Just over a week ago I had the pleasure of meeting Louise Candlish at the @TeamBATC #SpringBloggerEvening2018 that you can read about here. I had put Our House on the spare bed ready to place in my hand luggage to read on a forthcoming trip, but everyone kept telling me how brilliant it is so I decided to bump it up my TBR. I’m so glad I did!

Our House will be published on 5th April 2018 by Simon and Schuster and is available for pre-order here.

Our House

FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.
When Fi Lawson arrives home to find strangers moving into her house, she is plunged into terror and confusion. She and her husband Bram have owned their home on Trinity Avenue for years and have no intention of selling. How can this other family possibly think the house is theirs? And why has Bram disappeared when she needs him most?

FOR RICHER, FOR POORER.
Bram has made a catastrophic mistake and now he is paying. Unable to see his wife, his children or his home, he has nothing left but to settle scores. As the nightmare takes grip, both Bram and Fi try to make sense of the events that led to a devastating crime. What has he hidden from her – and what has she hidden from him? And will either survive the chilling truth – that there are far worse things you can lose than your house?

TILL DEATH US DO PART.

My Review of Our House

Returning home Fi finds another couple moving in to her home with her husband Bram and children Leo and Harry missing.

Oh my goodness me. What a book!

Our House is an absolute corker of a thriller. I didn’t so much read Our House as gulp it down. In fact I think I almost suffocated as I kept holding my breath to see what happened next and then gasping with exclamations of ‘Ooo’ right the way through. I could not tear myself away. It was the superb quality of Louise Candlish’s writing that so captivated and impressed me. Yes, Our House is undoubtedly a fabulous read, but it is such an intelligently written and impressively crafted book. I have some very distracting events going on in my life at the moment but Louise Candlish transported me to another world completely so that I was totally subsumed and not entirely in control of my own destiny as I read. In fact, I felt as manoeuvred by Louise Candlish as Bram’s life is by Mike.

The plot is a stunner. I can’t say too much about it as I don’t want to spoil the read but the way it unfolds through Fi’s words and Bram’s writings is so deftly handled. It’s also extremely disturbing. There’s a real sense of incredulity at the ease with which the events could happen so plausibly. It truly felt as if it could happen to any of us at any time. One small omission of the truth or a small lie or error of judgement and our whole world could so easily implode.

I thought the characterisation was brilliant. Fi is the one for whom the events initially seem to have the greatest impact and who deserves our sympathy so that the reader feels her emotions with her because she is presented so clearly. In so many ways Bram deserves everything he gets and yet… I had tears in my eyes for him at one point. He became almost Shakespearean and made me think of Lear being ‘a man more sinned against than sinning’ on several occasions. He’s one of the most complex and satisfying male characters I’ve encountered in a very long time.

Our House is truly a breathtaking book. It is entertaining and absorbing as all good thrillers should be but it is so much more too. Reading Our House made me question the very nature of crime and atonement. Its themes of normal daily reality and self-deception, of love and hate, of betrayal and trust left me so that I ended the book wondering if I would ever think about my own house and life in the same way again. I was utterly captivated by Our House. I thought it was brilliant.

About Louise Candlish

Louise Candlish is the bestselling author of twelve novels, including The Sudden Departure Of The Frasers (2015) and The Swimming Pool (2016). Her new thriller Our House is published in the UK in April 2018 by Simon & Schuster.

Though her stories are about people facing dark dilemmas, Louise tries to get through the day without too much drama of her own. She lives in South London with her husband and daughter and is very attached to her dog Maggie and cat Tilly.

You can follow Louise on Twitter at @louise_candlish or find out more on her website or on Facebook.