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Our House

Louise Candlish

Start date: October 1, 2022

Finish date: October 31, 2022

Discussion: Monthly Bonus Reads

Why we're reading this: October Bonus Read - International Holidays

Our House by Louise Candlish
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Our House by Louise Candlish

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What Members Thought

Sep 03, 2018 Barbara rated it liked it

Shelves: bayb-2018

When fortyish Londoner Fiona Lawson catches her handsome husband Bram with another woman, in the children's playhouse no less, that's it! This is Bram's second offense, and divorce is the only answer.

Fiona is a modern woman, though, and proposes a 'bird's nest' custody arrangement. In this plan, the kids - Leo and Harry -remain in the family home, and the parents take turns living there.

On 'off days' the non-resident parent retires to a small apartment nearby, rented for that purpose.

Fiona is ...more

85 likes · Like · see review

Jul 18, 2018 Ann Marie (Lit·Wit·Wine·Dine) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: family-dynamics, great-for-book-club, fiction, arc, mystery-suspense, domestic-suspense

You can read this and all of my reviews at Lit·Wit·Wine·Dine.

If you’ve been monitoring my tweets (and why wouldn’t you be?) you’ve seen that I started fangirling over Our House the moment I started it. I don’t really do the fangirl gushing thing very well or very often but I’ve found some difficulty in restraining myself with this book. I will do my best to maintain some level of coherency in an effort to convey to you, as best I can, why I loved it.

The first thing that stood out is that we hear ...more

49 likes · Like · see review

Jul 15, 2018 Stephanie rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery, edelweiss, domestic-drama

Our House is a domestic suspense novel with such a brilliant and inventive premise that you can't help but become engrossed in the story of Fiona and Bram, the main characters in the novel.

Immediately the book opens and we learn that Fiona (Fi) has come home from being away with her new lover to find a young couple moving into her home. There's one problem, Fi didn't sell her house, but the couple says they bought it from her and her estranged husband Bram, who has suddenly disappeared along wi Our House is a domestic suspense novel with such a brilliant and inventive premise that you can't help but become engrossed in the story of Fiona and Bram, the main characters in the novel.

Immediately the book opens and we learn that Fiona (Fi) has come home from being away with her new lover to find a young couple moving into her home. There's one problem, Fi didn't sell her house, but the couple says they bought it from her and her estranged husband Bram, who has suddenly disappeared along with her two young sons. Fi's world falls to pieces since she's obviously been victimized by her own husband who sold their house, a house in the posh neighborhood of Alder Rise that not only held all their financial security but her hopes of future financial security for her sons.

Through multiple narratives, Louise Candlish creates a binge-worthy tale of marital woe, infidelity, lies, secrets, betrayal, and murder that will keep you on the edge of your seat for most of the novel.

Fi tells her story in the present day of everything that happened in the past leading up to Bram's disappearance and the selling of her house on a true crime podcast called "The Victim", so we hear her side of the story as if we were reading the transcripts of her recordings as she talks about her discovering Bram having an affair in their children's playhouse, which led to their separation and having custody arrangement for their children known as a "bird’s nest arrangement" where the children stay in the family home and instead Fi and Bram alternate living at the house and at a flat close to home.

All along Fi thinks their living arrangement is working out and even finds happiness with a new boyfriend, yet she has no idea the lies and secrets that Bram has been keeping from her, which slowly are revealed starting after they separate and in full once he disappears.

While Fi is revealing her side of the story as a podcast, Bram is telling his story on a Word Doc that he says is a suicide note. Much of what Bram tells in his letter fills in the about the dramatic and terrible reasons that led up to his horrific betrayal of his family or is a retelling of his side of Fi's story. Personally, I found Bram's story to be much more interesting than Fi's since his actions are the ones that caused all the suspense and drama to unfold in the novel.

With the multiple stories, timelines, and plots, Candlish did an excellent job crafting a complex novel of lies and deception. I found the podcasts to be an immersive way to tell the story since I do love true crime and alternating between Fi's story and Bram's suicide note made me feel on edge because I was never sure if it would be his last entry, so it gave the novel a lot of tension and drama. Plus, with the alternating narrators, I began to wonder who was unreliable and what was really the truth!

However, I will say that as much as I found the story riveting enough that I read it in an afternoon and the premise fascinating because it's more than plausible that such a crime could happen in real life, I felt that the narrative was repetitive at times since both Bram and Fi were on occasion telling the same stories just in different ways. Unfortunately, that made the book drag a bit in the middle.

The ending though was magnificent and left me sitting on the beach with my mouth wide open in shock!! I was astounded and reread it again to be sure that I was not wrong, but it was the same astonishing ending the second time! I'm still in disbelief. Even with the occasional slow pacing in the middle, I highly recommend Our House and Louise Candlish definitely has a new fan!!

**Thank you Edelweiss and Berkley Publishing for an ARC in exchange for my fair and honest review.** ...more

3 likes · Like · see review