Can a soon-to-be ex-husband sell Our House without warning?

Bram and Fi are a typical London family with two young sons and most of their money tied up in their house. When Fi throws Bram out for adultery in their kids’ playhouse, Bram moves in with his mother until their finances are divided equally between them. When Fi pushes to keep the house “for the boys’ sake”, Fi and Bram decide to alternately stay in the house with their sons and in a separate small London flat. Fi comes home early from a business trip to find strangers moving into her house. Bram has sold the house to them and absconded with the 2 million selling price. Using alternating chapters with a podcast for Fi and Word documents for Bram, the real reason for the sale and the marriage dissolution is slowly revealed.

Despite having absolutely no empathy for either main character, I enjoyed this twisty tale of their lives. Stripping off the clothes of propriety shows some amazingly ugly truths. There are crimes both committed by and done to both Fi and Bram up to and including murder. Though the book drags a bit in the middle, the finale is well worth sticking with it. This book is highly recommended for readers who like a multitude of unexpected twists and turns in plot. As long as character likeability and a uniformly fast pace is not a requirement, Our House is worth 4 stars.

Thanks to the publisher, Berkeley, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

This is a twisty one! Fi thinks things are going as well as they can, given that she's separated from her husband Bram after finding him in the playhouse with a woman. They share their very valuable home, each moving in and out, with their sons, she's got a good job, and she's met Toby. And then she comes home and finds all of her things gone and a couple moving in, claiming they'v just bought it. Bam! This thriller is told from Fi's perspective, from Bram's perspective, and by a third person narrator. Candlish unreels the tale slowly, making this a tough review because of spoilers. Suffice it to say that people aren't whom they seem, things aren't what you think, and the end will leave you surprised. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. This is one of the best British suspense/thrillers I've read this year.

I was drawn to Louise Candlish's Our House because of its unique premise. There are tons of books about missing women and children, and although I've enjoyed many of them, I've been in the mood for something new for quite some time, and this story that opens with our heroine's realization that strangers are moving into her house, seemed as though it was just what I was looking for.

Fiona Lawson returns home from a weekend getaway to find a moving van parked in front of her house. At first, she figures one of her neighbors must be moving, but when she sees movers carrying things into her family's home, she completely loses her cool. She rushes up to the door, demanding to know what's going on, and she's told that her house was sold and today is the day the new owners are taking possession. None of this makes sense to Fiona, and she asks to come inside to sort out what has to be a misunderstanding of epic proportions.

Unfortunately however, things aren't all that easy to sort out. It seems that her estranged husband Bram put the house on the market without consulting her first, and when she tries to reach him by phone, she finds his number is no longer in service. To make matters worse, their two young sons did not show up at school that day, and Fiona has no idea where they might be.

Fiona's marriage to Bram used to be a happy one, but that changed on the night she caught him in bed with another woman. Now, the couple shares the family home as part of a new parenting style known as bird's nest parenting. Each parent spends half the week in the house with the boys, thus minimizing the upheaval they would experience with a more typical custody arrangement. Bram had been staying with the boys for the past few days while Fiona was away.

As Fiona fights to uncover the secrets Bram has obviously been hiding, she'll be forced to face some very unpleasant truths about her marriage and herself. It soon becomes clear that she never really knew Bram at all, and now, she hopes she can put things to rights before she loses everything and everyone she loves most.

The timeline of this novel might be confusing for some readers. The story opens with Fiona's discovery that her house has been sold out from under her, and then goes back in time to the months leading up to that day. The narrative shifts between Fiona's and Bram's points of view, allowing readers to see things from both perspectives. Luckily, chapter headings are clearly labeled with dates and times, so I had no trouble keeping things straight in my head. Still, if you're someone who prefers books with linear timelines, you might find Our House not to your liking.

The reader learns Bram's secrets quite a while before Fiona does, and at first, I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I wondered if the story would bore me since I already knew what was going on, but Ms. Candlish did a fantastic job of keeping me engaged, and I loved watching Fiona figure things out.

