The House of Ashes
The most chilling thriller of 2022 from the award-winning author of The Twelve
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
'This might well be his masterpiece' - MARK BILLINGHAM
'One of Ireland's finest crime writers' - STEVE CAVANAGH
'Chilling and compelling' - VAL McDERMID
'Terrifying' - CHRIS BROOKMYRE
'Thrilling' - CHRIS WHITAKER
'Stunning' - MARK EDWARDS
'Brilliant' - ADRIAN McKINTY
'Haunting' - LIZ NUGENT
'Superb' - WILL DEAN
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For Sara Keane, it was supposed to be a second chance. A new country. A new house. A new beginning with her husband Damien.
Then came the knock on the door.
Elderly Mary Jackson can't understand why Sara and her husband are living in her home. She remembers the fire, and the house burning down. But she also remembers the children. The children who need her, whom she must protect.
'The children will find you,' she tells Sara, because Mary knows she needs help too. Sara soon becomes obsessed with what happened in that house nearly sixty years ago - the tragic, bloody night her husband never intended for her to discover. And Mary - silent for six decades - is finally ready to tell her story . . .
The House of Ashes is the stunning new 2022 thriller from the award-winning master of the genre, Stuart Neville - perfect for fans of John Connolly, Alex North and Brian McGilloway.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This gut-wrenching novel of psychological suspense with ghostly undertones from Edgar finalist Neville (Ratlines) opens early one morning with social worker Sara Keane scrubbing off the blood stains she often sees on the kitchen floor of the Ashes, the 120-year-old house her father-in-law bought for her and her angry architect husband, Damien, in Belfast, where the couple moved after "things went bad" in England. Damien, who's not yet up, believes Sara is imagining the blood stains. Then Sara hears someone hammering on the front door. Outside is Mary Jackson, a disheveled old woman, who says the Ashes is her house and rants about missing children. Damien appears, recognizes Mary, and ushers her out of the house to take her back to the "care home." Sara and Mary later develop a friendship tempered by shared emotional anguish. Alternating story lines show how Sara's present-day woes intersect with Mary's traumatic past and shed light on how women called Mummies and men called Daddies mistreated children in the house. This unforgettable tale of servitude and subservience, domestic abuse, and toxic masculinity builds to a resolution offering redemption and heartfelt solace. Neville has outdone himself.
