Tag: Thriller

Posted in Publisher Proof

Marshal of Snowdonia by Simon McCleave 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Living and working in Snowdonia was always retired detective Frank Marshal’s dream. Until a phone call asking for his help turns it into his worst nightmare.

Retired detective Frank Marshal lives in a remote part of Snowdonia with his wife Rachel who is suffering from dementia. Working as a park ranger, Frank gets a phone call from close friend Annie, a retired judge. Her sister Meg has gone missing from a local caravan park and she needs his help to find her.

As Frank and Annie start to unravel the dark secrets of Meg’s life, it seems at first that her disappearance might be linked to her nephew and a drug deal gone wrong. In a shocking twist, their investigation leads them to a series of murders in North Wales from the 1990s and a possible miscarriage of justice.

Can Frank and Annie uncover the sinister truth so they find her sister in time to save her? Or will a brutal serial killer add Meg to his list of victims?

I love Snowdonia and have visited at least once a year since I was a child, even now staying in or close to the farmhouse we’ve booked since I was 12 years old. I also enjoy crime fiction so I can’t believe I haven’t come across Simon McCleave before. This is the start of a new series so I have the joy of going straight to the beginning of his other novels and devouring them. Frank Marshal is an interesting man, the ex-detective and mountain ranger lives in Snowdonia with wife Rachel who has dementia. For most of the novel their daughter Caitlin lives in the annexe with her son after fleeing an abusive relationship. It was quite a slow start to the novel but I could see what the writer was doing, setting the scene of the awe-inspiring landscape and also sowing seeds for future novels. I could see family issues and heartbreaking choices ahead for Frank, as well as some future rivals in the force and the criminal world. Annie was an interesting character too, an ex-judge and described as a close friend of Frank’s, he definitely shows his commitment and loyalty to that friendship as he puts himself in danger to find her sister Meghan. In a lot of ways Frank reminded me of my own father who has spent his life climbing all over Welsh mountains as a youth worker and climbing instructor. Frank’s desire to protect his family, as well as forgetting his age in the process was very familiar to me. Thank goodness my dad doesn’t have his guns anymore, but he’s not afraid to put his bare knuckle fighting and boxing skills to use when necessary. He’s a real worry. So I could imagine being Frank’s daughter and I recognised his determination when he realises half way through a fight that he’s feeling almost all of his 71 years. 

The story really picks up speed after the first few chapters and as it became more addictive, I admit I stayed up until 1am this morning to finish. I had a hunch and I had to see how it played out. Frank and Annie’s investigation starts as Meghan goes missing and her son Callum turns up in hospital with amnesia. Annie doesn’t want to think that her nephew has anything to do with this, but at first they make a couple of discoveries that seem to point in his direction. However there are other potential avenues. The murky world of a 1990s serial killer, convicted when Frank was still on the force and a drug boss who dresses like a Boden model but is a Scouse gangster underneath. Frank’s police connections get them places most people couldn’t, including visiting a serial killer. They have a couple of nasty skirmishes too and I had to keep reminding myself that this was a couple of OAPs! Annie is equally ballsy and has some connections of her own, including a youth offender who now works in IT so he can care for his elderly mum. I’m fascinated with cold cases, in terms of the science we now use to convict offenders decades later, but also because of the things that are missed and dismissed. There’s a detail that’s so important to finding the truth that was completely dismissed by officers due to the witness being a sex worker. I watched a documentary about the Yorkshire Ripper where the police’s attitude to first killings was almost a shrug of the shoulders because they were sex workers. Yet when he killed a young woman on her way home after a night out both police and press said it was his first ‘innocent’ victim which made my blood boil. Frank and Annie find the witness, who has two very pertinent clues ignored for thirty years that could be the key to the case. 

I’m always complaining about thrillers and crime novels that rely on their twists and turns without any depth to the characters or the story. I couldn’t complain at all here. There are twists, including one I only started to suspect few pages before it was revealed. However, the book was also full of emotion: Frank and his wife sitting in bed and looking at old photos was so poignant since both know she is slowly forgetting it all; the beautiful relationship between Frank and his grandson; Annie’s grief over her sister’s disappearance and her nephew’s accident. All felt like fully realised people, even those only in the novel a short time. I could see Frank locking horns with police chief Dewi in the future. I felt totally creeped out by Meghan’s rather unsettling neighbour at the caravan park. I was even interested in the scouse drug dealers and could imagine them finding their way into future storylines. I loved the setting too, the author has managed to capture it’s beauty and it’s bleakness, plus I look forward to visiting the Barmouth chippy when I go there later this year. This was a cracking mystery that crept up on you slowly then didn’t let you put it down. I’m looking forward to many more adventures with Frank Marshal. 

Out now from Stanford Publishing

Meet the Author

Simon McCleave is a multi million-selling crime novelist who lives in North Wales with his wife and two children.

Before he was an author, Simon worked as a script editor at the BBC and a producer at Channel 4 before working as a story analyst in Los Angeles. He then became a script writer, writing on series such as Silent Witness, The Bill, EastEnders and many more. His Channel 4 film Out of the Game was critically acclaimed and described as ‘an unflinching portrayal of male friendship’ by Time Out.

His first book, ‘The Snowdonia Killings’, was released in January 2020 and soon became an Amazon Bestseller, reaching No 1 in the UK Chart and selling over 400,000 copies. His twenty subsequent novels in the DI Ruth Hunter Snowdonia Series have all been Amazon bestsellers, with most of them hitting the top of the digital charts. He has sold over 3 million books to date. 

‘The Dark Tide’, Simon’s first book in an Anglesey based crime series for publishing giant Harper Collins (Avon), was a major hit in 2022, becoming the highest selling Waterstone’s Welsh Book of the Month ever. 

This year, Simon is releasing the first in a new series of books, ‘Marshal of Snowdonia’ with several more planned for 2025. 

Simon has also written a one-off psychological thriller, Last Night at Villa Lucia, for Storm Publishing, which was a major hit, The Times describing it as ‘…well above the usual seasonal villa thriller…’ with its ‘…empathetic portrayal of lives spent in the shadow of coercion and abuse.’ 

The Snowdonia based DI Ruth Hunter books are now set to be filmed as a major new television series, with shooting to begin in North Wales in 2025.

