The House Guests
A Novel
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
NO ONE’S AROUND FOR MILES…
One year ago, Iris’s world turned upside down. Haunted by nightmares of her mother’s traumatic death, Iris has become a sleep-deprived, jittery version of herself who she hardly recognizes anymore. So when she’s given the opportunity to get away from the crushing grind of reality for a relaxing week with her partner and his close-knit group of friends, she jumps at the chance.
But after she arrives early to the remote lake house in the Catskills, things take a dark turn. Alone in the cabin in the middle of the night, Iris sees a blood-covered man burying something—or someone—in the mud behind the deck before entering the house. But the daylight reveals nothing, the dirt unturned and the house pristine.
As strange and increasingly disturbing discoveries begin to stack up, her fellow house guests refuse to take anything Iris has to say seriously, and she begins to suspect that someone might be gaslighting her. If the stress hasn’t finally gotten to her, that is. Determined to uncover the truth, Iris finds herself drawn into a terrifying game of cat and mouse. Is it all in her head, or is there really a killer among them? Can she trust anyone…even herself?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Brown sisters (Zetas Till We Die) deliver a choppy psychological thriller about a woman who questions her own sanity after she thinks she's crossed paths with a killer. Struggling with grief over her mother's death, Iris agrees to accompany her husband, Eli, to a lakeside cabin in the Catskills for a weeklong getaway with his friends. When Eli has to attend to a family emergency, Iris arrives alone, and notices a strange figure burying what appear to be human remains on the property. Eli's friends, who show up later, don't believe her story, and several of them taunt her. As the week stretches on, Iris's pills and accessories go missing, and she hears strange sounds in the night. Convinced Eli's friends are gaslighting her—and receiving little support from the late-arriving Eli—Iris tries to convince the rest of the group they're in danger before it's too late. Eli's friends aren't much fun to spend time with, Iris's paranoia is too one-note to sustain sufficient narrative momentum, and when the reveals come, they strain credibility to the breaking point. This is a misfire.
