A really cleverly written book. This had me raging with emotions. Frustration at Elliot and Gemma and pure dislike for the in-laws who have infiltrated themselves in to Elliots beautiful home. The story moves cleverly from a love story to a dark and disturbing situation. A really gripping read with some awesome twists.

What a mind-blowing read! I expected this to be a brilliant read since I have enjoyed all previous titles by Mark Edwards. In the end, Here to Stay ended up surpassing my expectations.

Elliot and Gemma got married after only 2 months of knowing each other. That isn’t the crazy part. What had my head spinning was the fact that Gemma’s family soon moved in with them and simply refused to leave. Can you imagine your new in-laws doing that? I think I’d have disappeared. Simply walked out of the home and left everyone behind. Luckily, Elliot didn’t do that. If he had, then we would have missed out on one helluva read.

This book is twisty. There was something ominous in the atmosphere from the first to the last page. I could see the storm coming but couldn’t look away. I wanted to witness the destruction but didn’t know just how bad it would get. My mind was reeling with questions. As the dangers heightened, so did the suspense.

This was a shocking read. It was tense, twisty, captivating, very well-written. I lack words to explain just how good a read it was. I was so hooked to the narrative that I did something I haven’t done in years. Read under the desk! Yeah, I used to do that in school while lessons were going on and now in my 30s, I found myself unable to put the book down and so I had to find creative ways of reading it a work. Good thing I didn’t get caught, Mark Edwards would owe me rent money now 🙂

Captivating, terrifying, definitely a page-turner not to miss!

Well author Mark Edwards has done it again, another outstanding book that left me shocked and a little bit speechless.

What a story this was, it literally swallowed me up whole. Just absolutely brilliant and I was gripped from start to finish. 

All of the characters were well written, so much so that there are times when you question as to who really can be trusted abd who can. I really liked the character of Elliott but he even surprised me by the end, in a good way.

As always with Mark's books, they are always gripping, fast paced, edge of seat in eager anticipation as to what would happen next and a couple of twists thrown in for good measure.  So can definitely highly recommend this one.

This was a first read for my from Mark Edwards and I have to say that I am still digesting this one! I thought that the characters were well developed and that the story line flowed really well. Once I started this book though it was hard for me to put it down!

Elliot has lead a very conservative life. It has just been him and his cat, Charlie, for al long time. He has worked hard fixing up his Victorian home that he lives in and runs an educational non-profit. One day when Elliot is having a public viewing of his garden, he meets Gemma. Once Elliott and Gemma start taking, things progress very quickly. Elliot has been dating Gemma for about 3 months when he has a near death experience. Having made it through that experience he decides to embrace life and live it to the fullest. He asks Gemma to marry him.

With things moving so fast for Elliott and Gemma, they have not had time to introduce Elliot to Gemma's parents. When Gemma asks if her parent's and younger sister could move in for a little bit while they look for a house in transition from France, Elliot agrees to the arrangement to keep his new bride happy. Little did Elliot know that this was going to be the beginning to all his problems. These are the in laws from you know where!!

When Gemma's parents fall in love with Elliot's house, they tend to stay around for way too long. You have heard of people overstaying their welcome, well these in laws sure did! You will never guess some of the things that go on while Gemma's parents and sister stay with Elliot and Gemma. It will keep you on the edge of your seat for sure and make you want to hurry up and read to find out what is going to happen next.

I highly recommend this book for those that like the suspense and psychological books that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book!

As expected, I absolutely loved this book! Mark is an incredible author. He really knows how to draw his readers in. From page one I was on the edge of my seat excited to see what happened next. I love trying to guess and I had worked part of it out. But there was still so much I did not see coming. Mark clearly loves a twist!

The characters were very believable. It was very easy to fall in love with some of them, but also to feel pure hatred for others. I really sympathised with Elliot and shared all his frustrations. It's one of those books you just want to scream at and must resist the urge to throw across the room. The Robinsons really are the in-laws from hell!

This is a must read for any fans of psychological thrillers. An easy five stars!

This was great - when a book compels me to keep reading rather than do anything else that was needed to be done in the house today.
Elliott and Gemma have a whirlwind romance and spend a few blissful months together. This is - until her parents need somewhere to stay for 2 weeks. The problem is they won't leave. They like Elliott's house and they plan to stay. Whether Elliott and Gemma like it or not.

And I thought my in laws were bad!!
I’ve read several Mark Edwards books with a mixed bag of reviews, from absolutely loved to not for me.
This one I really liked, I like Marks writing style in all his stories as it’s non pretentious which I feel adds to the ‘real feel’ of all of his thrillers.
What would you do if someone wouldn’t leave your house!?