Posted in Orenda, Random Things Tours

Son by Thomas Enger and Johana Gustawsson

Posted on by thelotusreaders

The blurb on the back of this novel promises an electrifying blockbuster that will be the start of a ‘nerve shattering’ new series. So there’s a lot to live up to, but don’t worry Son definitely delivers. To use a rather impolite phrase, this is a therapist’s wet dream of a novel – hidden characters, unexplained black outs, grief, trauma and an investigator who is dubbed ‘The Human Lie Detector’. I was definitely in my element here. Kari Voss is the centre of this tangled web, a psychologist who specialises in memory and body language making her a perfect consultant to Oslo’s police force. When two girls are brutally killed in a summer house in the village of Son, it’s a crime that’s closer to home than she would want. The girls, Eva and Hedda, were best friends with Kari’s son Vetle when they were younger. In fact it was while on a holiday seven years ago that Vetle disappeared in nearby woods and was never found. The girls are now teenagers and were planning a Halloween party for their friends, but were found tied to dining chairs with their throats cut. They were found by a third friend, Samuel Gregson, when he turned up to start the festivities. However, there was someone else there, someone who left slippery marks in the blood that has poured onto the floor. He’s the first person that police chief Ramona Norum arrests and starts to question. When Kari is asked to consult she knows this will be difficult, not only is she friends with the girl’s families, but their lives are inextricably linked to her missing son. How will she negotiate all the emotions this case will unleash and stay focused enough to find the girl’s killer? 

Often with thrillers, I find they’re full of action, twists and turns that are really addictive, but have no emotional depth. The characters are often one dimensional and it’s hard to care about what happens to them. There’s no danger of that here. This is the perfect combination of twisty and unexpected, but underpinned with huge emotional weight. It’s deeply unsettling, with a questionable suspect and an equally unreliable narrator. Not only is Kari still dealing with the trauma of losing her son, she’s also grieving for the more recent loss of her husband. She can’t sleep and seems to running on empty from the start. Yet, the way she observes people is so detailed and it seems almost effortless. This goes way beyond the basics like crossed arms meaning someone feels defensive. In a lecture she tells students that in the space of an ordinary conversation we give away over eighty-five non – verbal signs about the mood we’re in. She’s not afraid of giving an unpopular opinion either. She absolutely backs the science and her ability to analyse people, whether they’re claiming to be innocent or guilty. I loved the tension created by the authors as they played with her expertise and her emotions. Is she detached enough to make a sound judgement here? As if that isn’t enough, there seem to be instances where Kari loses time. She wakes up in the car on her own driveway with no recollection of the journey home. She seems to have been on autopilot, so caught up in her own thoughts she hasn’t noticed the journey. She had similar blackouts after her husband died, but what has triggered them? When the young man arrested at the scene of the crime also seems to have experienced a black out I wondered whether he knew her history. Could he be deflecting attention from himself because he knows Kari’s secret? Or is Kari more liable to believe a story like that because she’s experienced it herself? It’s this complexity that makes the plot and Kari herself more fascinating. 

No one is what they appear here. As Kari starts to ask questions about Eva and Hedda, it turns out that they aren’t always the polite children or young teenagers they appeared to be to the adults in their lives. Everyone has different layers, choosing what to reveal and to whom they reveal it. The authors are very clever about the amount of introspection they use, creating a hidden layer to the crimes and a breathing space between the character driven chapters and the ones filled with nail-bitingly intense action. Then they throw in another twist, to keep you engaged, leaving me unsure of my own deduction skills. There’s even subterfuge in the title, Son is a place that’s slightly north of Oslo, steeped in Nordic history and full of that unsettling atmosphere that I find Nordic Noir is so good at. Yet it’s also a person, so missed by those who love him and inextricably linked to this landscape, that has potentially become his final resting place. I was compelled to read this to the end, taking it everywhere with me on holiday so I could grab a chapter in a coffee shop or even in the car. This is an engrossing and addictive start to a promised new series and I’m already craving the next instalment.  

Out on 13th March from Orenda Books

Meet the Authors

Known as the Queen of French Noir, Johana Gustawsson is one of France’s most highly regarded, award-winning crime writers, recipient of the prestigious Cultura Ligue de l`Imaginaire Award for her gothic mystery Yule Island. Number-one bestselling books include Block 46, Keeper, Blood Song and her historical thriller, The Bleeding. Johana lives in Sweden with her family. A former journalist, Thomas Enger is the number-one bestselling author of the Henning Juul series and, with co-author Jørn Lier Horst, the international bestselling Blix & Ramm series, and one of the biggest proponents of the Nordic Noir genre. He lives in Oslo. Rights to Johana and Thomas’ books have been sold to a combined fifty countries and, for the first time, two crime writers, from two different countries, writing in two different languages, have joined forces to create an original series together.

Posted in Netgalley

The Psychopath Next Door by Mark Edwards

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When I want a thriller that I’ll absolutely devour in one or two sittings, I always reach for Mark Edwards and his latest is very unsettling. Fiona Smith is new on the street and is trying to get to know her neighbours. Ethan and Emma Dove seem like a lovely couple, in fact they’re the ideal family. Their kids Dylan and Rose are targeted by the two tearaways who live across the road who circle the other teenagers on their scrambler bikes, as their German Shepherds circle their terrified cockapoo Lola. Fiona intervenes and when later one of the boys has a terrible accident their parents are convinced someone caused the tyre blowout that resulted in a head injury. It couldn’t have been Fiona could it? The boy’s parents can’t find a trace of Fiona online so no red flags. However, the elderly lady called Iris who lives on the corner, she’s sure she’s seen Fiona before but can’t quite put her finger on where. When Fiona offers to look after Ethan and Emma’s daughter Rosie for the summer she has definitely become a feature in their lives. Their son Dylan is unsure. He definitely doesn’t need a babysitter, but it isn’t just that. Fiona unnerves him. He’s noticed that when no one is looking her expression becomes neutral, like a robot. Rose is enraptured though and they begin to visit Fiona’s favourite places and play chess together when it’s raining. All the time Fiona is monitoring Rose. Has she seen a glimmer of herself in this ordinary seeming teenage girl? As Fiona starts to test out Rose’s limits, Ethan and Emma are oblivious to what’s happening to their daughter. 

The action takes place over one summer, with steadily rising tension. I can promise you that you’ll reach a certain point and won’t want to put this down. Ethan and Emma have a fairly ordinary family life with the usual ups and downs. I felt Ethan was much more fleshed out than Emma, he’s recently taken the risk of opening a vinyl record store and taking the move further out of London. They had a recent crisis in their relationship after Emma became close to a work colleague – something Ethan describes as an ‘emotional affair’. Fiona is very amused by this description and sees it as a potential opportunity to drive a wedge between them. I was surprised that they so readily agreed to leaving Rose with their new neighbour, after all their knowledge of her is vague at best. They haven’t even been inside her house. However, I did understand the financial pressures and needing to be two working parents with teenagers pushing to do different things. Fiona is a godsend, a very rare adult that Rose enjoys being with. They definitely seem to have a bond, but is that down to a shared psychology? Rose could just be doing that teenage girl thing of being fascinated with a woman who isn’t her mum. Fiona allows little slivers of rebellion, like watching a horror film that her mum wouldn’t approve of. This builds a web of secrets between them and lets Rose feel like a grown-up. 