Fiona is sometimes a bit too idealistic for my liking. In the parts of the book set in the past, we watch time and time again as she wilfully ignores every single sign that Bram is up to no good and I wondered why she cut him so much slack, especially considering the fact that he'd been unfaithful to her. I wanted her to wake up and acknowledge the truth that was right in front of her, but it takes her quite a while to get around to it. She does get there in the end though, and that's all that really matters.

I was really pleased with how Ms. Candlish chose to deal with Bram's character. She could have made him a villain with no redeeming qualities, but instead, she gives him a very compelling backstory. It in no way excuses his horrible behavior, but it did give me some insight into why he does the things he does. He was never someone I liked, but I was able to appreciate his humanity, something I can't always do with the villain of a book.

If you're looking for a thriller with an original spin, hurry and grab a copy of Our House. It's unlike anything I've read this year, and I can't wait for others to read it and love it as much as I did.

Buy it at: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/iBooks/Kobo

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am a voracious reader and one of my very favorite genres is psychological thrillers. I also have a real fondness for British thrillers so I was super excited to read this.

In this clever, twisty novel Fi returns home from a mini break to find a new family moving into her beloved house in a London suburb. She soon finds out that her home has been sold out from under her and things get stranger from here on out. The book time jumps within eight months back and forth and the narration goes from Fi to her estranged husband Bram. I have to say that there were some great twists in the book and I really grew to like and fee for Fi. I also found myself feeling oddly protective of her. Bram on the other hand? I understood what made him the way he is ut I just could not feel an ounce of sympathy for her at all. There was just nothing likable about him as far as I was concerned. He was a selfish, weak man.

I have never read a Louise Candlish novel before this but she is on my must read list now. Her writing really drew me in and I could just feel myself walking in the farmers market with Fi or decorating the magnolia tree with the family at Christmas.

This was a five star book for me all the way to the end where I did have a brief issue with the end.....

*******SPOILERS*******


The only issue I had was the final chapter/segment. I hated the way it ended because the way I interpreted it Fi will end up going to jail for murder because once again BRam showed himself to be a complete screw up even when he thought he was doing the right thing. I understood why Fi did what she did at the end, she truly was in shock, scared and confused and though what she did was wrong I really did not want her to suffer anymore than she already had.. The ending was just a bit too bleak for me. It is still a five star book all the way though.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters were interesting and the plot really pulls you in. Our house kept me amused as I read through one lie after another. I loved the narrative of Fi and of course I loathed the husband who put his family in this situation. It did get repetitive in the middle, but overall it was very entertaining. This book definitely reminds me of a lifetime movie (one that I would watch and like). Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for my advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Identity theft with some adultery, road rage and more thrown in. A compelling thriller that got bogged down a bit in the middle. The story is broken into different POVs and timelines. Two for both Fiona and Bram. Bram's present day storyline was not as engaging as Fiona's and I often found myself impatient to return to what was happening to Fiona in the now. The past story lines of the two were written nicely so that they often overlapped just slightly. That worked very well. Definitely a page turner with some very intriguing twists. Would make a fantastic book group selection.

A big thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this soon to be published thriller in exchange for an honest review.

Our House is a marvelous read with rich characters that are utterly believable. A perfect example of how one decision, one action, can ripple and ripple and ripple until it ultimately changes multiple lives forever!

Fiona (Fi) Lawson arrives home one day to find other people moving into her home. David and Lucy Vaughan are insistent that they bought the house that morning, and have the paperwork to prove it. But how is that possible, Fiona asks, when the house wasn't for sale? Fiona tries and tries to contact her husband, Bram (Abraham), but gets no answer. He has disappeared.

Why would Bram do this? If he was in a financial bind, why not just tell her? There are layers and layers of deceit, betrayal, blackmail, double crosses and even murder waiting to be uncovered. Yet there are also just as many examples of selflessness, love, forgiveness, and putting the good of others first. That is one of the things that makes this book so good!!

