This was a great thriller and I was gripped from the first page. As a parent, the thought of how easily a child - a toddler - can go missing, really is one of my worst fears. We've all been out somewhere and lost sight of them for a few moments - that heart stopping terror is beyond anything else. This novel really brings that feeling to the fore - and how you go on and survive but also how the culprit is tracked down.

This one was ok. It did maintain my interest throughout but the storyline wasn’t anything new or exciting. I also predicted most of the twists and turns.

Moved at a decent pace, kept my interest and was entertaining till the end. I’d recommend if you’re looking for a new read.

S.E Lynes is one of my favourite authors and I'm always waiting for the next one to come along. I was so excited to read The Housewarming!

I was totally invested from the very beginning and felt the Ava's panic - her attention lapsed and now her toddler Abi is missing. As Ava tore around the street and local area searching for her daughter my panic rose...had Abi run into the road? Had she been kidnapped? Unfortunately she can't be found and we reunite with Ava a year later who is still absolutely heartbroken and blames herself for the loss of her child, and the uncertainty, that must be the killer.

Now a year has passed it seems Ava is expected to start getting over her missing daughter and start living "normally". She has a baby to care for her and her husband and close friends/neighbours are worried about her. They are invited to one of their neighbours housewarming parties and Ava suddenly begins to suspect that all was not as it seemed on the day of Abi's disappearance...

I was blown away by the twists and gradual reveals in this book, once again the author has taken me by surprise whilst simultaneously breaking my heart and putting my emotions through the wringer! Obviously deep down I enjoy this and can't wait for SE Lynes to do the same to me with her next book!

S.E. Lynes is a truly remarkable author who never fails to draw me in with her impeccable writing style.
This story follows Ava as she lives through every parents nightmare when her daughter Abi disappears,
A year on from that dreadful day, Ava is still wracked with guilt, and still needing answers as to what happened to their daughter. Her marriage is very strained by this point, so when Matt suggests that they attend the neighbours housewarming party, she forces herself too go along with him.
And then the twists and turns start, as things start to come to light, and Ava finds out more about that fateful day.
This story is full of drama, suspense, and raw emotion The plot is so detailed and intricate, I found it impossible to put down!.
An absolute page turner.

This book is about every parents nightmare. Ava thought her daughter Abi was fast asleep in her pushchair as she took a little time out for herself upstairs. On coming downstairs 15 minutes later she found that she had disappeared. Ava hadn’t realised that Abi could undo her straps, worse of all the front door wasn’t shut properly. Then Ava’s nightmare begins. The story is told from the day of her disappearance a year ago and the present day where we find Ava wracked with guilt and going over the events of that day and still wondering what had happened to Abi. Her relationship with her husband Matt is very strained and when they are invited to a neighbour’s housewarming party Matt persuades Ava to go and a comment made there by their neighbours special needs daughter starts Ava rethinking the events of the day of Abi’s disappearance and uncovers all sorts of secrets and lies. The book covers the relationships and tensions between the families, betrayal and lies. A really gripping read and one that you won’t be able to put down.
Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Decent thriller. I like domestic thrillers so it's not super hard to please me. I'd read more from this author!

A harrowing storyline but a well written one describing the pain of losing a child and living with yourself when you think it is your fault. Expertly written!

A realistic plot, you can feel the characters emotions through the way the author has written, especially Ava. Such shocking twists at the end, the whole story was just so well written.

Loved this book! 2 year old Abi goes missing on a affluent suburban street and a year later, mother and father are still dealing with the grief.....gripping tale about the different characters in the street and the part they may have played. Loved it!

I have read and loved all of SE Lynes' books.. The Housewarming, is no exception.

The writing draws you in and in a way that only this author can, grips you by the heart, and twists and twists until you are turning the pages with your heart in your mouth, as fast as you can. I ugly cried my way through most of it, bit my fingernails and ate a whole packet of biscuits without realising it! The last few chapters, I forgot to breathe and as I had smugly guessed what the twist was, half way through, shouted, "No!" at the wall when I realised I couldn't be further from the truth, if I tried! Well done to the author for that gem!

This book and its themes will get in your head and beg for discussion while you are loading the dishwasher or walking the dog. It will make you ask questions such as ... "What would I do" Or, ..."How would I react if someone did that to me?"

It's a harrowing read, but the realness and relatability of the characters will take you by the hand and lead you to the end as if you were a relative of theirs, rooting for redemption!

Cannot recommend highly enough!

Do read it now. Discuss it with your friends and write a review if you agree or disagree with me.

Thanks to the writer, the publisher and NetGalley for the arc.

Firstly I must apologise for the lateness of this review, but all my blogging has been pushed back due to illness. I’m so glad I came back to read this treat of a thriller. S.E.Lynes is a new author to me, but I’ll definitely be looking into her other work after this, because I was constantly on my kindle dying to uncover the truth. Ava has been invited to a party at the house on the end of the street. This is a party full of her neighbours, but to Ava they’re more than that. These are all the people who lived in the street when her 2 year old Abi was taken. Ava avoids that end of the road. She doesn’t even like to look at it. So, can she stand to attend the party? On the other hand, what if she doesn’t go and there’s a clue to what happened? All the same people, full of alcohol and in a relaxed atmosphere? It’s only one year on. Anything could slip out, and it does. One throwaway comment - innocuous to most people - but to Ava it’s earth-shattering. She thought her memory of that day was razor sharp, but it seems she was wrong. As the events unfold I found myself holding my breath along with Ava as she scouts Riverside Drive looking for her.