Psychologically, the story is fascinating. The word ‘grooming’ has to be applied here. Fiona is very aware of the protection her gender affords and a further layer is afforded to mothers. No one suspects a mother and her daughter, it’s the same reason that female murderers become so infamous: women are creators not destroyers. There’s also the nature versus nurture debate, is Fiona simply harnessing a tendency already present in Rose or will her grooming bring out behaviour that would have otherwise stayed dormant. There are some heart-stopping moments as the novel comes towards the final showdown and I was absolutely gripped. I love that Mark Edwards doesn’t follow the usual tropes of thrillers, because I kept thinking that once Rose realises her full potential there would be no going back. Psychopathy has some treatment options available, but current thinking is that it’s an inherited or genetic condition where the areas of the brain controlling behaviour and impulse control are underdeveloped. Treatment is a combination of psychotherapy, behavioural training and an emphasis on the importance of connection to family and the wider community. However, it is a disorder that can only be controlled rather than cured. Once someone has been shown that society’s rules can be broken can they ever truly go back to how they were before? One thing that really stood out to me was that Fiona’s house has no books! Always a bad sign I think and as a piece of advice on dating it was invaluable; if you go home with someone and they don’t have books, don’t sleep with them. I won’t ruin the book by saying too much, but I highly recommend it to those who enjoy devouring thrillers. In fact if you’ve never read Mark Edwards before go and take a look at his previous books too. You won’t be disappointed. 

Out now from Thomas and Mercer

Meet the Author

I write books in which scary things happen to ordinary people, the best known of which are Follow You Home, The Magpies, and Here To Stay. My novels have sold over 5 million copies and topped the bestseller lists numerous times. I pride myself on writing fast-paced page-turners with lots of twists and turns, relatable characters and dark humour. My next novel is The Wasp Trap, which will be published in July in the UK/Australia and September in the US/Canada. 

I live in the West Midlands, England, with my wife, our three children, two cats and a golden retriever.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective

Every Move You Make by C.L. Taylor 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Alexandra, Lucy, Bridget, River and Natalie. Five friends who wish they’d never met. Because the one thing they have in common is the worst thing in their lives: they are all being stalked.

When one of their group is murdered, days after their stalker is released from prison, time stands still for them all. They know their lives could end just as brutally at any moment – all it takes is for the people they fear the most to catch up with them.

When the group receive a threat that one of them will die in ten days’ time, the terror that stalks their daily lives becomes all-consuming. But they know they don’t want to be victims anymore – it’s time to turn the tables and finally get their revenge.

Because the only way to stop a stalker is to become one yourself…

After starting the novel with a tense and terrifying narrative of a woman being stalked, the author jumps forward and shows us how the loss of Natalie has affected those around her so deeply. For a handful of mourners, her loss is a terrible reminder of how they met and increases the fear of their own fate. Natalie’s friends tell their stories through the WhatsApp group they share. Alex, Lucy, Bridget and River are all victims of stalking. They formed their group to support each other and as a way of looking out for each other, using it to check in when outside their homes and when they return. However, when a very clear threat is made against them, they have to protect themselves. What lengths will they go to? The structure takes us between characters giving us a little bit of their story each time. Each of their stories slowly weaves together to create a whole; the phrase ‘one more chapter’ is very apt for this book. Sometimes you get caught up in a particular story, reach a cliffhanger and realise you have to read through three more chapters to find out what happened. It’s a interesting mix of characters, choosing women of different ages and a man shows us that it’s not only young women who are victims of stalking. I could sense that there were secrets to unearth with all of them and I found myself unable to fully trust anyone. They were complex and I thought the author explored their character and the group dynamics really well. I found myself switching between who I mistrusted and why. This suspicion did ramp up the tension not to mention the thrilling action scenes. 

The other aspect of this novel that is brilliantly executed is the description of the psychological impact that the stalking has on each character. We can see each character dealing with their situation differently, based on their personality, past experiences and who is stalking them. Some know exactly who their stalker is, while others are stalked by a complete stranger. The author manages to put across the constant vigilance, that feeling of always looking over your shoulder and the fear of what the stalker might do next. She shows how some stalkers escalate, keeping their victim behind closed doors, terrified to venture into the outside world alone. There’s also an element of victims taking their power back and carrying out acts of retaliation. The remaining four of the group do this by tagging their stalkers so they can monitor their whereabouts at all times. To do this without the stalker realising is incredibly dangerous. As each chapter counts down to the potential murder of one of the victims, the sense of fear really does set in and keeps those pages turning. 

Reading this in the same week that Louise, Hannah and Julie Hunt’s killer was found guilty of their murder really hit home. Misogyny and violence against women seems to be on the rise at the moment. Often violence follows months or even years of abuse, coercive control and stalking. It also seems that women are losing trust in the system that’s designed to protect them, especially since Sarah Everard was killed by a serving police officer. Here the characters are avoiding telling the police and I was left wondering it was disillusionment with the police force or whether some characters had something to hide. For the person who once professed to love you, to exhibit such abusive behaviour, must be terrifying. In fact it is often walking away from the relationship and cutting off communication that leads to escalation, just when the victim is settled and starting to feel safe again. The author’s writing brings the truth of this issue to light, because it shows how important it is to have all the parts of a story. The problem is, stalking is often a case of one person’s word against the other. The book’s structure shows how one person’s account either illuminates or throw suspicion on someone else. Whether they’re guilty or not can depend upon their eloquence and ability to charm others. This is such a timely novel and it was interesting to read how the author’s research and personal experience informed her story. For me it was this personal insight that made her story feel so authentic.

Available now. Published by Avon Books

Meet the Author

C.L. Taylor is an award winning Sunday Times bestselling author of ten gripping psychological thrillers including EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick for autumn 2024, THE GUILTY COUPLE, (Richard and Judy Book Club 2023) and SLEEP (Richard and Judy Book Club 2019).

C.L. Taylor’s books have sold over two million copies in the UK alone, hit number one on Amazon Kindle, Audible, Kobo, iBooks and Google Play, and have been translated into over 30 languages and optioned for TV.

Her books are not a series and can be read in any order:

Posted in Random Things Tours

The Last Days of Kira Mullan by Nicci French

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I always jump at the chance to read a new Nicci French book. Also they’re so prolific that it’s easy to find earlier novels in charity shops. This novel is set in a Victorian house split into flats and it’s newest residents are Nancy and her boyfriend Felix. Nancy is recovering after a psychiatric episode and a stay in hospital. Thankfully her voices have subsided but she’s fragile and moving to a new part of London has been destabilising. After venturing out for a walk she starts to experience voices again and in her confusion she rushes back to the flat. At the front door she bumps into a young woman wearing very striking green boots with yellow laces. The woman speaks to Nancy but it doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t help that she’s trying to distinguish between which voices are real. All she knows is that the woman was distressed and possibly needed help. Only 24 hours later the young woman is found hanging in the basement flat. Her name was Kira Mullan. Everyone seems sad that Kira committed suicide but for Nancy, something feels off. She isn’t sure that Kira did kill herself. How can she convince the others that she’s telling the truth when nobody trusts her?

