Our House by Louise Candlish #20BooksofSummer

Author : Louise Candlish
Title : Our House
Pages : 448
Publisher : Simon & Schuster UK
Publication date : April 5, 2018

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.

Our House has been collecting dust on my kindle for months and I’m so glad I finally got the opportunity to read it.

Fiona returns home after a trip to find a bunch of strangers apparently moving into her house. Surely there’s been some sort of mistake! Where is her estranged husband? He was supposed to be at the house looking after their children. They too have disappeared. Who is this couple that claims to have bought Fiona’s dream home? What is happening?!

All will be revealed via two very different ways. Fiona’s side of the story is told through a podcast featuring victims of any crime imaginable. Her husband, Bram, is putting his story to paper and through them both, we will see a series of crimes and misdemeanours have a massive impact on these characters and Fiona will be left to wonder if she ever really knew her husband at all.

This dark and disturbing scenario is positively frightening and left me in a near state of panic, wondering if this could ever happen to me! Full of lies and intrigue, Our House had me absolutely hooked despite the relatively slow pace. This is an addictive page-turner that had me utterly engrossed, although there were a few chapters in the middle section that seemed to drag a little. I didn’t particularly like Fiona or Bram, yet I found myself sympathising with them quite often as things spiralled further and further out of control.

Now, don’t go peeking … but the ending? Whoa! With one sentence, Louise Candlish manages to turn the whole thing on its head and leave your mind blown to smithereens. Our House is compelling, suspenseful, quite different from what I expected but brilliantly written and plotted. If you love domestic suspense stories, you can’t pass this one up!

Our House is available to buy!

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Bookdepository | Kobo | Goodreads

This was book 12 from my list of 20 Books of Summer.