I was immediately engaged by Ava’s narrative, laced with panic and fear, as she recalls the events of that day and what happened to her daughter Abi. We then meet Ava one year on and there’s a sense in which her life stopped that day when her daughter vanished. I often refer to grief like the movements of a concertina - sometimes the events surrounding the loss seem far away, then other days the time collapses in and it feels like yesterday. Ava has been in this state for a year. The events of that day a huge fault line in her life that colour everything that happens afterwards, I love the way the author balances the tension and pace, with the tender emotions of a mother’s loss. The not knowing is absolute torture and time has stood still for Ava, frozen in the moment she makes the decision to leave Abi in her pushchair by the open front door. Now, as someone lets a detail slip, events speed up again as we go through the twists and turns of what truly happened that day. The narrative opens up to Ava’s husband Matt and then the neighbours points of view as the story unravels. I was impressed that even these characters are drawn with care and attention. They all feel real and the reader feels like they’re living in the street, totally immersed in this terrible event. It truly made me think about how I behave in my street and towards my neighbours. I could know them better, but just like these people, we are all so caught up in our own lives and worries. It’s as if, once the front door closes, we are sealed in our own little boxes with no link to people who are only a couple of metres away. It slowly becomes more sinister, as Ava starts to wonder if Abi’s disappearance was linked to someone closer to home than she thought. I won’t ruin the twists and turns for other readers, but this taster is Lynes’s description of how Ava feels as the catalyst of the housewarming party sinks in:

"It is simply that the party has pulled the plug on the weird, stagnant pond of our lives, has drained the water from details half submerged, which lie now in the shallows, exposed."

This is a brilliant thriller, written in beautiful prose by the author and with compassion for her characters and their situation. This won’t be the last book I read by this author.

This is my first book by this author and I quite enjoyed it. Interesting story, well-developed characters and some surprising twists and turns.. A little repetitive in spots, but overall I really enjoyed it. Thank you!

The Housewarming by S.E. Lynes is an excellent psychological thriller. I just loved it. This new book by S.E Lynes is packed with great twists and turns throughout and I was hooked.

I highly recommend this new book You will not be disappointed.

Big Thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review

Having read all of SE Lynes previous books I knew that this book would be original, clever, thought-provoking and gripping and it is.

The Housewarming is about every parent’s worst nightmare coming true – a 2 year old little girl has disappeared from home and the story is told through her distraught parents voices and believe me, it’s not an easy read.

Ava is the grieving mother, full of guilt at having left her daughter alone for 10 minutes whilst she did some housework upstairs and one year later is still unable to come to terms with Abi’s disappearance and spends each day reliving her nightmare in minute detail.

When the next door neighbours host a house warming party almost a year to the date of Abi’s disappearance, Ava and her husband Matt reluctantly attend and with the flow of alcohol some secrets are being shared which will cause ripples through the community and soon everyone becomes a suspect or guilty of something.

If like me, you read lots of books then you might try to work out “who did it” before the actual reveal and I was very smug when at 50% through the book I worked it out. I knew my keen eye for detail and in-depth knowledge of murder, mayham and missing children would come in handy one day and I was actually a little disappointed that I had it all figured out so quickly. However, that cunning SE Lynes tricked me good and proper.. and I was so far off base I should have been charged with wasting police time. So hat’s off to the author for creating this twisty story and keeping me thoroughly gripped.

I read this in one sitting - it was so good! Perfect thriller, so dark and twisty. This should definitely come with a warning for the faint of heart!

"The Housewarming" by S.E. Lynes is not for the faint at heart. As a mom to two precious little boys 4 and under, this book really tugged at my heartstrings. I could only imagine the pain and misery Ava was going through trying to come to terms of her daughter Abi's disappearance.

Lynes did a great job at making the reader feel Abi's guilt. I almost had to put this book down because it depressed me too much. The story takes a turn when a year later, at a neighbor's housewarming party, a random comment is made that raises questions about Abi's disappearance.

Although I found the ending to be well-thought out, the book itself was too slow-paced for my taste.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of "The Housewarming" by S.E. Lynes in exchange for an honest review.

This book is what nightmares a made from. It's dark and twisted and really really disturbing in a genius can't-put-it-down kind of way. I thoroughly devoured it!

Ava leaves her daughter Abi secure in her pushchair for a short time while she is upstairs, but when she comes back the pushchair is empty, the front door open and Abi is nowhere to be seen!!

We fast forward to a year later and Abi is still missing. The neighbours are having a housewarming party and Ava’s husband Matt thinks it will do her good to get out of the house.

At the party Ava will discover something about the day Abi disappeared that will set off a chain of events, a comment said that will throw some light on what happened on that dreadful day!! Ava’s life is about to be unravelled as she looks at her neighbours in a new light!!

I was completely engrossed in this book. I could feel the panic and despair the couple felt when they discovered their little girl was missing. I knew in my heart this wasn’t going to be a fairytale ending but boy the finale was something that will stick in my head for a long while, I reread the ending as I couldn’t believe what I read!!

A must read gripping thriller that will keep you hooked until the bitter end.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

Ava's daughter Abi disappeared after Ava left the front door open and Abi got out of the house alone. Now, nearly a year later, Ava and her neighbors are all invited to the housewarming party for the couple next door, a party where truths about Abi's disappearance finally come to light and everything begins to unravel. This was a good book. Ava's panic at finding Abi gone felt authentic. It wasn't a typical suspense novel of twists and forced drama, and was more serious and "real," if that makes sense. Four stars.