This novel was absolutely gripping with brilliantly written main characters and a haunting central victim in Kira. I loved the idea of following the story through Nancy who has been struggling with her mental health and a clever, perceptive detective in Maud. The authors have cleverly placed Nancy on shifting sands – not only has she had a period of psychosis but she’s moved house and into an entirely strange area of London. She’s also lost her livelihood as a chef and could be living in a building with a murderer. She’s also without a touchstone in her life. I know exactly who to go to and ask whether I’m the asshole? I have friends who will tell the truth about whether I’m over-reacting or if something is genuinely wrong. This was invaluable when I found myself in an emotionally abusive relationship. I’d hoped that Nancy’s boyfriend Felix would be that person but I’d noticed a few red flags. He’s very attentive and seems to want her wrapped up in cotton wool, but Nancy is doing all the right things. On the day after she’s heard voices she asks to see the psychiatrist who changes the dosage of her medication and goes for counselling. She’s resting and doing her breathing exercises. In fact there’s very little else she can do. The authors leave us constantly wondering about her; is she paranoid or are the other residents out to get her?

Felix claims he only wants people to look out for her but Nancy feels like her space and autonomy are being encroached on. Felix tells the other residents everything about her history, including the psychosis, even the doctor who lives across the hall. He even gives next door neighbour Michelle their door key so she can let herself in, much to Nancy’s shock. His actions have actually left Nancy more vulnerable, leaving her open to abuse from others that they can deny. Who’s going to believe the mad girl? Nancy doesn’t think she’s paranoid but can see that her actions might seems excessive: she goes through Kira’s bin; steals a used condom from the flat and goes to look at the apartment with an estate agent; she also tells the police and Kira’s mother that she doesn’t think it was suicide. Just as she thinks she’s getting close to answers she is sectioned again after Michelle informs Felix that she threatened her. The authors show us how vulnerable mentally unwell women are in the care system and NHS, even though they’re designed to protect them. Not only is her liberty taken away and she’s prey to unscrupulous carers and nurses. In this upside down world, the more she protests her sanity the worse things become. She loses whole days to medication and is told by one male nurse that her life would be easier if she was ‘nice’ to him. So Nancy bites him. She has only one choice here. Be obedient, ignore the barbs and smile sweetly through visits she doesn’t want. It’s the only way she’ll be free. 

I loved the relationship between the detective Maud and Nancy. Maud is so perceptive and their experiences do mirror each other in a way. Maud knows that as a woman in the MET she is in the minority and she’s fully aware of the type of man that can be hiding behind a uniform or a title. In their respective institutions Nancy and Maud are trapped within a system they can’t change. Maud knows that if she becomes emotional or passionate about a particular case she will be seen as an irrational or hormonal woman. If she’s assertive and asks for what’s rightfully hers she’ll be called a bitch. In order to get the cases she wants and stand up for women like Kira and Nancy she has to play the game. It seemed to me that Maud saw the red flags with certain people whether in the flats or the house next door. She never holds Nancy’s illness against her and accepts that although she’s been struggling, she still might have something useful for solving the case. She also has a network of women within the system who will do her favours, such as looking over autopsy results and giving a second opinion. I loved the way she handles herself and her confidence in very dangerous circumstances. This was a gripping and psychologically brilliant read. I’d didn’t work out all of what had happened in Kira’s final days but the end was satisfying and I reached it very quickly because this is quite the page turner. 

Out in hardback from Simon & Schuster on Jan 16th 2025

Meet the Author

Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together.

Posted in Back of the Shelf, Throwback Thursday

The Lingering by S.J. Holliday

Posted on by thelotusreaders

In the free reading time I have towards the end of the year I’ve chosen to read the back catalogue of a few authors and S.J.Holliday happened to be someone I was really interested in. I love most of Orenda Books’s authors and I first came into contact with them through S.J. Holiday’s book Violet, which was one of my first ever blog tours. I loved the psychological aspects of the book and the way the author saw women as they really are – the heroes of their own stories, making autonomous decisions with the potential to be just as violent and chaotic as a male character. I’ve had The Lingering on the shelf for a while, but something made me take it down last week to read while soaking in the bath. Ali and her husband have made a huge decision. They’ve sold up almost everything they own and joined a commune of people living in what was an old psychiatric unit. At first they’re unsure of the group and their surroundings, but as her husband starts to settle in, his wife Ali seems less able to. Is it the strange house, with it’s abandoned wing full of old psychiatric equipment? Is it the sceptical locals? Or do Ali and husband Jack have dark secrets of their own?

The setting of this story is so gothic and atmospheric, with a dark history that slowly reveals itself both through local’s stories and the things left behind – physical and paranormal. Angela, the other narrator in our story, is the keeper of these stories and an amateur investigator of the paranormal. She has the house wired with sound equipment and cameras, particularly those areas where her sixth sense starts tingling. One of those areas is the bathroom adjoining Ali and Jack’s new bedroom, but also in the attic room above. I was slightly alarmed by the way she was watching the new couple, in a detached way almost like they were animals in an experiment. She seems like a new age, tree hugging, ethereal type of woman who has really bought into the ethos of the community. Ali notices her reverence in the rituals they share as a group and in the meditation sessions. Her name outlines her role within the group, she is the angelic and slightly naïve little sister to the others. Yet there is another side to her, the side that enjoys the stories told by locals like Mary in the shop about the house’s witches and the later rumours surrounding the asylum. She seems to enjoy the intrigue and proves to be quite the detective when it comes to Ali and Jack, showing a sneakier and unpleasant part to her character. The house itself is a labyrinth, with secret rooms and endless corridors. That strange juxtaposition of the natural and the man made felt wrong. All the hospital equipment and furniture just sitting there as if still being used, whilst the outside elements and nature are starting to encroach inside left me feeling uneasy. I felt as if any moment Ali or Angela might look in the mirror and see a busy ward behind them, like a glimpse through time.

In my closest city of Lincoln there is an old Victorian asylum on the outskirts, now slowly being developed into residential spaces. For years it remained deserted and derelict, with a strange aura around it. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a 19th Century nurse at one of the broken windows, because it was untouched all that energy still seemed present. Local explorers did search around inside and take pictures of the iron bedsteads and old medical equipment just lying around as if someone had only just left the room. The mould, piles of rotted leaves, cobwebs and dirt added to the sense of abandonment. You certainly wouldn’t have found me in the there at night! This was exactly what was running through my mind as I was reading and it set me on edge. This house felt as if some parts were inhabited by the living and others by the dead. I won’t spoil the scary moments for other readers, but Ali’s first experience as she climbs into the bath after their long journey would have sent me running back up the drive. It has double impact because not only is it inexplicable, it’s an echo back to events that really happened in the house’s past, events that are haunting even without their ghostly context.