Told alternating between the POV of Fiona and Bram, the reader is privy to both sides of the story right from the start. And there's a delicious twist at the end reminiscent of O'Henry's Gift of the Magi.

My only negative comment is that the book could have been shorter with no loss of impact. The middle is a bit tedious, repeating the same point over and over.

Still, this is a read that I very much enjoyed and recommend without a doubt.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for allowing me to read an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Very good book! A must read! Every time I would put it down I picked it back up and said just one more chapter! I highly recommend this book!!!

This is going to be a very short review:
Bram is an idiot.
Bram is a horrible person.
Bram deserves everything that happens to him.
Bram deserves worse than what happens to him
I wish I hadn't read Chapter 56.
I wish the book had stopped after Chapter 50.
I'm glad I read this book.
You will be glad you read this book.
With the exception of Chapter 56.

A decadent and deceitful tale of the hurt and hardship that can only exist between the secrets of a marriage. Told through the dual narratives of husband and wife - one a victim and one a fiend. Or are they one and the same? The reader will have to decide in this gripping summer read.

3 stars--I liked the book.

If you like domestic suspense, this is a well-written one, with a cool premise and a nice twist. I could just picture Fiona and her friends, the neighborhood women--they seemed very authentic to me. I don't want to say too much about the story because of spoilers, but this is a quick read with a brisk plot.

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

Our House is one of my most anticipated books of the summer and while it wasn’t quite what I expected, I definitely enjoyed it.

I really liked the formatting of this novel. Fi tells her side of the story through a popular podcast and interspersed with it are tweets as people listen to the podcast and also excerpts from a document Bram is writing to tell his side of the story. There is also straightforward narration from both their POVs detailing the immediate aftermath of Fi finding out her house has been sold. I thought this style was used really effectively to reveal all the twists and turns throughout the story.

I thought the book was very character-driven and felt like I got to know both Fi and Bram pretty well. I have to say that Bram really frustrated me pretty much the whole book. He just told so many little lies that if he had just been honest about any of them early on then things would have never gotten so out of hand. It was hard not to feel like he deserved what happened to him. Fi was a more likable and empathetic character and I really felt bad for all the things Bram put her through.

While there were some fun twists and turns, I did figure most of them out well before they were revealed. I didn’t really mind that, but it did make it feel unnecessarily long at times. I think the story would have benefited from being a little shorter and a little faster-paced. However, I liked that as I was trying to figure out some of the surprises, it took my attention off of something else that gave the very end of the book a nice twist and that ending is why I’m bumping my rating up a little more than I was originally planning.

Overall, I enjoyed Our House. Though it did feel a little longer than necessary and I did figure out many things before they were revealed, I enjoyed the twists and turns the story took and especially liked the ending. I recommend it to fans of character-driven mysteries, nontraditional formatting, and some unreliable narration. This was my first book by Louise Candlish and I definitely want to check out more from her.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 4 Stars

This book was a solid 3 stars for me. It was definitely intriguing enough to keep me til the very end. Our House is a domestic thriller told from two viewpoints- Fi and her husband Bram. You get both sides of the story and eventually, their stories merge. You would think they would be already, but you'd be wrong. You'll be amazed at the secrets people keep and the lengths they go at which to keep them. Not my favorite book of the year, but a solid suspense novel with quite a few surprises.

I just finished an addictive book from my summer reading list:

Our House by Louise Candlish

Fiona Lawson and her husband Bram have recently separated and have agreed to a “bird’s nest custody agreement” where their kids stay in the house full time and the parents take turns living there (in their $2+ million property in a fashionable area of London.)

Everything seems to be working out fine with this arrangement until one day when Fiona finds strangers moving into her home, and this nice couple fully believes they just legally purchased the home. It must be a mistake…
What follows (and leads up to) this confusing scene is a web of mistakes and lies that spins WAY out of control.

