A twisty novel told from the perspective of Beth, a young teenage orphan, living on a grand estate in the late 1980s and a current day woman Sadie, a struggling actress, invited to participate in a murder mystery event at the same estate. The estate holds many secrets which unfold as do the players in the game. The pace picks up dramatically as the stories unfold and I couldn't put it down until it was done.

In 1988, Beth is moved from an orphanage to live at Raven Hall with The Averells and their daughter Nina. In 2019, Sadie accepts an acting job which involves working in a murder mystery party at the same mansion! I don't want to ruin it, so I won't say anymore!

The Perfect Guests has a very intricate, twisty plot! There are many connections between characters and it is clearly well thought out! I loved the ominous old mansion setting, and was intrigued by the dark side of Nina and her family that is apparent early on. I was torn between wanting Beth to fit with her new family and listening to all the alarm bells that were going off!

I don't always love dual timelines, but in this case I really couldn't see how they were related and was surprised when everything comes together. This is a great, slow burn, thriller with lots of suspense and twists!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkeley Books for providing me with an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

This reminded me very much of Emma Rous' first book, The Au Pair. The writing style and set up of the book was so similar I kept thinking I had already read this book. It was good enough but fairly predictable. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC.

I am a bit late on posting about my latest book, but this month has been anything but normal. I finished The Perfect Guests last night, and absolutely loved it!

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Thank you so much to @berkleypub and @netgalley for the gifted review copy of The Perfect Guests by Emma Rous! I was already a fan of this author after reading her previous book The Au Pair, and The Perfect Guests did not disappoint.

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Synopsis from the publisher: When Beth was fourteen, she was invited into Raven Hall, a rambling, isolated manor house in the English countryside. The family who lived there were warm and welcoming, and Beth soon became firm friends with their daughter, Nina. At times, Beth even felt like she was truly part of the family … But then they asked her to play a very strange game - and nothing was the same again. Now, after years of abandonment, Raven Hall has been restored to its former glory and is playing host to an evening of murder mystery … But why does the tragic past of this imposing house seem to have such a hold on everyone? Is this really just a game, or a murder mystery for real?

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This book has everything you could want in a great mystery. Multiple POVs, alternating timelines, a cast of unreliable characters, and a dark atmospheric manor house. I did have the end pretty well figured out before everything was revealed, but I really did find the end very satisfying in the way the author chose to conclude everything. This story has many layers and characters who all weave together in a very elaborate plot. Highly recommend for all readers who like dark, atmospheric, family drama mysteries.

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QOTD: If you were given the opportunity to move into a mansion, but you knew it had a very dark history, would you still move in?

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I really enjoyed this mystery thriller!! It was hard to put down, I read it in a day. Loved all of the twists all the way up to the end. Told in two timelines and wrapped up nicely at the end. The story starts with Beth in 1988 at spooky Raven Hall and alternates with Sadie in 2019 who is an actress that gets invited to a mystery dinner for a part at Raven Hall! Definitely recommend!!

I am sorry but this was not for me at all. When I read the plot summary I had a recall and it reminded me of another book by Emily Carpenter. Sadly this one was just boring and didn't seem to have a point.

3.5 stars for this captivating tale of deeply buried family secrets rising to the surface.

Told through two timelines, this novel unravels the mystery surrounding the family legacy of Raven Hall, an old crumbling mansion in the isolated English countryside. Raven Hall was like a character in itself, dark and powerfully atmospheric in setting - I loved it!

I was engrossed with this story from start to finish. I surprised myself with how connected I felt to the book even though I found several aspects of the plot line were quite far fetched, especially near the end. This is usually a deal breaker for me, however, I was so enthralled in the story that I remained hanging on every word with extreme curiosity in how it would all come together.

I really enjoyed the writing and characters. The pace and flow were great and the characters were memorable. I wasn’t a fan of the Present Day storyline in what brought them to Raven Hall, but I was able to “go with it” and lose myself within that aspect of the story.

Overall, this was a highly entertaining and unique novel that kept me engaged. I enjoyed this authors previous novel, The Au Pair, a tiny bit more but found this a close second.

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for my review copy!

Favorite Quote:

Her thoughts are like darting fish, sparking across her mind and slipping out of reach.