I didn’t trust anyone after a few chapters, despite at first happily reading Ali’s experience and trusting her account. As a reader I’m used to fictional communities like this being sinister under their surface mantras of love and light. Yet Angela makes discoveries that put the couple’s story in doubt and I began to wonder about Jack. What had forced these people to leave behind two respected professions and could it have something to do with a box of hidden news cuttings? One of the most tense sections of the book had nothing to do with the paranormal and involved some of the villagers. Late night Ali notices a 4X4 vehicle coming up the drive with a large lantern on the roof and several men inside, most of them holding a gun. As she goes outside to confront them they explain that they’re merely ‘lamping’ nearby and have an agreement to flash their late at the community leader’s bedroom window so he knows they’re nearby. Much as it seems ridiculous to flash a light in someone’s window so you don’t disturb them, their excuse is a plausible one and it’s something I often see in the fields surrounding us. Yet there is an undercurrent in their conversation with Ali and when explaining what happened she does reference Straw Dogs, a violent 1970’s film where an academic and his wife move to the country and are terrorised by the villagers. However, her reaction is excessive and made me wonder what had happened in the past to trigger her that way. The author flips us between Angela and Ali, building the tension towards some sort of confrontation. Will Ali find out that Angela has been watching them and explode or will Angela’s snooping reveal something dreadful about the new recruits? I loved the hauntings, especially the emotive little child’s wet footprints that dot around the place. Do these apparitions have a malign purpose or are they simply trapped in a place where traumatic events play over and over like a continuous cinema reel? This is a brilliantly tense and spooky read that seems perfect for autumnal evenings, but might put you off baths for a little while.

Out now from Orenda Books

Meet the Author

Susi (S.J.I.) Holliday is the bestselling Scottish author of 11 novels, a novella and many short stories. By day she works in pharmaceuticals. She lives in London (except when she’s in Edinburgh) and she loves to travel the world.

Posted in Netgalley

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious…

This addictive thriller was set in the Blue Ridge Mountains and gave off distinct Saltburn vibes with it’s resident family and the outsiders who’ve come to stay. Camden was adopted by the infamous Ruby McTavish, Carolina’s richest woman and childhood victim of a kidnapping plot. Camden has been estranged from his adoptive mother for years, walking away from the family money and living an ordinary life with wife Jules. When he receives a visit from his cousin he can’t ignore his family any longer. Ruby has left Ashby House, the family home, to Camden despite the fact he doesn’t live there or speak to any of the family that do. His first instinct, on being asked to return to his childhood home is to refuse, but Jules persuades him that they should take the trip. Ashby House is famous because Ruby McTavish was kidnapped from the grounds when she was a small child, but then returned. Ruby was famous locally: for the kidnapping, for the wealth she inherits from her father Alexander McTavish who was a lumber magnate and for the amount of times she was married. Can Camden make peace with his eccentric step-family members who rely on Ashby House for a roof over their heads? Or will he sign away his inheritance and turn his back on them forever? 

Ashby House is as eccentric and jumbled up as the family that remains and is set in a beautiful spot with the Blue Ridge Mountains providing it’s backdrop. 

‘Built in 1904 by lumber magnate Alexander McTavish, the house is as eccentric as the family who owns it. Part Victorian, part Palladian, it features smooth gray stone and peaked roofs, marble patios and leaded windows. It should not work and yet, miraculously—almost mystically—it does. Guests of the home have commented that there’s something about Ashby House that makes you feel as if the rest of the world does not exist. As if you could stay safely tucked behind its walls forever and want for nothing else.’

Jules is charmed by the house, particularly the view from the porch up to the mountains. Up till now she has been satisfied with their life and their cosy little flat. She was used to being anonymous. Now she can’t shop in town without special treatment, everyone seems to know that she’s Camden McTavish’s wife. Even if some family members thought Cam shouldn’t inherit, not being a blood McTavish, the town seemed to accept him. As the remaining family members at Ashby start to manipulate and jostle for position, I wondered whether Jules was growing rather fond of the life that her husband had vowed to leave behind. Though it was becoming clear that being part of this particular family is a bit of a poisoned chalice. It felt all the time that a game was being played out but I had no idea who had devised it. I loved Ruby’s letters, beautifully placed between the main narrative, explaining her motivations and serving up some brutal honesty about her husbands. Strangely, although her behaviour is reprehensible, it’s hard not to like Ruby. She’s audacious, daring and has a dark humour I really enjoy. However, she’s also self-centred and devious. In fact most members of the family could be described this way. Ashby House is a viper’s nest of ego, deception, manipulation and avarice. I worried that Cam and Jules would submit to it’s deathly grip. Could that incredible porch view and the ease of a life with money win them over? 

The first chapters of the book are a little slow and I was unsure about where it was going at first. After that we get Ruby’s letters, but also the family history that Cam wants no part of, as well as a build up in the tension between the family members. This starts to grab you and the pace picks up all the way to the end. I started to wonder where revelations might come from next! While everyone was under one roof it started to feel like an old-fashioned detective novel/film with an ensemble cast and a plot straight from a Knives Out or Agatha Christie film. This unusual mansion is something of a labyrinth, with each family member quietly plotting and conspiring in their own corner of the building. The slightly overgrown grounds, mountains and sheer cliffs gave plenty of opportunities for ‘accidents’. The author was brilliant at a quick reveal, then immediately hitting you with another suspicion or question. I loved the long running theme of nature or nurture. Is deception in the McTavish blood or is it simply learned by watching generations of machinations nesting in Ashby House? 

Out now from Headline

Meet the Author

Rachel Hawkins (www.rachel-hawkins.com) was a high school English teacher before becoming a full-time writer. She lives with her family in Alabama, and is currently at work on the third book in the Hex Hall series. To the best of her knowledge, Rachel is not a witch, though some of her former students may disagree….

Posted in Throwback Thursday

The Appeal by Janice Hallett

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I came late to Janice Hallett with her novel The Alperton Angels so it’s taken a hiatus from blog tours to finally catch up with her debut novel The Appeal. If you’ve been wondering whether it lives up to the hype? It definitely does. We’re taken to the world of the Fairway Player, an am dram group in an affluent village. It’s time for the players to put on a production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and the usual suspects are readying themselves for auditions. Two events will affect the run: founder members Martin and Helen Hayward find out their granddaughter Poppy has a brain tumour and a new couple move into the village. Sam and Kel Greenwood are nurses and have completed years of aid work in Africa. As fundraising begins for Poppy to have experimental treatment in the USA everyone in the friendship group commits themselves to helping. All except one villager, who is suspicious and starts to make enquiries about the Hayward family. Someone within the players loses their life and another is already in prison on remand. QC Roderick Turner assigns law students Charlotte and Femi to the case. As they review the evidence they start to wonder if the right person is in prison and if even darker secrets lurk beneath? 

