The House Guest by Mark Edwards

​⭐Publisher featured review

An accelerating, invigorating thriller, where each character comes under suspicion until your head spins.

The story is set in the United States, complete with Americanisms such as 'garbage', 'stoop', 'bathroom' and 'store', just to give a feel of the place. An English couple have the opportunity to house-sit for a couple they met on a cruise. When a woman turns up to stay, claiming that she knows the owners, it opens up a whole host of weirdness. Pretty soon she is missing along with the narrator's English girlfriend.

As the mystery unfolds there are beautiful people, glamour, murder and intrigue with a smattering of kookiness and folk who 'freak out'. All this enveloped by the nuances of behaviour, paranoia and insecurities within relationships, a sense of belonging and belief.

In America things are settled with guns, that's one of the reasons I'm not keen on American thrillers or adventure books so much. And Edwards, out of his normal habitat, still has to conform to that reality. So it was a nice touch to read this: 'A gun? I shook my head. "I'm English."'

Recommended. 

Published by Thomas & Mercer on 3 June 2020.
​Advanced review copy supplied by the publisher.

Mark Edwards writes psychological thrillers in which scary things happen to ordinary people.

Mark has sold over 3 million books since his first solo novel, The Magpies, was published in 2013 and has topped the bestseller lists eight times. His other novels are Because She Loves Me, Follow You Home, What You Wish For, The Devil's Work, The Lucky Ones, The Retreat, In Her Shadow and Here To Stay. He has also published two short sequels to The Magpies and six books co-authored with Louise Voss.

Mark lives in the West Midlands, England, with his wife, their three children, three cats and a golden retriever.
https://www.markedwardsauthor.com/

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Also by Mark Edwards:

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