The House Guest

The perfect family. The perfect chance. The perfect lie.

A stunning novel about motherhood and betrayal, for readers who love Sarah Vaughan and Louise Candlish.

‘Deliciously dark and totally twisted’ ERIN KELLY

‘Very acute on class, aspiration, women and status’ SARAH PERRY, author of THE ESSEX SERPENT

Kate trusts Della, and Della trusts Kate.
Their downfall is each other.

When Kate moves to London after the disappearance of her sister, she’s in need of a friend. A chance meeting leads Kate to Della, a life coach who runs support groups for young women, dubbed by Kate as ‘the Janes.’

Della takes a special interest in Kate, and Kate soon finds herself entangled in Della’s life – her house, her family, and her husband. It’s only when she realises that she’s in too deep that Della’s veneer begins to crumble, and the warnings from ‘the Janes’ begin to come true.

Why is Della so keen to keep Kate by her side? What does Kate have that Della might want? And what really lies beneath the surface of their friendship?

A twisty psychological thriller for fans of Louise Candlish and Harriet Tyce.

‘This twisty thriller is jam-packed with tense moments and a growing sense of unease’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

‘Dark, smart and classy’ GILLIAN MCALLISTER

‘Northedge is good at portraying the distinction between the real insecurities of some young women and the minor problems of the privileged type’ DAILY MAIL

‘Charlotte Northedge turns the psychological thumbscrews with relish’ THE TIMES

‘Full of twists, The House Guest spirals towards its dark conclusion, wrong footing the increasingly uneasy reader at every turn.’ THE OBSERVER

About the author

Charlotte Northedge is the joint editor of Guardian Review and Head of Books for the Guardian. Charlotte has previously written for a range of newspapers and magazines, including the Guardian, Psychologies and Cosmopolitan. She has an MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature from Birkbeck and is an alumni of the Curtis Brown Creative writing course.