The first thing that’s different about this book is the structure. We’re told the story through the WhatsApp messages of Femi and Charlotte as they review the evidence in the form of texts, emails, letters and other documents. At first it’s a bit disorienting because there are so many characters and it’s hard to remember how they’re all related. Luckily there’s a good glossary of characters and they do simply ‘click’ after a while. It’s a bit like dropping into a conversation half way through but Femi and Charlotte act as a pit stop where the case so far is reviewed and the relationships clarified. There are two main strands to the story and they concern the alpha family, the rich and established Haywards and new recruits the Greenwoods. The Haywards own The Grange, a venue for events and health treatments and their family home. Sam and Kel are the latest Fairway recruits, championed by Isabel Beck who they know from work and is a rather lowly member of the group. They are an unknown quantity and could easily upset the dynamic, especially since they’ve been used to a very different and dangerous environment.

Isabel felt to me like the character who holds everything together. Not only does she link old and new residents, she is the most prolific email and text writer. While her output suggests she is a very popular resident who’s at the centre of everything that happens in the village, there doesn’t seem to be much correspondence the other way. In fact other residents ignore Isabel, bitch about her behind her back or are directly snappish and rude. She’s fascinating because the relationships you’d expect her to have from her constant communication don’t seem to exist. She pays court to Sam Greenwood who works alongside her on the geriatric ward, but there’s no real evidence that they’re friends. She feels like a child in the playground that no one wants to play with. She’s on the periphery of groups, desperately laughing at their jokes and joining their events, but is never the focus of their interest. She doesn’t seem to have a solid sense of who she is, bending to the whims of whoever she’s with desperately wanting to be liked. It’s painful to read about her planning to do things with people who have no intention of doing them – she mentions her and Sam going out to Africa but theres no correspondence to show this was ever a shared plan. She reads like a borderline personality and while I felt sorry for her she also made my skin crawl a little. She’s desperate for any sort of attention and people who are desperate do desperate things. I was also a little suspicious of Poppy’s oncologist, especially when a potential donor turns up who’s happy to give 100k to the appeal but wants assurances, such as the actual supplier of the drugs? Also he doesn’t understand why he’s paying the doctor in the UK when the treatment is in the US. The doctor’s replies are vague and I wondered who was trying to benefit – the doctor, the Haywards? 

Just as we settle into the community the author throws in a new variable, such as Kel and Sam’s friend who’s arrived on a break from his own work in Africa. He creates a disturbance at the yoga fundraiser giving Poppy an African doll that he claims has curative properties. He seems drunk and is possibly a drug user too. Could he have committed the murder? We really don’t know who the murderer is, even if we can work out a few of the reasons why. The most fascinating part to me is the psychological make-up of the characters and the dynamics between them. Aside from Isabel’s potential personality disorder, there’s the Greenwood’s PTSD from their aid work and the sad fact that the Haywards lost a child years before. The dynamics are clever with Alpha family The Haywards at the centre of the community, backed up by those who police the community and make their ideas happen. A new couple changes and disrupts the group dynamics where existing people know their place and dutifully follow the group rules. Then there’s those who think they’re in the community, but aren’t. Once you’ve started this novel you won’t be able to put it down. Im laid up in bed or the couch at the moment, so I read this straight through and loved every minute. 

Out Now from Viper Books

Meet the Author

Janice Hallett is the author of five best-selling novels. Her debut, The Appeal, was awarded the CWA Debut Dagger of 2021 and was a Sunday Times’ Bestseller, Waterstones’ Thriller of the Month and Sunday Times’ Crime Book of the Month. Her second novel The Twyford Code was named Crime & Thriller Book of the Year in the British Book Awards 2023. It was also a Sunday Times’ Bestseller and a Financial Times book of the year. The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels was an instant Times and Sunday Times bestseller on its launch in January 2023 and a Richard & Judy Book Club pick.

The Christmas Appeal, a fast, fun and festive novella, was launched in October 2023. It was a Times and Sunday Times bestseller.

Her latest novel The Examiner, was an instant Times and Sunday Times bestseller on its launch and is out now.

Her first novel for children aged 8-12 is A Box Full of Murders, out in June 2025.

Janice is a former magazine editor, award-winning journalist, and government communications writer. As a playwright and screenwriter, she penned the feminist Shakespearean stage comedy NetherBard and co-wrote the feature film Retreat.

Posted in Books of the Year 2024

My Top 20 Books of 2024 – Part 1

Posted on by thelotusreaders

For the last four years I’ve been choosing my favourite books of the according to the year – Top 23 of 2023. I realised that would have to stop, otherwise I’d be doing my top 30 in a few years and that would be ridiculous. So I’ve limited myself to 20 and it’s been so hard. I’ve had to be ruthless. I enjoyed every one of these books, despite their different genres, because of the psychological elements: anxiety about the state of the world; relationship dynamics; becoming radicalised; events from the past marring the future; what makes someone kill; growing up with loss. Also, as you’d perhaps expect considering everything we have to worry about in today’s world, there are allusions to climate change, anti -vaxxers, pandemics, war, misogyny and violence against women, the wellbeing industry and psychological problems. There’s so much to wrap your reading brain around here so I’m going to whet your appetite…

This Squad Pod read from early 2024 kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. It was like a breath of fresh air. Cole is a great husband to wife Melanie, in fact he would definitely say he’s one of the good guys. So when his marriage ends he can’t understand what he’s done wrong. In the aftermath he moves to an isolated coastal area and meets artist Lennie who lives in the cottage on the cliff. Soon they’re tentatively embarking on a relationship, but when two activists go missing during their coastal walk to publicise violence against women it disrupts everything and the police are starting to ask questions. The twists in this book are brilliantly executed and totally unexpected. It’s daringly different and left me so much to think about.

Charity Norman always leaves us with a lot to think about, but this latest novel was particularly thought provoking. Scott and Livia have two children and are always on call to help Scott’s brother, who has Down’s Syndrome. It’s Scott’s inability to help his brother one Saturday morning followed by his sudden death that starts a downward spiral. One careless comment about his brother’s care sets Scott on a search for answers, branching into medical conspiracy theories and the dark web. So when son Noah falls ill, Scott has an online community ready to feed into his distrust and his grip on reality starts to slide, dragging his family with him. As their marriage begins to fall apart, Livia can’t support or even understand her husband’s perspective. In fact he’s become a danger to his children and she must protect them, whatever it takes. This is a brilliantly drawn study of how social media can lead to obsession and allow sinister, unscrupulous people to take advantage of those who are vulnerable. It’s also a painfully accurate depiction of marriage breakdown and a perfect book club choice.