This story is told in some creative ways. For example, part of the book is Fi relating her story on a podcast called “The Victim,” and after each segment or break the show encourages the listeners to tweet with their thoughts (and judgements!) with #VictimFi. Another “side” of the story comes from a letter written by her husband Bram. A reader moves back and forth between these mediums to piece together what happened before the “sale” and what the consequences become, for all parties involved.

The story is well written and clever. It definitely is not a feel good story, but it was a good read in that it kept me coming back for more, just like the fans who are tweeting about The Victim. As with many books in this genre (psychological, domestic thriller) I found myself getting annoyed with the character’s decisions…NO!!! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??!! but that is also a testament to how immersed I felt in this bizarre story.

If you’re looking for a book to fill some time and provide a memorable crazy reading experience I recommend this one!

It takes getting to the very end of Our House to understand its cleverness, but it is clever. Very clever. And creepy. But without any violence. Our House tells the alternating stories of Bram and Fiona. They are separated married, but continued to share the house in which they parent their two sons. Until Fiona comes home one day when it is her turn to live in the house, and new owners are moving in. What follows are Bram and Fiona’s alternating versions of how they got to that point, and how they both sought to fix things. There are a couple of good twists, especially the one at the very end. You have to be prepared for a fairly long read but I thought Candlish did a good job of pulling me along and surprising me. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the ARC of this thrilling novel! Louise Candlish is an excellent writer, with a flair for middle class English families who are just like you and me, except their homes value rose exponentially. Fi (Fiona) comes to her home in the middle of the day to see random strangers moving into HER home. Thus begins a wild and crazy ride with fraudsters, speeding cars, and 2 million dollar homes.

The only drawback to the story was how Bram just happened to have THE WORST LUCK. Over and over he finds himself caught in a tough place and he just didn't see to have the foresight to get out of it. The story feels sad in some places, which I think balanced out the constant criminal acts. I found myself rooting for Bram, but also annoyed at how he handled most things. He was like a little kid, having the best intentions and it's completely the wrong path. I felt Fi was very relatable as his estranged wife who had put up with his crap, and still felt compassion for him.

There were definitely some unexpected twists and turns in the story that were fun, but Bram's teenage like attitude started to get annoying in the end. 3.75 stars!

OUR HOUSE by bestselling author, Louise Candlish, acclaimed author of eleven previous novels, including THE SWIMMING POOL and THE SUDDEN DEPARTURE OF THE FRASERS is an outstanding psychological thriller.

“a disturbing and addictive novel of domestic suspense where secrets kept hidden from spouses cause shocking surprises that hit home...”

When Fiona Lawson comes home to find strangers moving into her house, she's sure there's been a mistake. She and her estranged husband, Bram, have a modern co-parenting arrangement: bird's nest custody, where each parent spends a few nights a week with their two sons at the prized family home to maintain stability for their children. But the system built to protect their family ends up putting them in terrible jeopardy. In a domino effect of crimes and misdemeanors, the nest comes tumbling down.

Lucy and David Vaughan tell Fiona that they bought the house, and Fiona’s stuff was moved out yesterday. The house had been stripped of all of Fiona’s belongs. What is going on? This must be a joke! And Fiona tells Lucy that it’s not possible for you to have bought a house that was never for sale.

When Fiona reaches out desperately to her ex-husband, she discovered that Bram has disappeared and so have Fiona's children.

What is going on and who is involved in this crime? What has Bram hidden from her? Her life is blowing up in front of her, for which she has no control. Fiona will discover the lies her husband was spinning and how little they truly knew each other.

The story is told via a crime podcast, the website of The Victim, an episode that tells the true story of a crime in the words of the victim, in this case, Fiona and Bram’s word document outlining his recollection of events. The narrative switches back and forth between Fiona and Bram and the history that led up to this dilemma. I was totally gripped by this story. And you know the crazy thing is…This could happen to anyone!

This novel has it all, an exciting plot covering topics that range from lies, secrets betrayal, property fraud, deceit, adultery, with twists around every corner, and vivid characters that make it believable.

