Review: Our House by Louise Candlish

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.

Review: Wow, wow, wow! This book is just beyond the realms of everything I've read before and it completely blew me away. This book is so cleverly written you'll find yourself finishing it and wanting to go back and read it again just to try and look for clues to all those things you never saw coming. In terms of plot, this book just has it all and then some. Bravo to Louise Candlish for writing this, I am incredibly jealous but incredibly in awe of her all at the same time. This is my first Louise Candlish novel but she will now become one of my autobuy authors that is for sure!

Now onto the characters, also incredibly complex. I;m really not sure if I loved any of them but I could definitely sympathise with Fi, I mean what would you do and how would you feel if you came back from a trip away to find strangers moving into your house? There are definitely some characters you can love to hate in this one, some villains you boo every time they come on the page and scoff at every time they speak (yes I did this out loud) and then, again very cleverly, there are the characters who you begin to change your mind about as the book progresses. 

Some of the events and people that come out as this story unfolds are really quite mind-blowing so some of the issues dealt with here are certainly not for the faint hearted. But it is the structure of this book that also needs to be applauded. There is some aspect of narration. We have sections at the beginning and end of the book that are narrated in the first and the third person, setting the scene and then closing it in some aspect. But the rest of the book is told through a podcast narrated by Fi, reactions to that podcast on Twitter or the podcast chat and then a word document written by husband Bram. Its genius because by the time I got the end of one section, I had to read on to find out how the other person saw that thing happening, and then back to the original person to see what happened next and back and forth and so on. I am glad that i read the majority of this book on a flight where I couldn't be interrupted by my phone/emails!

The ending of this book is somewhat abrupt and I am sure that a few people will close this book and shout at it because 'that can't be it' but I liked the way this book is resolved. I feel that what happens at the end of the book is appropriate to the events and the characters and again is a bold but clever choice by this author. I highly recommend getting your hands on this book and reading it immediately, but if you'll excuse me, I'm going to be busy buying Louise Candlish's backlist!

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