This was another book where marriage breakdown is depicted in painstaking detail. It reads like a thriller where different perspectives and revelations constantly change our perceptions of a situation. It’s like a whodunnit, except the death we’re mourning is the death of a relationship. Bea and Niklas have been together for thirty years and live a comfortable life in Stockholm with their children. Yet one night, after what feels like a trivial argument Niklas walks out and doesn’t come home. Weeks pass where Niklas takes a break and Bea is constantly pushing for answers, but when he returns to their flat he stuns Bea by asking for a divorce. For Bea this has come completely out of the, but is it as unexpected as she claims? Bea narrates the first half of this novel and halfway through the narrative returns to the beginning and Niklas tells us his version of events, which is very illuminating and may change the readers mind about their marriage. This is a simple device that works to devastating effect. I felt genuinely sad for this couple, because neither of them are bad people. It explores boundaries and the unhealthy reasons people can end up together. It’s also a response to grief, beautifully played out over decades. Utterly brilliant.

This is the fifth instalment of Will Dean’s Tuva Moodysson series and it was an absolute cracker. Tuva is investigating further north from Gavrik to an even more isolated town on the edge of the arctic circle. Essleburg is a town where everyone knows everyone else and there’s only one way in or out. A huge tunnel under a mountain provides access to the town, but closes down at night. Once you’re in, you’re in for the night and so is everyone else. From her hotel room at the sun-bed store Tuva sets out to look for a missing teenage boy, drawn by the fact that he is also deaf. But when bodies are found Tuva must face facts, the boy could be one of the victim and if not, could he be the killer? With it’s usual quirky characters and alien landscape, Tuva’s world is as isolating as it is disorienting. As usual Will Dean knows when to ratchet up the tension and when Tuva is in danger it’s absolutely heart-racing stuff.

As all of you know I’m a massive Skelf fan and this addition to the series was brilliant. Every Skelf novel begins with a funeral and they rarely go off without a hitch. This one is no exception, with a drone buzzing the ceremony and it’s guests. Could it be to do with the deceased or has someone got it in for the Skelf women? Jenny’s case follows on from the last book and the cops they investigated for sexually abusing young girls in the travelling community. Both are inexplicably out on bail and Jenny likes to know where they are at all times. Daughter Hannah’s case concerns Brodie the new recruit to the undertaking business. Brodie finds strange scrabbled marks around his baby son’s grave and Hannah sets up a camera, but when told that Brodie hears voices she wonders if he might have gone to the grave and acted subconsciously. Dorothy’s case comes from her involvement with a community choir that includes some Ukrainian war widows. One of the women, Yanna, has gone missing. Her husband Fedir was killed over a year ago and now she’s left her two small children with her mother-in-law. Could she have returned to Ukraine to fight, or has something happened to her? Each of the Skelf women feel vulnerable this time and I felt like the author was playing on my emotions a little. I could sense we were on the verge of a huge change and it left me on tenterhooks throughout.  

I absolutely loved this book. From the very first line – ‘there is someone in the house’ – this book grabs you and never lets go. Our narrator is at her secluded home with her two small children in a blizzard. The sound she hears is a familiar one, a tread on the stairs to her room, but it’s unusually heavy and slow. She has a split second to make the decision – does she hide, try to run or stay and fight. Will all three of them get out alive and if they do will anyone believe her? The first thing that hit me about this book was the unique the narrator’s unique voice. We see everything through her eyes and experience everything her body goes through – the heart-stopping tension of that first night with it’s immediate threat renders everything else unimportant. I should trust what she is experiencing. It’s just so incredibly odd. This tall intruder seems to have two voices: one is harsh and angry the other is soft, wheedling – a voice you might use for children as he asks them to ‘come out little pigs, little pigs are more delicious’. Her little girl identifies him as ‘Corner Man’ from her nightmares. Often sitting in the corner of her bedroom at night whispering to her. My heart was in my throat at this point! Was he real or something supernatural? Could he possibly be real if this is true? Yet I wondered if this overwrought mother is imagining this person, but that opens up a more frightening prospect – is she hallucinating and terrorising her own children with her delusions. The author plays with the reader beautifully from start to finish.

Surprisingly this was my first Peter May novel and is a sequel to his crime novels set in the Hebrides. Once a detective and now retired, Fin is drawn back to Lewis by family, when Caitlin Black’s body is discovered on a remote beach. Only eighteen years old, Caitlin was a student at the Nicholson Institute. When it emerges that she was having an illicit affair with Fionnlagh McLeod, her teacher and a married man twenty years her senior he becomes the prime suspect and is arrested on suspicion of her rape and murder. He is also Finn’s son. He must return to Lewis to support his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. He must also, despite the evidence against him, that he must try to clear his son’s name. As Fin travels around the island, he is drawn into past memories and soon realises this crime has echoes back into his own teenage past on the island. A terrible accident at a salmon farm caused two deaths, just as they started to expand on the island and become a multi-million pound industry. This is Finn’s journey, of family ties, secret relationships and the bleak and unforgiving landscape, where violence, revenge and old loyalties converge.

Frances McGrath is your typical All American teenage girl, living with her family on Coronado Beach, California. She has memories of growing up on that beach, swimming and surfing with her brother Finley. She is from a good family and expectations are that she will have the ‘right’ marriage and become a mother. However, things change when Finley makes a huge decision; he decides to enlist for Vietnam. It’s no surprise that he might go into military service at some point. Frankie’s dad has a wall in his office called the ‘Hero’s Wall’ where every family member’s military service is celebrated with cuttings, photos and medals. All the men, anyway. Yet not many of their friends and family members have sons who’ve voluntarily enlisted for Vietnam. There are ways of avoiding the draft, depending on who you know. Yet Finley enlists of his own accord, possibly believing the American government’s assertions that they must fight communism in Vietnam, lest it become even more widespread. Within weeks there’s a knock at the door; Finley has been killed in action. In a whirlwind of grief Frankie starts looking into her options. She wants to honour her brother and become a hero worthy of her father’s wall. Both the Air Force and Navy need a nurse to complete a long period of training before they’re posted to work in the field. However, if she enlists in the US Army, they’ll post her out to Vietnam after basic nursing training. Much to her parent’s shock Frankie is soon on her way to Vietnam. This is an incredible story about the horrors of war, falling in love and giving voice to the women forgotten in military history.

