Book Synopsis:
For Sara Keane, it was supposed to be a second chance. A new country. A new house. A new beginning with her husband Damien.
Then came the knock on the door.
Elderly Mary Jackson can’t understand why Sara and her husband are living in her home. She remembers the fire, and the house burning down. But she also remembers the children. The children who need her, whom she must protect.
‘The children will find you,’ she tells Sara, because Mary knows she needs help too. Sara soon becomes obsessed with what happened in that house nearly sixty years ago – the tragic, bloody night her husband never intended for her to discover. And Mary – silent for six decades – is finally ready to tell her story . . .
The House of Ashes is the stunning new 2022 thriller from the award-winning master of the genre, Stuart Neville – perfect for fans of John Connolly, Alex North and Brian McGilloway.
The House Of Ashes is published in ebook and hardback on the 3rd February 2022. You can pre-order your copy using the links below.
My Review:
The House Of Ashes is a creepy, atmospheric and at times terrifying read which I think is his best yet.
The story is told in two timelines one following Sarah in the present day and her life with her manipulative, controlling husband. The other flashes back to Mary and her childhood experiences at the same house.
I was quickly drawn into the story and the lives of the two main characters. I felt a lot of sympathy for them and the horrendous things they have experienced. However I sometimes found myself feeling frustrated with then too, particularly Sarah as I couldn’t understand her unwillingness to leave her husband.
The story is fast paced and there was always something happening to keep me gripped and unable to stop reading. It’s very emotional at times and quite brutal so I often had to put the book down for a bit and continue on another day. How someone can treat another person like that is beyond me and I found myself tearing up as I read. The ending was very clever and I liked the way the two stories came together.
Huge thanks to Tracy Fenton for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Zaffre for my copy of this book via netgalley.
About The Author:
Stuart Neville’s debut novel, The Twelve (published in the US as The Ghosts of Belfast), won the Mystery/Thriller category of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was picked as one of the top crime novels of 2009 by both the New York Times and the LA Times. He has been shortlisted for various awards, including the MWA Edgar, CWA Dagger, Theakstons Old Peculier Novel of the Year, Barry, Macavity, Dilys awards, as well as the Irish Book Awards Crime Novel of the Year.He has since published nine more critically acclaimed books, two of which were under the pen name Haylen Beck, as well as a short story collection, The Traveller and Other Stories.
Over The Rainbow Blog 