I can’t wait to read more from this author, as her writing is outstanding! What a storyteller! And the ending was WOW! I highly recommend "Our House" to psychological and thriller readers. It is a real gem.

Many thanks to Berkley Publishing Group via NetGalley for my e-copy. I also won a copy of this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.

Fiona and Bram Lawson are living an enviable life in a posh neighborhood in London with their two sons, Harry and Leo. At least, that's how it appears to outsiders. But, of course, there's more to this couple than meets the eye. Bram is a mild alcoholic with a roving eye and a moral compass that can't seem to find true north. When Fiona finally kicks him out, allowing for a generous custody arrangement known as a bird's nest, she puts the last bit of trust she can muster in Bram to the test. As she returns home from a weekend away and discovers a family moving in to her house, she cannot wrap her mind around how a mistake like this could have been made. As she learns about the real depth of Bram's betrayal of her family, she depends on family and neighbors to see her through the most difficult struggle of her life. It's easy to see this story as a condemnation of Bram, but nearly every character in this story ends up being severely flawed in one way or another.

The story begins at the end, just as Fiona begins to unravel schemes that have been building for months, and we spend the next 400 or so pages figuring it out with her. The story alternates between Fiona's and Bram's perspectives in the present day and the past. One unique feature that I really enjoyed was that the present-day Fiona is telling her side of the story on a popular podcast called The Victim, and the reader gets to experience the transcripts and online reactions to Fiona's story as it is told. This was the first story that I've seen take the phenomena around real-life suspense stories like Making and Murderer and Serial (plus so many others) and run with it. It was charming and added a new dimension to the story, because you got to see a fictional audience reacting to the story, asking some of the same questions that I was as a reader.

I struggled a little with maintaining a suspension of disbelief in the middle of the story as Bram's actions grow more despicable and desperate, while Fiona seems to be far too forgiving. I do not generally like stories that present women as weak and overly trusting of loathsome men for the sake of “love”, as I think it normalizes that cycles of violence that so many women find themselves trapped in in real life, but this book was an exception. Before all is said and done, Fiona finds her strength, albeit in less-than-ideal ways. The ending redeemed this storyline for me, and I'll be trying additional titles from Candlish in the future. If you like suspense and some really vile characters, give this one a try.

The premise of this one captured my attention immediately, I can’t even imagine coming home and seeing another family living in my house, so crazy! As implausible as it sounds Candlish did a fantastic job at giving weight to such a preposterous idea, so much so that I kept wondering if it could happen to me.

The structure of this was really well done, it goes back and forth between the day Fiona realizes that strangers are occupying her home and then snippets from a podcast called The Victim where she appears after the incident. It also has a journal style narrative from Bram’s point of view going back months and laying the groundwork for what is to come. The style kept me really engaged and eager to see how what had happened in the past had such a devastating effect on the Lawson family in the end.

This was a slow burn, it’s on the longer side for a psychological thriller and the chapters are also fairly long. The pacing is more subtle than fast and furious but I remained engrossed and I think the unique structure helped to keep me interested. I think this will be on many lists for recommended summer reads and I can really see why, it has a truly original plot, some great twists and is extremely well written, Candlish has a nuanced style that had an air of sophistication that isn’t always found in thrillers and was really a breathe of fresh air.

Our House in three words: Original, Engaging and Secretive.

Our House by Louise Candlish gets you hooked right from the very first page when we discover that someone is moving into Fiona's house, even though she resides there and has not agreed to let anyone move in. As the story unfolds we learn that Fiona and her husband, Bram, have separated due to his cheating multiple times but they are raising their sons in an unusual custody arrangement referred to as bird nesting. They each take turns staying at the home w/their sons while the other is staying at an apartment they've rented. Bram is not known for making good decisions and throughout the book he proves that again and again. Fiona is in the dark about most of his behavior and especially about who is moving into her house. Lots of suspense! Read and enjoy!