Hmm, I’m on the fence about this one. I have now read a few of Edwards’ books with mixed results - generally 3 to 4 stars, finding them suspenseful, clever and generally unpredictable, but with unlikeable characters and preposterous plots. None have elicited from me the glowing 5 star reviews that I’ve seen frequently in my feed. This one returns to the same themes as his Magpies trilogy - an innocent man terrorised in his own home by people he cannot defend himself against - but this time it’s his in-laws!

Lonely Elliott Foster, 38, lives with his cat Charlie in a beautiful Victorian house in the London suburb of Dulwich, that he has painstakingly restored, and runs an NGO in schools teaching kids about science. When a beautiful young woman enters his life, and after a near death experience, he vows to make the most of life and, after a whirlwind romance, marries Gemma in Las Vegas.
Not long after, she asks if if her parents and teenage sister can stay a few weeks while they look for a new home after moving home from France. Desperate to keep his new bride happy, Elliott agrees, but soon discovers that his new in-laws are less than ideal house-guests, and getting them to move on is harder than he imagined...

I found this a stressful read - as soon as Charlie was introduced I began fretting about him, and around the 18% mark actually had to stop to check reviews to make sure nothing happened to him (spoiler alert, there are some threats but he survives; there is mention of other characters’ cats having been poisoned but we don’t see anything of this happen.) Even with this reassurance, as the book progresses and poor Elliott’s happy life is taken apart by a couple of truly dreadful people, I found my blood pressure rising as I pictured how I would react under the same conditions. This is a marker of the author’s skill, but I couldn’t say I enjoyed the experience.

Quite a few elements here were hard to believe - in particular Elliott’s passivity and how much the Robinson’s managed to get away with. If you can suspend disbelief the ending was satisfying and the events of the epilogue unexpected.
Unlike some of his other books, this doesn’t have any supernatural elements.
Fundamentally, if you enjoyed The Magpies, you should read this, but I am coming to the conclusion that while Edwards is a good storyteller, his books are not really for me - although I do have Follow You Home downloaded so probably will still read that at some point.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc which allowed me to give an honest review, and apologies that it’s a few weeks past the publication date.

I absolutely loved Here to Stay! Mark Edwards' writing is so addictive, and throughout I constantly wanted to discover more. This is a story where once you pick it up, you won’t want to put it down. I was up late at night reading because I wanted to find out what was going to happen..
I loved that Mark wrote this in such a way that I was constantly engrossed in the story and had no idea how the it was going to end. Here to Stay is a story with dark and chilling moments and it will have you gripped to the pages.

3,5 Stars

Elliot is a nice and polite British guy. He is really a good man and life had been good to him mostly besides losing his parents in his teens. So he always dreamt of being part of a bigger family. One day he meets Gemma and he is immediately enchanted. They have a whirlwind romance and within a few months they are married. But when the honeymoon is over Gemma tells him that her parents are coming back from France where they lived for the last years. Elliot, all polite and willing to help invites them so stay in his beautiful home until they sorted themselves out. But his in-laws are not as charming as he hoped. They are weird and Elliot soon finds himself feeling like a stranger in his own home. Gemma is not a help at all and seems to hide some important information about her family.



I loved all of Mark Edwards’ books. This man can write and create atmospheric settings. Here we can see how Elliot finds himself trapped with the in-laws from hell and how things escalated further and further. Elliot is a naïve character but I can easily imaging him as a real person. He has a job he loves and fulfills him but he is in lack of a person to share his life with. So he falls for Gemma very quickly and he wants to do everything to make his wife happy. Gemma’s character is a different thing. She is hard to read and I kept guessing all through the book what her real motives were. Towards the end things escalates quickly between Elliot and Gemma’s parents. They are playing in a totally different league than Elliot and he makes a lot of stupid decisions because he never encountered people like that. There are some twists and not all of them are really surprising. I would not say that the story is very believable or realistic but Elliot feels like a real character and the pace is quick. You can fly easily through the book and its short chapters with cliffhangers. It is not Edwards best book but still entertaining.



I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest reveiw

You fall in love in a whirlwind romance.
Your In-Laws come to stay for a couple of weeks while they search for a house.
This turns into a nightmare.
Strange things start happening have the in-laws got something to do with it.
Why did they leave France ?
Have they got something to hide?
How will Elliot get them to leave his house?
I really enjoyed this book
Thanks NetGalley

omg this book! i could not stop reading it from page one straight through! fantastic story line never got boring and i really could not figure out who it was and i did not see the ending! fan bloody tastic well done to the author i can't wait to read more from them

I think Mark Edwards writes some of the creepiest stories. They make you cringe and feel so bad for the main character... you can just imagine yourself in their shoes. Elliott meets Gemma when he opens his home's garden to the public and when she shows up, there is immediate chemistry. After their instant connection, they are married 2 months later. Shortly after, Gemma hears from her parents and they are moving back from France with Gemma's younger sister Chloe and have nowhere to stay. Elliott offers his (their) home for them to stay until they find a place. After a few weeks, he realizes that they have no attention of moving out and start really making life miserable for Elliott. A true nightmare!!!

