3,5 Stars
„House. Tree. Person“ is a dark psychological thriller. It is a bit of a slow burner and I would have wished for a little bit more tension.

The title was the thing that got me first. I never heard of that term but when you read the book you will understand. The story is told from Ali’s POV. I had some difficulties finding into the book. Ali obviously had some kind of trauma but we learn about what happened 10 years ago later in the book. But Ali and her husband Marco are referring to it all the time. Sometimes I had the feeling I missed something. And it was the reason I could not bond with her. She often reacted irrational and hysterical and I could not understand why.

The story is suspicious from the beginning. After a long time of struggeling to get along with jobs they suddenly are both lucky. Marco gets inventive on Ali’s CV and she get a job in the local psychiatric facility. All about that seems strange, even her ridiculous generous wage. She is not trained to work with troubled people but somehow nobody cares. All about this situation is weird. Beside that there is a lot going on in Ali’s family life as well.

The book is a mixed bag for me. I liked the plot, the mysterious things going on in this facility. Although it all was a bit chaotic. But it really was a slow burner and I had some problem with the main character Ali. I am also not sure if I liked the writing style. And the end was too rushed. Nevertheless it was a quick and entertaining read.

A great quality unique read that held my attention the whole way.

While you could categorize this book as a psychological thriller, it was also very different. For one, there was no investigating detective or police. The story was told from the POV of Ali McGovern, a mother who just started a new job at a private psychiatric facility. A body is found in the ruins right next to her door and her son might be involved somehow. Ali also makes some strange observations at her new work place which raise her suspicion and make her investigate things on her own. Supported by her co-workers, Ali is determined to get to the bottom of it and find out what's wrong with the facility, it's weird patients and her even weirder acting new boss. On her way, Ali also must face a tragic incident from her past and come to terms with her own inner demons.

I loved the unpredictability of the plot and the way the author fooled me more than once. My favorite character was Ali's co-worker Lars with his no-nonsense attitude and complete loyalty, as well as the provocative Julia with her regular outbreaks and silent Sylvie, who was the complete opposite.

I was also fascinated by the explanation of the book title, which is based on a psychological test where you are supposed to draw a house, a tree and a person. Despite her lack of professional psychological knowledge Ali uses this test with several persons with very interesting results.

This was the second novel by the author that I've read and it won't be my last.

I found the title for House. Tree. Person to be very odd, but now after finishing the book do I understand the reference. It's actually a kind of clever kind of title and you have to read the book to figure out what it points to and what so important with it.

House. Tree. Person is a book that I felt did not really live up not my expectations. The mystery was in a way interesting, the book just lacked suspense and some really good twists. I did like this book, I found that I wanted to figure out what was wrong with Howell Hall, it was just that much of the twist was pretty obvious and it felt like I was one step ahead of Ali as she tried to figure out things like why was employed, who the dead person is that was found at the cemetery in a shallow grave.

Honestly, that Ali got the job, despite clearing not having any qualifications for it is the first hint that something is wrong. I knew that, she knew that. Then we have her husband and son her husband Marco is not really in the story that much, more like a figure in the background, but he is the one that found her the job, and he is also the reason they have financial problems which led to her taking the job. And, then we have their son, Angel, who is being questioned by the police after the body is found. Poor Ali has a lot to deal with.

House. Tree. Person was an interesting book. I just wish the story had been more intense and the ending more shocking.

Stick with this through the first 50 pages and you will be richly rewarded with a psychological thriller that makes you question both the narrator and the course of events. Ali's had mental health issues in the past but she got better. Now, she's working in a psychiatric facility but there are lots and lots of off things happening. Is she hearing voices? What happened to the person found dead near her home? What's really going on with her husband Marco? It's hard to review this without spoilers but suffice it to say that it's a very cleverly plotted British thriller (be prepared for UK slang). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC- I very much enjoyed this and you will too if you like this genre. Good characters and a growing sense of creepiness mean a book you might want to read in the daylight.