My Review:

My first Emma Rous read and it was quite a complicated and twisty tale with lots of moving parts, secrets, and hidden agendas. The storylines were slowly constructed and cleverly nuanced over two timelines with a large cast of characters. The story threads were taut with tension and wound around themselves to weave what seemed like tangled knots, which ultimately became a complex tapestry while ensnaring my attention and endlessly provoking my curiosity with ever-evolving theories. Many of the main characters were elusive and an odd mix of peculiar and erratic in both timelines. This was a hard one to put down and my poor optical orbits feel like they have burned through to the back of my skull as I may have been reluctant to blink as I didn’t want to miss anything. All told, it was rather ingenious.

This was an interesting and well crafted story. I appreciated how the author tied all the threads together, even some threads of which I was unaware until close to the end. Well done, it will definitely be good for book groups.

While I thought this book was well written, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea due to the fact that it had different timelines and I wasn’t keen on the way the story came together. That being said I felt like the twists and turns made it a really good book for some.

Subtly eerie and slow-burn creepy, The Perfect Guests gives great Gothic vibes. It's an entertainingly twisty psychological thriller that definitely had me glued to the page, wondering about the truths behind all the lies and secrets. The 'game' setup has a lot of fun potential, though it isn't explored as thoroughly as I wanted in the 2019 plotline, and it provides a nebulous but workable connecting framework between the two timelines. The characters are intriguing enough, with all their secrets and obsessions. The story does go a little overboard with the Shocking Revelations and Surprise Plot Twists at the end, but it's still an enjoyable, suspenseful read.


Content warnings: off-page rape and sexual assault, sexual harassment, parental abuse, parental death, off-page death by car accident.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Books for the advance review copy!

This was a fun one! I loved The Au Pair and The Perfect Guests was just as satisfying!

Sometimes you just need to get out of your head and read a fun thriller that may seem a bit implausible and too tidy, but it hits all the nerves the right way and is just a fun experience, so you can thrown all plausibility out the window.

Just sit back and enjoy the ride as past and present collide in this one.

Past - an orphaned girl is "adopted" by the family who lives at Raven Hall, a gothic manor that is hiding some truly chilling secrets. But is there an ulterior motive to this adoption? Me thinks so! And Present - 30 years later Raven Hall is transformed into a Murder Mystery party setting where a struggling actress takes a job at this grand mansion, but the mystery game is not the only one at play.

I scrambled through this one because it was such a unique story and I literally had NO idea what was happening and HAD to find out. It was a fun and enjoyable read and while the end tied up in some pretty neat and tidy bows - they were FUN bows and I'm not mad about it!

It's a fun and twisty puzzle and I enjoyed playing the game!

The Perfect Guests is a thriller without any thrills. Not only are the actual twists and perils fairly low-stakes (which I actually rather liked) but they lack emotional heft. Beth's trauma has obvious impact on her ability to relate to her daugher, but nothing feels genuine - her difficulty with emotion is constantly asserted but her characterization is anemic. An interesting plot with cardboard characters.

🏠|#Partner|Thank you to @netgalley @berkleypub & Emma Rous for the free book! It’s available now!
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🌟🌟BOOK REVIEW🌟🌟
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“Her thoughts are like darting fish sparking across her mind and slipping out of reach.
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💬MY THOUGHTS:
▪️I really enjoyed the dual perspective. I did prefer the past more though as it delved into the relationship between Beth and Nina.
▪️It was fast paced and I was so invested in finding out what was going to happen next.
▪️I enjoyed the writing and storytelling a-lot. There were so many secrets that needed to be unpacked.
▪️My only criticism was that the ending was just too much too fast. I really had to concentrate on who was who and what was what.
▪️Overall it was a great book packed with secrets and lies!
▪️Please note CW: Death of a parent & sibling, abuse, brief reference of rape but does not go into any details & arson.

3.5 stars rounded up

After reading Emma Rous’s debut novel last year, I was very excited to see how she would follow up such a fabulous book as “The Au Pair“. This one was just as well written, yet for some unfathomable reason I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as her first. That’s not to say I didn’t like it, I just liked it less.

The setting was the star of the show here. An old remote house in the East Anglian Fens. A house so desirable to one woman that she would go to any measures to have it.

The dual-time line narrative was broken by a third narrative written in italics with a narrator who was not identified until near the end. This narrative left me feeling puzzled and somewhat off balance, as it was supposed to do. All the while I was wondering who this girl was…

Of the two story-lines featuring Beth and Sadie, I far preferred Beth’s story. I felt the palpable unease at Raven Hall whilst she lived there. Insecure in her place there, Beth was a piteous character, who was eager to please her newfound ‘family’.