There are so many things wrong with Gemma's parents, Jeff and Lizzy. Poor Elliott tries so many things, but nothing goes his way. As the reader, you start to imagine ways you could get rid of these people living in your house. Ugh! Loved the twist at the end!

Once again Mark Edwards has written a scarily believable book, for me the authors strength lies in his ability to takes the must ordinarily situations and turns them into something extraordinary, something horrifying, something chilling, but they make for the most brilliant reads. Here To Stay is the perfect example, in-laws moving in with you for a couple of weeks, ‘where’s the harm in that’? You might think but however much you love your in-laws I guarantee you will think twice or ban them from overnight visits for ever after reading this book!


Elliot appears to have the perfect life. He runs a successful business teaching science to underprivileged children, married to Gemma Robinson who he adores. But when life appears to be perfect, there’s always a chance that fate will throw a curve ball, and that once perfect life becomes a distance memory. Everything changes for Elliot when he agrees to let Gemma’s parents stay for a few of weeks, unfortunately for Elliot his in-laws are the curve ball that turn his perfect life into his worse nightmare!


The Robinsons what a family! Perfectly depicted by the author. At first they appear slightly odd, crass, bordering on the annoying, but within a few of chapters of being introduced to them, the hairs on the back of my neck to stood up! It turns out the Robinson’s are the in-laws from hell, their conniving, secretive, parasites, and despicable. There’s something strange about the family, their behaviour, their actions and reactions all hint at the fact the family are hiding some terrible secret.

Mark Edwards teases the reader, just revealing enough to leave the reader feeling an overwhelming sense of trepidation that is palatable throughout Here To Stay, you know something dreadful will happen, but to the what? Well, let’s just say you will race through the pages to find out! As the animosity and tension between Elliot and his in-laws increases I found my intense dislike of the Robinson family growing by the second, at the same time I had a great deal of sympathy for poor Elliot, a man who's pushed to the limits by his in-laws behaviour.

By the time I got to the second half of Here To Stay my nerves were frazzled, as the plot progresses Elliot’s home becomes a smouldering pot of mistrust, resentment and paranoia. As Elliot tries to take back control of his life and his home, the story takes an ominous turn, at this point I was reluctant to put this book down even for a few minutes. Like any good psychological thriller Here To Stay has more than its fair share of twist and turns, some are more obvious than others, but there were still enough surprises to keep me captivated. As psychological thrillers go this has to be one of my all-time favourites this year, and thanks to Mark Edwards my reading mojo has been found, hallelujah

This review maybe altered slightly and edited prior to publication on my blog

Wow! What a read! This is an absolute page turner. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters and the story was believable and had you eager to know more. Would definitely recommend this book to others and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you Net Galley.

Ok I feel super conflicted about this book! I LOVED how it started out and was immediately sucked in. The premise was so unique and unnerving I was really into it. Then like a lot of the psychological thrillers being published lately it just goes completely off the rails in the second half. I feel like it would have been so much better if it was more nuanced and less in your face blatantly bad behavior. It wasn’t a fav but I did keep turning the pages to see what was going to happen.

I think this could be my favourite Mark Edwards book to day. A fantastic, gripping page turner that I didn't want to end. Already wondering if there will be a sequel

Recently finished reading this psychological thriller about a newlywed couple whose marriage is shaken to the core after their in-laws from hell move in and he whole situation turn into a nightmare. The character of the mother and father in law is un-believable and I just wanted to throw away my e-reader in frustration at multiple times. Thus the anger, pain and frustration of Elliot- the husband and main character were completely understandable. However, I found myself turning the pages to find out how this all will wrap up and to be honest, I could see the final twist coming. Overall 3.5 stars.

Amazing twists and turns, I never knew where this story was going! This story recieves my very highest compliments..... I actually yelled "Noooooo!" aloud and inhaled loudly a couple of times. One of the most enjoyable reads I have had in a long time.

Oh, what an extremely unnerving book! I read this all in one day, feeling interested to keep learning what was going on and what the big old deal was with these people!

Charlie was such a nice cat, and I think a cat mellows out a story very well. Unfortunately, the rest just wasn’t for me!

Thank you so much for a copy of this book! I appreciate having the opportunity to read it!