Circumstances have dictated that Ali and Marco have had to start again. Initially both jobless they are barely making ends meet even after downsizing and moving into a less than ideal, much smaller house along with their teenage son Angelo. One day, Marco spots an advertisement for a job for a beauty and art therapist at the local psychiatric facility and encourages and assists Ali to embellish her CV to get an interview. Reluctantly, Ali agrees and, on attending the interview is shocked when she is offered the job, along with a rather large salary. The money is the deciding factor and she accepts despite her own misgivings. Well, as she herself says, she can learn most of what she needs from google! Marco himself is on the brink of a new job himself. Things appear to finally be looking good for the family. Then, a body is found near to their house; in the grounds of the old Abbey. Unearthed by the recent floods and bringing unwanted attention to the family as it was discovered at a place that Angelo visits frequently. If this wasn't enough, as Ali begins her new job things start to unravel for her. Is there more to the facility than first meets the eye as some of the clients behaving somewhat strangely even given the nature of their illnesses? With her own troubles from her past still unresolved, can Ali keep going despite all her questions and issues coming to a head? After all, her family is depending on her.
There is so much more to this plot but to say anything else will no doubt include spoilers so I'll leave it there. Suffice to say, it is very intricately woven with lots going on with the majority of both major and minor characters. Sub plots aplenty which kept my interest and concentration the whole way though as I tried to work out what was connected and where we were going. I had a few inklings along the way as things to me didn't really make complete sense but, having read this author before, I trusted that eventually she would lead me right. I wasn't wrong. By the end of the book I was literally gasping as all was wrapped up very nicely indeed.
Like The Child Garden, this book was very atmospheric and, at times, quite claustrophobic. I really got into the head of Ali and, as I learned more about her, I really felt for what she was going through and indeed what she had already been through. What she lost and how she coped before, what was happening now and how she was just trying to be a good wife and mum in spite of everything. It was so easy to empathise and sympathise with her. The rest of the staff at the facility were all very interesting in their own ways. All appear to be just as wounded as Ali and there could have been a danger that this would be too much but they all played their parts well and fitted into the story just perfectly. Again, I can't say too much here about them, or indeed the patients, although I will say that I just loved Julia. She was just brilliant and very convincing! Other characters kept me guessing as to the parts they were playing and their motivations and reasons for what they got up to...
I have already mentioned the intricacies of the plot but, like a good juggler with many balls to handle, the author managed to keep them all in the air very well. Flitting between the threads seamlessly and adding little bits of information at just the right time to keep them all going, and me guessing, pretty much right up until the end.
All in all, a cracking thriller that gripped me from the off and kept me rapt throughout. Luckily I read it in a day when I had nothing else pressing because I really didn't want to put it down.

My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

**I received an advance free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**
A bit of a slow burner, this one! There's a lot of scene setting and hints of tension for the first few chapters but it doesn't really start getting to the good stuff until well into the second half.
Ali is a bit of a mixed bag of a character- one one hand, I could really empathise with her as someone who's had issues with depression and anxiety. I hated the way her husband spoke to her and treats her like she's made of glass, although it does become clear why later on! On the other hand, she came across in places as whiny and dramatic and some of her behaviour was very strange!!
I do try not to post spoilers but will say that I found the ending frustrating - it seemed hurried, unrealistic and too coincidental and this is where it lost stars for me.
However, if you are willing to suspend belief for the ending and you aren't triggered by descriptions of anxiety and other mental health issues, you could do worse than House, Tree, Person.

House. Tree. Person By Catriona McPherson

This cozy mystery was hard for me to enjoy until I got past 30 percent of the novel. After that point the suspense ratchets up and I couldn't put it down until I reached the final conclusion. Alison, Marco and Angelo live across the street where a body is discovered. Alison gets a job at a private psychiatric facility as a beauty therapist and artist. I really loved Alison's character and it is her compassion for Sylvie, who is been catatonic for fifteen years, who stole my heart. Alison is hired with false credentials and documentation that husband Marco creates. It is clear that Alison suffered a terrific trauma ten years earlier. As readers we don't find out what Alison has gone through until the conclusion of the story.

Dr. Ferris and her husband Dr. F are the owners of the psychiatric facility. Alison goes to work and lovingly cares for her patients. Alison and Marco's son Angelo is somehow involved with the unidentified human body that washes above the soils surface after the water from the flood dries up. Something is not quite right about the patients and the staff at Alison's new place of employment.
Throughout this taut, suspense driven mystery just about everything is not what it seems. This novel is full of surprises and full of plot twists and turns that electrify and keep the reader on the edge of their seat as the tension increases and doesn't let up until the final pages are turned.

Thank you to Net Galley, Catriona McPherson and Midnight Ink Publishing for my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I really want to like Catriona McPherson's books. I just feel like the story's are choppy and weirdly put together. It always seems like I'm missing part of the story...

