We Live Here Now
A Novel
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4.1 • 10 Ratings
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
Award-winning author of New York Times bestselling breakout novel (and hit Netflix show) Behind Her Eyes returns with a haunting Gothic novel about a house—and a marriage—gone terribly wrong.
After an accident that nearly kills her, Emily and her husband, Freddie, move from London to a beautiful Dartmoor country house called Larkin Lodge. The house is gorgeous, striking—and to Emily, something about it feels deeply wrong.
Old boards creak at night, fires go out, and books fall from the shelves, and all of it stems from the terrible presence she feels in the third-floor room. But these things happen only when Emily’s alone, so are they happening at all? She’s still medically fragile; her postsepsis condition can cause hallucinatory side effects, which means she can’t fully trust her own senses. Freddie doesn’t notice anything odd and is happy with their chance at a fresh start.
Emily, however, starts to believe that the house is being haunted by someone who was murdered in it, though she can find no evidence of a wrongful death. As bizarre events pile up and her marriage starts to crumble, Emily becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about Larkin Lodge.
But if the house has secrets, so do Emily and her husband.
And they live here now.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A woman discovers that a near-death experience isn’t the worst thing that could happen in this tale of suspense and the supernatural. After a case of sepsis briefly sends her into a coma, Emily is still recovering when her husband, Freddie, decides to sell their home in London and move them to a mansion in the countryside. The old house is gloomy, cold, and forbidding, and as Emily encounters strange noises and horrible smells, she becomes certain the house is haunted. However, the situation is not that simple, and before long the couple discover terrible secrets about their home—and one another. Sarah Pinborough puts a fresh spin on the classic spooky-old-house thriller, adding infidelity and deception to the formula. The pacing and atmosphere are excellent, bringing the story to a truly shocking conclusion.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pinborough's wobbly latest standalone (after Insomnia) is an atmospheric if anticlimactic gothic thriller about a couple's move to an eerie estate. Emily and Freddie Bennett have left London for the village of Dartmoor after a near-fatal fall induced a miscarriage in Emily. Following a lengthy hospitalization, she hopes for a fresh start, but her transition to their new home, Larkin Lodge, proves difficult. Apart from feeling unsettled by the surroundings ("Uneven ground and rough shrubs amid rocky outcrops"), Emily hears strange noises in the house, and an unseen presence seems to be tossing books around. Her fears that Larkin might be haunted are stoked by an interrupted session with a Ouija board, during which the planchette spells out the phrase "find it" multiple times. Both Emily and Freddie keep secrets from each other—including Emily's affair with her boss, who might have been the father of her child—and Pinborough smartly externalizes their tensions with disquieting descriptions of the odd goings-on at Larkin. Less effective is the book's final reveal, which undercuts the promising buildup. Here's hoping Pinborough returns to form next time out.
