Review: Our House

Posted 29th December 2018 by Emma in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review: Our HouseOur House by Louise Candlish
Narrator: Deni Francis, Paul Panting
Also by this author: Those People, The Heights
Published by Whole Story Audiobooks on 5th April 2018
Genres: Psychological, Suspense, Thriller
Length: 12 hours and 53 minutes
Format: Audible
Source: I bought it
Goodreads
Amazon Kindle
One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarOne Star

On a bright January morning in the London suburbs, a family moves into the house they’ve just bought in Trinity Avenue. 

Nothing strange about that. Except it is your house. And you didn’t sell it. 

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. 

So I have a confession to make about this book. I was very lucky to receive an advanced copy from SJ at Simon and Schuster last Christmas. The proof was one of the coolest proofs I’ve ever seen!

Sadly I just didn’t get around to reading it. Then for Black Friday, I saw a deal on the audiobook and I grabbed it. A few days later I had some time off to pack up my house to move. I found it a rather appropriate book to be listening to while packing up my house.

The story follows Fi and Bram. It is told from each of their perspectives and also flicks between the present and the recent past leading up to the present day. If you have read any of my reviews before you will know that I love changing POVs so this was something I was happy about. This is done well in the audio too with different narrators for Bram and Fi.

A lot of Fi’s story is told via a podcast and on the audiobook, I thought I could hear an extra touch like a tape playing but that might just be me…anyone else hear that? Either way, I liked it. I also liked the social media reactions and hashtags. It made the whole thing more realistic.

At first, you really don’t like Bram, well at least I didn’t. But as the story progresses you start to understand how he has got himself in this situation. I’m not saying I necessarily agree with his actions but you understand what happened.

The story has so many twists and turns. I really didn’t see most of them coming. There was one reveal in particular that I actually gasped out loud. I was so glad I didn’t have anything fragile in my hand because I may well have dropped it I was that shocked.

Recently I have read a few psychological thrillers but I sometimes find them overrated. Well, not this one. This book deserves every bit of the hype it’s been given. This book got under my skin. I listened to it in 3 days. I stayed up until 2 am listening to it because I just had to. I couldn’t stop listening. I was about halfway through when I insisted my friend, who loves this genre, bought it. I am pleased to say she also loved it. Then she passed it to her mum who loved it too.

Now I really have to talk about THAT last line. You may have seen the hashtag going around as part of the marketing campaign for this book and I thought I was prepared for something shocking but man I was not prepared for that ending. It’s one of those endings that leave you with more questions than answers. I’m pretty sure there are no plans for a sequel so my guess is that you are to draw your own conclusions. Man, I couldn’t sleep after that ending and of course, because it was 2 am I had literally no one to talk to about it!

This book was one of my top books of the year and my only regret is that I didn’t read it sooner.

About Louise Candlish

Louise Candlish studied English at University College London and worked as an editor and copywriter before writing fiction. OUR HOUSE is published in the US by Berkley in August 2018 and is out now in the UK, published by Simon & Schuster.

Louise is the bestselling author of eleven previous novels, including THE SWIMMING POOL and THE SUDDEN DEPARTURE OF THE FRASERS (Penguin, 2015), which has been optioned for TV by Hartswood Films.

Louise lives in South London with her husband and daughter. Follow her day to day on Twitter at @louise_candlish or get updates at www.louisecandlish.com

Emma

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:


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