I struggled initially with this book not quite understanding the main character Alison McGovern and her life. However slowly things become clearer although for Alison they are distinctly disturbed y her domineering husband, job and financial predicament and an unruly teenage son Angelo. This is a mystery thriller with a personal tragedy that helps to solve the dilemmas thrown at Alison when she gets a job as a beautician at the mysterious psychiatric unit Howell Hall.
The location descriptions reminded me of the Susan Hill narrative in 'Woman In Black' but here we are in Scotland on a desolate edge where Howell Hall is set down a track that passes through an active Army shooting range. Alison lives opposite the ruined Abbey where after torrential rain, a body floats to the surface and soon the police suspect her son of being involved. Suddenly Alison is trying to sort so much out - her family who seem less than helpful with weird husband Marco who forged her CV to get his wife into the job and the demands of a work location in which she has no experience.
The highlights of the novel are the relationships at Howell Hall as Alison builds trust with the patients, particularly Julia and Sylvie. Through her initial beauty treatments to calm patients,the weird Dr Ferris in charge (the wife of another Dr Ferris who takes a back seat) encourages Alison to do art therapy with them too. But this unleashes things that will link not only the mysterious circumstances in which Howell Hall exists but finding who is the body in the Abbey and then who is the murdering.
Like the mists that encircle the location this novel seeps into you and for Alison the place and people she meets help her also to face her own past traumas - 'patient heal thyself'. Its a thoroughly enjoyable mystery as it drives forward with a fascinating collection of characters to its conclusion.

I was trying to figure out why this author and her standalones appeal to me so much. They are not action filled, nor are there any graphic, blood laden scenes, they are instead insidiously dark, ominous. They are different, unique, and the settings always a bit creepy. Here it is mostly set in a private, psychiatrist facility which was once someone's family home. She always does such a great job with her characters, giving the reader one or more to cheer for, in this case two young residents of the facility, and Ali, a married woman with one son, who had in the past suffered a tragic loss and subsequent breakdown. Using an exaggerated resume she is hired to provide beauty and relaxation treatments at the facility.

Unreliable narrator, or suffering a further breakdown, this is what the reader needs to decide. The beginning is very muddled, as if mimicing the emotional state of Ali as she finds things about the facility to question. To further confuse the situation a dead body is found not far from her home and her son seems to be involved in some manner or other. A true psychological novel, clues are strewn here and there, secrets revealed when the author decides they will be, and the denoument is satisfying.

McPherson has total control of her psychological unveilings, I feel confident reading this author because I feel she is a confident writer, knows exactly where she is going and how to get there.. She slowly draws the reader in, and in my opinion, doesn't let them go.

ARC from Netgalley.

Catriona McPherson is incredibly productive. Once a year for the past ten years or so she has produced a Dandy Gilver book – each of them beautifully-written and (as they are the best historical crime novels around) I’m guessing requiring a lot of research, especially as McPherson now lives in California. In between times, she polishes off standalone crime thrillers of a very high standard. We don’t know how she does it. But we can still enjoy the results.

I am second to none in my love for Dandy (most recently here), but I very much like the standalones too – The Child Garden was on the blog earlier this year. They are usually set in modern-day Scotland, and in milieux quite different from that of the upmarket Dandy. In this case, Alison and her husband have had serious financial troubles, lost two businesses, and ended up moving to a much smaller house. They are in dire straits, so when Ali is offered the job at a Howell Hall she has to take it - even though her CV has been massaged, and she is not really qualified. She quickly realizes that all is not as it should be at the hall, staff and patients all seem rather strange. Meanwhile, at home she is worried about her son and her husband. And then a body is discovered very close to her house…

The thing is, all those tropes are very familiar from many many books. Who ever goes to work at a medical facility in a big old house and DOESN’T start worrying? But somehow McPherson always has the ability to turn a fresh eye on these plotlines, she uses her magic and translates them into something different and unusual, while still keeping an iron grip on tension and atmosphere. I was busy guessing what was going on, and she kept turning it round and springing new surprises. It is superbly done.

House Tree Person is the US title of the book – in the UK it is published as Weight of Angels. I prefer the US title: it refers to a basic psychological test which is used to great effect in the book, a test which gives Ali all kinds of clues as to what is happening. (Gladys Mitchell’s Mrs Bradley would be proud of her.) And while she is asking questions and trying to get to the truth, Ali goes on with her beauty treatments: makeovers for the patients, and a clear case for looking after anyone, and that it isn’t either superficial or unimportant to make people feel good about themselves.

The format of conversation and the sudden change of location of where the lead protagonist currently is, was a little confusing in the first few chapters but once the story got going it was an interesting book.Considering how many books involve people who have mental problems, there is a certain amount of plot lines we may have already come across. There are a few clichés in the book but it is very interesting when we figure out which combination is the basis of the story ( Which is of course the whole joy of reading this genre)

Ali is starting a new job at a psychiatric facility,( In this regard, I looked up the term 'House Tree Person' the same time as she did and realised I should have probably done it before because of the title) it causes unpleasant flashbacks. We figure out in pieces what had gone wrong in the past. She has to deal with issues both current and the ones in her mind. There is a body that was uncovered in an abbey opposite their house and we do not know in the beginning what ( if anything) Ali has against that place. There are things that are unravelling and we watch as the twisted knots come apart to give us clarity. The last couple of chapters actually pushed me from giving this book three stars to giving it a four.( This is out of five which seems to be the norm on most websites, Netgalley and Goodreads to name a few). Her husband and son also seem to be acting funny which adds to her already full plate.

