The Visitors
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A chilling debut inspired by high-profile cases of abduction and imprisonment that explores the complex truths we are able to keep hidden from ourselves and the gruesome realities that can lurk beneath the most serene of surfaces.
Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother, John, in a decaying Georgian townhouse on the edge of a bleak English seaside resort. A timid spinster in her fifties who still sleeps with teddy bears, Marion does her best to shut out the secret that John keeps locked away in the cellar.
But when questions are asked, and secrets unravel, we realise that John might not be the only one with a dark side . . .
Catherine Burns's dark, disturbing, and enthralling debut novel . . . is bizarrely unsettling, yet compulsively readable. - Iain Reid, author of I'm Thinking of Ending Things
A complex and chilling world in which nothing is as it seems. - Suellen Dainty, author of The Housekeeper and After Everything
By far the creepiest novel I have read in a long time ... a highly original and intriguing mystery. - Liz Nugent, author of Unravelling Oliver and Lying in Wait
Deliberate pacing, a claustrophobic setting, and vivid, unsympathetic characters complement the twisted plot and grim conclusion. - Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British author Burns's disquieting debut focuses on Marion Zetland, a 54-year-old spinster who has never held a job, had a friend, or known love. She passes time by daydreaming, watching TV, and trying to please her cruel and imperious older brother, John, with whom she shares her dead parents' dilapidated Northport, England, home. John, a disgraced former schoolteacher, spends his days in the house's cellar, where he allegedly builds model airplanes, but that explanation doesn't account for the sobs and screams that occasionally escape the air vents. Marion tries not to dwell on what might actually be happening in the cellar she's powerless to change the situation, so why bother? but then John falls ill, forcing Marion to face some harsh truths. Burns blurs the line between crime fiction and horror in this relentlessly bleak tale of loneliness and neglect. Marion's emotional instability and proclivity for denial cause readers to question her reliability. Deliberate pacing, a claustrophobic setting, and vivid, wildly unsympathetic characters complement the twisted plot and grim conclusion.)
