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We're asking you to be brave and request this book without knowing the title or the plot. If you're approved, you'll get to read a brand new psychological thriller and we ask that you keep everything secret until Halloween 2018 when we'll reveal all... You MUST discover this absolute gem of a novel for yourself... It had me truly gripped from start to finish * The Welsh Librarian * The longer Caro stays in her isolated childhood home,the more memories that she has buried for a very long time start to reemerge and she starts seeing and hearing frightening images and sounds.Sounds like the noise that the mysterious and sinister pear drum used to make when Elizabeth used it to terrorise Caro when she was a young girl. Is Caro losing her mind or is she being tormented by a unknown enemy. Does her sister Steph really want to make up for events that happened in the past? Can she really trust handsome neighbour Craig who conveniently appeared and helped her when she had a unpleasant encounter with Angus McCready? Could it be Angus or any of the other people who live in the village and treat Caro with contempt whenever they saw her. Or could her new American friend Mary Beth not be the kind,caring person she appears to be? In brief - If you define a book by the fact that you say "I'll just read one more chapter" and you read 3 or 4 this is not a bad read.
While it did meander a bit slowly it was worth it once you get to the last 25%. I will say that I was very impressed with the final conclusion of this book and its somewhat ambiguous ending which made me bump this from 3.5 to all 4 stars! The book was gripping, even with the moments that dragged too much for my liking. I also had a feeling that the author hasn't managed with the difficult topic so well. There was this great, promising idea but then the development was not as I had expected it. I mean, I didn't know how the story should go, how it should end, what would be better, what would be worst, but I hoped for the better delivery and development. However, I mostly focused on the relationships and the way the author captured them all. This book is a great psychological portrait of all the characters and their way to cope with the situation, showing how they cope (or don't!) with the revelation - and it also makes you wondering over and over again what you would do. I can't imagine I could live normally after receiving such news. I also am not sure if I would like to know the truth or rather happily carry on without such knowledge. The Stranger in our Home was another psychological suspense novel that just failed to resonate and instead left me with more questions than answers. The author also seemed genre-confused and consistently flirted with the inclusion of supernatural elements, but without any follow through. In the end, it wasn’t ghosts or fairies or witches responsible for the chaos, but rather human depravity and immorality. As the two families began to "merge", Allison began confiding in Tom most of her worries etc. Then suddenly, Katherine disappeared. All of a sudden.Really what can I say, Adele Parks is one of the masters and although I did think the book was a tad overlong it was nevertheless a good read and recommended to Parks fans or new Parks readers alike. A well deserved 4 stars from me. This book made me laugh, caught at my heart and then broke it. The story is clearly building to something but I didn't know what - I won't spoil it but this is definitely not one for public transport * A Case for Books * The images painted have their base in stories, and these stories prey on the mind till the canvas is a moving, colorful landscape. Are these real or are these just hallucinations of a damaged mind? Such are the thoughts which run through the protagonist Caro.
When Elizabeth, her cruel stepmom dies, Caro, a talented but struggling artist, moves into the family estate after her sister relinquishes her rights to it. How could I resist? When I requested this book it had no title, no author, no cover and no descriptive blurb - it just said Can You Keep a Secret? A secret book - how fun! Then once I received the galley I was instructed to go ahead and read it but not to talk about it anywhere until Halloween. I was even more intrigued and excited. Definitely a good piece of marketing! I did think for a bit that Caro's mental unraveling seemed a little bit odd and out of place, as up to that point she had appeared to be fine. The drinking was also strange as at the start of the book, there's a couple of references from Caro that she wasn't a big drinker yet several times during the novel she drinks a bottle of whisky (the results of which do serve to bring the plot forward but I still thought it all an odd character choice).The writing is descriptive and flows well when on the psychological side and whimsical and almost like another author has joined in for the fairy tale side
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