This is a terrific dark psychological thriller from Catriona McPherson, set in Dumfries and Galloway. Ali, Marco and their son, Angelo, have been forced to downsize to their present claustrophobic home. They are living in abject poverty, barely managing to make ends meet. This pushes Ali to use a fraudulent CV to land a beauty therapist position at the psychiatric facility, Howell House, run by the husband and wife team, referred to as Dr Ferris, who runs the place and Dr F. who manages the psychiatric care of the patients. There is the odd anomaly of the huge salary that goes with the job that does not make sense. If something is too good to be true, it behoves a person to beware! At the same time, Marco, gets a local part time position. More worryingly, on the same day at the ruined Abbey, close to Ali's home, a dead body emerges after heavy flooding, bringing her family unwanted attention from the police, with a special focus on Angel, Ali's troubled teenage son, who regularly haunts the Abbey.

Ali experienced some kind of illness from an unknown event ten years ago, which she recovered from with the help and support of Marco. Marco and Angel treat her as if she is incredibly fragile and needs to be protected. She clings on to the fact she has completely got over it, except that she really hasn't, she has panic attacks, hears sounds and is spooked by the faceless and a comfort doll. Her job brings her some crumbs of satisfaction as she gets close to two particular patients, Julia and Sylvie, something that brings rebukes from the head of the facility. Since Ali is getting responses from them that the psychiatrists are not, Ali becomes aware there is something strange afoot, but can she rely on her instincts, given that she is shaky and all over the place? Ali's co-workers have chequered backgrounds and qualities that apparently allow them to connect with the patients, and Ali begins to get strong support and help from Lars and Belle. Ali's heartfelt desire to help and protect Angel at any cost, has her investigating. This leads her to begin to understand the purpose of her employment at Howell House, make connections to the dead body, and takes her back to the harrowing cause of her illness ten years ago.

The title House. Tree. Person. refers to a technique which is used by psychiatrists to get patients to draw those items, from which they endeavour to make an analysis about their condition. It is instrumental in Ali's search for the truth in the novel. This is a wonderfully plotted dark and disturbing story, full of creepiness, tension and suspense. The central character of Ali is an impressive creation that has you wondering if she can relied upon, aware that she is suffering yet fiercely determined to be the best mother she can possibly be for her beloved son and that she will do anything to protect him. This is a great read which I recommend highly. Thanks to Midnight Ink for an ARC.

I got a little impatient when I already got what was going on but the protagonist didn’t and it all dragged on and on. I’m not a huge fan of books that try to keep the reader in the dark forever but since the clue was already in the title – “a novel of suspence” – I knew what I was in for right from the start. Nothing new here but the writing was good, the characters nicely fleshed out.

A beautiful books with intricate prose and wonderful plots.
McPherson knows how to treat her readers; and this was an absolute treat to read.

Thanks NetGalley and Midnight Ink for the advanced reader copy of this novel. It was enjoyable and a quick read. I think the basic plot line took a lot from older novels (e.g., Rebecca Springs to mind), so I didn't think the story was that original. But it kept my attention straight through. At the end, I thought some of the plot / coincidences were too far fetched.

Wow - okay, it's a bit complex and the brilliant use of an unreliable narrator is ingenious in this story of muddled parentage and betrayals, all taking place in an asylum for disturbed (mostly) young people. It is also a story of protection of children and the extraordinary lengths mothers particularly will go to to keep their young safe. In this case the mothers go to extraordinary and destructive lengths and the fathers collude except in one crucial case where he knows nothing. The police are on the edges of the story and it's the drive of our narrator that uncovers the heinous act in the past. Utterly captivating it has to be said and at times, i just let the puzzles slide by unexamined (it hurt my head) but it did not matter and i was desperate to know how it would end... really stunning.

4 stars--I really liked it.

Another great female British crime writer! This is my first McPherson, but it won't be my last.

Though this book seemed confusing at first (it's deliberate, as it reflects Ali's mental fog), I quickly figured out what was going on and raced through to see how it would end. The strength of this book was the main character Ali--though a hot mess, she was relatable, funny, caring, determined, and very clearly written.

In fact, all the characters were written really well. And one element of this book (the voice of the angels, to be vague) was creepy and will stick with me. There are very dark elements here, yes, and lots of family secrets, but balanced with a satisfying ending.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

I found this book slow to start with but I am really glad that I kept reading. It is a really good read with a lot happening in it. There are a few surprises in the plot and everything becomes clearer towards the end. Not everybody is as they seem to be. Sometimes what you are looking for is right in front of you.