Title: Our House
Author: Louise Candlish
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

[Synopsis]

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.
For better, for worse.
When Fi arrives home to find a removals van outside her house, she is completely blind-sided. Trinity Avenue has been her family’s home for years. Where are all her belongings? How could this have happened? Desperately calling her ex-husband, Bram, who owns the house with her, Fi discovers he has disappeared.
For richer, for poorer.
The more Fi uncovers, the more she realises their lives have been turned upside by a nightmare of their own making. A devastating crime has been committed, but who exactly is the guilty party? What has Bram hidden from her – and what has she hidden from him?
Till death us do part.

[Synopsis]

I had high expectations for this novel from the start and was hoping it would live up to them… and I needn’t have worried because I hugely enjoyed this novel!
Our House is actually less ‘thriller’ than I thought it would be, but this wasn’t a negative; it concentrated more on excellent character development and interactions, plus it added in some great twists to keep things interesting! There wasn’t actually a huge amount of mystery about the plot because you find out a significant amount from fairly near the start, but as the novel continues you realise that there’s more and more which isn’t quite what it seems…! It’s definitely a fantastic example of the hugely popular Domestic Noir genre.
I’m not going to rehash the synopsis or the plot here, but I will say that the way the book is structured – partly showing Fi’s experience, partly through excerpts of the real-life ‘victim’ podcast she is appearing on, and partly through excerpts from a word document her ex-husband is writing (but to whom, and why?) means the reader, at times, knows more than Fi does as we’ve heard directly from Bram, giving us an interesting edge over Fi herself, who is supposed to be recounting the story.  I enjoyed trying to work out exactly what had happened with her ex-husband, and how everything got to the state it’s in when we first join Fi, on Friday 13 January 2017.
Just when you think it’s figured out, something else surprises you, and this made for riveting reading. I’ve really enjoyed other novels by Louise Candlish and this is no exception. Beautifully crafted – as the tension slowly builds, Our House will grab you tightly in its grip and not let you go until you’ve finished the last page!

[Rating: 5/5]

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster for providing a copy of this novel on which I chose to write an honest and unbiased review.

DON’T FORGET… FOLLOW ME ON: INSTAGRAM @SNAZZY_BOOKS_ / GOODREADS LAURA / AND TWITTER @LAURANAZMDEH!