The author expertly ties the narratives together in a cohesive way, but I found myself feeling a tad confused on more than one occasion. The twists (and there were several) were dramatic and ever so slightly ‘over the top’, yet I admired the way Rous tied everything together and it would have been a job, as the plot was quite complex.

In summation, I believe that “The Perfect Guests” IS a book that will be thoroughly enjoyed by many readers. Although it wasn’t as good as “The Au Pair” in my personal opinion, I’m still quite certain that I will be avidly waiting for this author’s next novel. I find her writing compelling.

The Perfect Guests was a fun, twisty thriller and I really enjoyed it. The storyline bounces back and forth between Beth in the 1980s and the present-day with her daughter Sadie. I personally found Beth to be more relatable and her plot line was more compelling to me so I enjoyed her chapters more so than Sadie's. The house at the center of it all, Raven Hall, is as beautiful as its obsessed owners are disturbing. Leonara is a fascinating character to me, as is her daughter Nina. I think the reason that I also enjoyed Beth's POV more was because of how prominently those two characters were featured.

I was surprised but delighted by the subtle linkages between characters which keeps the air of mystery and adds to the "oh wow" factor when the connections are revealed. This keeps up all the way to the last page and I found it to be a great ending for that. I'd recommend this one to any reader who enjoys those house-based thrillers because Raven Hall is as much a character as anyone in the book.

Note: I received a free electronic edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank them, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to do so.

If twists are your top priority in a thriller, then this is the book for you.

Emma Rous’ sophomore effort isn’t really anything new thematically for the genre, but the ending is a twist-filled, wild ride.

There is a LOT going on in this story, particularly toward the end, and it makes the pacing feel a bit uneven. The early going isn’t slow, but it’s pretty measured in both halves of the dual timeline. The latter parts of the book become almost frenetic, and the shift from one to the other isn’t all that smooth.

The twists (of which there are many) come rapid fire toward the end of the book, and while there’s not much there that you haven’t seen before, it’s certainly an entertaining journey, and the final, last line of the book twist is a good way to finish.

The book definitely has some notable things going for it, the first of which is a rare version of the dual timeline format in which both timelines are of equal quality and interest. In my experience the more recent timeline tends to be a letdown compared to the older timeline in these types of books, but here the story holds up in both.

Rous also did well with her characters, who are in some cases more likable than most in this genre (Sadie and Jonas specifically come to mind) as well as more nuanced than most in the genre (which applies to almost every character of significance).

As a huge fan of crumbly old house books, I would have liked more of Raven Hall as a character. Atmospherically, there was a lot of potential but not much actualization.

In all, this is a fun one once it gets going, and has plenty to recommend it as long as you’re not looking for anything that’s truly never been done before.

4⭐️sIs there such things as the perfect guests? Beth was just happy to be invited in after losing her family. But what was the real motivation behind the invitation? This was good and one of my favotite styles as it goes back and forth between past and present.
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The Perfect Guests is a page turner with plenty of twists and turns! A well crafted mystery/thriller that kept me guessing until the end!

The Perfect Guests is a modern gothic mystery. The narrative jumps between Beth, a young girl of 15 who was orphaned in the 1980's. Her last living relative is unwilling to care for her, but does find her a placement at Raven Hall as companion to Nora, a girl her own age. The family takes her in and makes her feel at home in this gorgeous old mansion on the Fens of England. The story moves to 2019 to introduce Sadie, a down-on-her-luck aspiring actress. Sadie can't seem to keep a job and her acting isn't going well, so she's delighted when her agent calls with an amazing offer. Sadie has been offered a part in a murder mystery dinner play at an old mansion called Raven Hall. Their narratives are joined by a third young woman, devastated by the loss of her mother, then father, then her family home. These three women are linked only by Raven Hill, or so it seems. Rous has crafted a tale of suspense and mystery intertwined with family secrets that have been hidden too long. I read this book in one sitting. Rous is a good writer and the different points of view were easy to keep separate. The plot moved quickly and I was looking over my shoulder and jumping at noises for a while after I finished. Fans of Ruth Ware and Tana French will enjoy The Perfect Guest, and I can highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well-written mystery. I am grateful to Net Galley for the chance to read an ARC and to discover a new favorite author.