The perfect guests /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Berkley, [2021]Edition: First EditionDescription: 284 pages ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780593201602
- 0593201604
- 9780440000488
- 0440000483
- 823/.92 23
- PR6118.O886 P47 2021
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Fiction | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | ROUS (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610022752583 | |||
Standard Loan | Hayden Library Adult Fiction | Hayden Library | Book | ROUS (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610022811835 | |||
Standard Loan | St Maries Library Adult Fiction | St Maries Library | Book | ROUS (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610022553999 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
The USA Today bestselling author of The Au Pair returns with another delicious, twisty novel--about a grand estate with many secrets, an orphan caught in a web of lies, and a young woman playing a sinister game.
1988. Beth Soames is fourteen years old when her aunt takes her to stay at Raven Hall, a rambling manor in the isolated East Anglian fens. The Averells, the family who lives there, are warm and welcoming, and Beth becomes fast friends with their daughter, Nina. At times, Beth even feels like she's truly part of the family...until they ask her to help them with a harmless game--and nothing is ever the same.
2019. Sadie Langton is an actress struggling to make ends meet when she lands a well-paying gig to pretend to be a guest at a weekend party. She is sent a suitcase of clothing, a dossier outlining the role she is to play, and instructions. It's strange, but she needs the money, and when she sees the stunning manor she'll be staying at, she figures she's got nothing to lose.
In person, Raven Hall is even grander than she'd imagined--even with damage from a fire decades before--but the walls seem to have eyes. As day turns to night, Sadie starts to feel that there's something off about the glamorous guests who arrive, and as the party begins, it becomes chillingly apparent their unseen host is playing games with everyone...including her.
"The USA Today bestselling author of The Au Pair returns with another delicious, twisty novel--about a grand estate with many secrets, an orphan caught in a web of lies, and a young woman playing a dangerous game. 1980: Beth Soames is fourteen years old when a kind couple finds her playing the violin at her orphanage's yearly fund-raiser. The Averills take her home with them to Raven Hall, a rambling manor on the Norfolk coast. There she runs wild with their daughter, Nina, and they become fast friends. At times, Beth even dreams she's truly part of the family...until she's asked to take part in what seems like a harmless game--and nothing is ever the same. Present day: Sadie Langton is an actress struggling to make ends meet when she lands a well-paying gig attending a weekend party. Her anonymous employer sends her a suitcase of clothing, a dossier of the role she is to play, and instructions--it's strange, but she needs the money, and when she sees the stunning manor she'll be staying at she can't resist the chance. In person, Raven Hall is even grander than she'd imagined--even with the damage from a fire decades before--but the walls seem to have eyes. As day turns to night, there is something off about the glamorous guests who arrive, and as the game she is meant to be leading begins, it becomes chillingly apparent their unseen host has plans for all of them...including her"--
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Booklist Review
Rous' latest (after The Au Pair, 2019) takes the form of a literary jigsaw puzzle. Orphaned Beth Soames is 14 in 1988 when she comes to live at Raven Hall, an old manor house in the remote East Anglian fens, ostensibly to be a friend to Nina, the daughter of the home's owners. Unfortunately, Beth and Nina are like chalk and cheese from the start, and it turns out that Nina's parents have a far more sinister plan for Beth, being urgently in need of a pawn in a dangerous game. Flash-forward to 2019 and meet Sadie Langton, a struggling actress fresh from failing yet another audition who is offered a convenient gig at a weekend mystery event. Sadie arrives--at an old manor house in the remote East Anglian fens--and finds herself swept away into a glamorous night that slowly dissolves into shocking revelations and murderous intentions. The narrative moves back and forth in time between the principal female characters, although Nina is represented only through the voices of others. The reader must carefully shuffle the puzzle pieces into a perfect fit until the very end and one more visit to Raven Hall, when the entire board is undone. This is a party suspense fans are advised to crash.Kirkus Book Review
An actress is ensnared in a web of secrets when she takes a job as a guest in a murder-mystery game at a sprawling country manor. Sadie Langton has lost more than one part-time job recently, and acting gigs are hard to come by, so when her agent calls with an offer, she can hardly refuse. Besides, she doesn't even have to audition, and it sounds like fun: She'll don fancy vintage clothes and play Miss Lamb, a guest for a startup murder-mystery company in the first run-through of their game. The dazzling and remote Raven Hall, in the Fens of eastern England, boasts an appropriately dark history. But as the game begins and the champagne flows, Sadie grows increasingly uneasy, and she's especially unnerved by the strangely personal details on her clue cards. When a member of their group disappears, Sadie fears that someone is playing a far more dangerous game than the one she was hired for. As in her first novel, The Au Pair (2019), Rous entwines the present with the past, and Sadie's narrative alternates with an account of events that took place at Raven Hall in the late 1980s, as told by 14-year-old Beth Soames, an orphaned teen who is taken in by Leonora Averell, her partner, Markus Meyer, and their daughter, Nina. Passages that seem to take place between Sadie's and Beth's stories are interspersed as well. Beth and Nina become fast friends, but things take a dark turn when a boy named Jonas comes between them, and Leonora and Markus ask Beth to play a very strange game. Beth and Nina's story is absorbing, but Sadie's narrative never pops. With this kind of setup, one might expect some Clue-esque hijinks at the looming mansion, but alas, it is not to be, and the confusing pile-on of revelations in the final act, as the author connects the seemingly disparate threads, might leave readers with whiplash. An intriguing premise, but this lacks the suspense and sharp plotting of the author's first novel. Call it sophomore slump. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Emma Rous is the USA Today bestselling author of The Au Pair. She grew up in England, Indonesia, Kuwait, Portugal and Fiji, and from a young age she had two ambitions: to write stories, and to look after animals. She studied veterinary medicine and zoology at the University of Cambridge, and worked as a small animal veterinarian for eighteen years before starting to write fiction. Emma lives near Cambridge in England with her husband and three sons, and she now writes full time.There are no comments on this title.