of paper that’s been left in the family suggestion box. The clock in the hall seems to keep stopping at 8.30pm, despite them winding it daily. It’s as if the house has PTSD and keeps experiencing flashbacks. The crime itself is terrifying, the strange addition of sheep’s masks feel so odd and out of place. In between Cass’s narrative we delve into the past with a young girl called Rose who is back at the village after a stint at private school. She doesn’t know many people of her own age in the village and while looking after the baby is fun, she doesn’t want to be a nanny all summer. She takes a walk into the village and meets two boys on the playing field, one of whom is really good looking. I found these sections so bittersweet, because she is a teenager with everything going for her, but we can sense how unsure she is about herself. She hasn’t had many interactions with boys and her innocence leaves her open to exploitation. She desperately wants to be liked, wants her feel that first kiss and know someone desires her. She’s sure to bow to peer pressure all too easily. I thought this character was written beautifully, really conjuring up those awkward teenage feelings. We know the name Rose has a resonance in the house, Cass can sometimes feel a sudden draft and the name comes to mind. Could Rose be the murdered girl at the manor and what is she trying to tell it’s new resident?
I was worried for Cass that perhaps an inexplicable evil lurks at the house, rather like the Overlook Hotel in The Shining where a terrible trauma seems to have infected the very walls of the building compelling residents to repeat history again and again. As the past and present narratives come together there is so much tension. We know the facts of what happened that fateful night but we don’t know the ‘who’ or the ‘why’ because it seems to have come from nowhere. I’m always desperate to know the reasons behind something, more than the whodunnit at times. This is where I felt a little bit lost, because I wanted to know if any of characters was the surviving child but the further we delved into the past the more characters seemed to be involved. My pet theory on why Cass was so vulnerable before meeting James was totally wrong! As we flipped back and forth in time I did have to go back and do some re-reading because I was genuinely confused. There were revelations I didn’t expect at all, adding more aspects to the case and the house than my brain could handle. It was like opening a set of Russian dolls to find that none of them matched the outside. However, the reveal of who was behind the masks was excellent and added an extra layer of danger to the ending. I think the moral of the story is that when you’re offered money to look after a mansion where murders have occurred, think twice. The old adage of ‘if something seems to good to be true it probably is’ really does apply here. I felt the best thing about the book was that sense of foreboding in the place where trauma has occurred, as if the violent acts of that night were imprinted on time like a photograph.
Out now from HQ
Meet the Author
Louise Jensen has sold over a million English language copies of her International No. 1 psychological thrillers ‘The Sister’, ‘The Gift’, ‘The Surrogate’, ‘The Date’, ‘The Family’, ‘The Stolen Sisters’, ‘All For You’ and ‘The Fall’. Her novels have also been translated into twenty-five languages, as well as featuring on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestseller’s List. Her next thriller publishes in Spring 2024.
Louise has been nominated for multiple awards including Goodreads Debut Author Of The Year, The Guardians ‘Not The Booker Prize’, best polish thriller of 2018 and she has also been listed for two CWA Dagger awards. All of Louise’s thrillers are currently under option for TV & film. She has also written short stories for various publications including ‘My Weekly’, ‘Hello’, ‘Best’ and ‘The Sun’, as well as having stories featured in multiple anthologies.
Louise also has a penchant for exploring the intricacies of relationships through writing heart-breaking and uplifting stories under the pen name Amelia Henley. ‘The Life We Almost Had’ and ‘The Art of Loving You’ were international best sellers. ‘From Now On’ is her latest Amelia Henley release.
Louise lives with her husband, children, madcap dog and a rather naughty cat in Northamptonshire. She loves to hear from readers and writers.
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