There have been some incredible historical novels this year, but I really was blown away by this story set just after WW1 and progressing to the mid-twentieth century. Two German sisters, Leni and Annette, live in Berlin and when we first meet them they’re in dire straits, living in a makeshift shelter in an abandoned garden. Thanks to war and the influenza epidemic they’ve lost their family. Leni gets a chance to earn some money at a notorious and rather seedy cabaret club called Babylon Circus. The naive and rather shy Leni becomes a cigarette girl in a second hand and pinned costume that just covers her modesty, but she is at first shocked by what she sees. With shades of the musical Cabaret the author creates a club that is a mirage of clever lighting, fairground mirrors and risqué musical numbers. It’s enchanting by dark and unwelcoming by day, but it doesn’t matter because this is the type of fun that can only be had at night. Everything is overseen by owner Dieter, a man with his own disguise having left half his face on a battlefield. When pianist Paul arrives, he and Leni start to gravitate towards each other. But Paul has a plan to leave Berlin and he would like to take Leni with him. We then move forward to the Cold War and a divided Berlin, where Annette has travelled from America to visit her sister and niece. The tensions and secrets of the Babylon Circus years still hang over the sisters, can they come to terms with the choices they made back then? Can Leni find a second chance of happiness? The author depicts her characters and the time period perfectly, with so much atmosphere. It’s an absolute must read.

Another amazing story set in Berlin is Josie Ferguson’s The Silence In Between. Imagine waking up and a wall has divided your city in two. Imagine that on the other side is your child…

Lisette is in hospital with her baby boy. The doctors tell her to go home and get some rest, that he’ll be fine. When she awakes, everything has changed. Because overnight, on 13 August 1961, the border between East and West Berlin has closed, slicing the city – and her world – in two.
Lisette is trapped in the east, while her newborn baby is unreachable in the west. With the streets in chaos and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone who tries to cross, her situation is desperate. Lisette’s teenage daughter, Elly, has always struggled to understand the distance between herself and her mother, but perhaps she can do something to bridge the gap between them. What begins as the flicker of an idea turns into a daring plan to escape East Berlin, find her baby brother, and bring him home. The author takes us effortlessly back and forth in time to understand this family and  my heart kept breaking for them over and over for. While I struggled to read it at first, I’m so happy that I went back to it because it was breathtaking. It was as if someone had bottled both moments in time and simply poured them onto the page, raw and confronting. This is an absolute must read for historical fiction fans and a book I will definitely go back to in the future. 

Thanks for reading part one. Part 2 is coming tomorrow.

Posted in Netgalley

The Salt Flats by Rachelle Atalla

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Fin and his wife Martha are travelling in South America. Their eventual destination are the salt flats in Bolivia, an other worldly natural phenomenon where the horizon becomes endless and you’re standing in the sky. Martha and Fin are not just sight-seeing, although the urge to take photographs and capture the illusion is strong. Having been together for 11 years, lately they’ve struggled as Martha has been in the grip of an obsessive anxiety over the climate crisis. They are booked into a retreat on the salt flats, found by Martha and extortionately expensive, it promises a transcendent experience using salt to purify mind and body. So the couple find themselves crammed into a pick-up truck alongside Rick and Barb, a middle aged and out of shape American couple, and partners Hannah and Zoe. They are now in the hands of their driver who doesn’t speak a word of English and an elusive shaman called Oscar. They will spend the next few days meditating, relaxing in warm salt pools and participating in a series of salt ceremonies where hallucinogenic visions bring them face o face with their subconscious reality. Yet the final ceremony descends into chaos, Martha and Fin need to grapple with Martha’s anxiety and the moral implications of their trip. As for their marriage, could this nightmare bring them together or are some wounds too deep to heal?

I’ve been fascinated with the salt flats after seeing them on an episode of World’s Most Dangerous Roads. It was incredible to see the sky reflected in the shallow saltwater surface, giving the impression of standing in the sky. It’s an image recently repeated on Race Across the World and even on a small screen it’s an incredible landscape. The author recreates that otherworldly and alien environment so well, creating an atmosphere of dislocation from the normal world even before any hallucinogens. It struck me as an odd place for a spa or well-being centre, something I always imagine as comfortable and with lush surroundings. This landscape is hard and barren. It left me dubious about the benefits of such a place and how professional it would be. As they’re collected by a taciturn driver I half expected him to rob them and leave them in the middle of nowhere. When they break down en route it doesn’t help, giving an impression of something run on a shoestring in a very inhospitable place. The building is much less luxurious than the group imagined, considering the high price they’ve paid to be there. It’s an igloo type structure built from blocks of salt. Even the beds in the dormitory have salt bases and the group are less than impressed to be sleeping in the same room. Each of the group have personal reasons to be there and the first salt ritual brings up themes of infidelity, assault and intrusive negative thoughts about the future. By confronting these issues, Oscar tells them they can process the trauma and move on. Trust has to build very quickly between the group who are letting each other into their personal spaces, both physical and mental. They’re baring their souls to each other. It’s clear that none of them will come out of this experience unchanged. Whether that’s a negative or positive change is hard to say. When Fin wakes up with a blooded face he is completely confused about how he got there. He knows he interacted with Zoe and that Barb had an accident, but the rest is fluffy and unclear. Where is the blood from and what horrors has he blacked out from his memory. 

I didn’t bond with all of the characters but I was definitely intrigued by them. I could understand why all of them needed change in their lives. It was easy to understand Martha’s concerns about the direction the world is taking. Although her preoccupations are with climate change, Brexit, Covid and wars breaking out across the world have left me with anxieties about the future, especially for the younger members of our family. It only takes a few swipes of the iPad to see how climate is changing the lives of those in low lying countries. However, that proximity to information can radicalise people as the most extreme viewpoints shout loudest online and I felt this had happened to Martha. Finn couldn’t keep living with constant anxiety about the future and needed Martha to meet him in the present every so often. The author’s depiction of their relationship felt very real, showing how people in long term relationship can change over time. Sometimes out takes a conscious choice to re-commit to that person or a bit of compromise that reminds why you committed to each other in the first place. Agreeing to the salt spa was Finn’s act of commitment, to show that he can give Martha a little of what she needs in the hope it will be enough. However, he ruins that a little with his scepticism and his shock at how spartan the spa is for the money spent. As horrors start to unfold will he blame Martha or will everything they’ve experienced bring them closer together? That’s if they both get out alive. The monumental stupidity of allowing themselves to be taken into the middle of nowhere at the mercy of people who don’t speak their language and have taken a huge chunk of their savings, starts to sink in. As things start to unravel you won’t be able to put this fascinating debut down.

Out Now from Hodder and Stoughton

Meet the Author

Rachelle Atalla is a Scottish-Egyptian novelist, short story writer and screenwriter based in Glasgow. Her debut novel The Pharmacist was published by Hodder & Stoughton in May 2022.