The Thin Place is an incredibly captivating story of family secrets. CD Major uses multiple narrators to tell a harrowing tale of a manor home and the bridge nearby that has claimed the lives of upwards of 500 since 1950.

This novel was spellbinding and I could not put it down once I started reading. A clever balance of horror and mystery, this book will surely hold you captive as you learn the secrets of Overtoun.

This book tells the story from three characters' viewpoints and three different points in time. It focuses on the Overtoun Estate and the history of life there, as well as the mysterious dog suicide pattern at the nearby bridge. Ava is a journalist and decides to investigate further. She can tell that the house has a mystery that it is hiding and starts to receive threats herself. Her obsession with the house begins to put a strain on the relationships in her life.

To me, this book was trying to touch on a lot of things at once, mystery, relationships, family history, the supernatural - and it never really came together well for me.

The Thin Place tells its story through 3 characters from 3 different points in time. Set around Overtoun House and bridge near Dumbarton in Scotland, modern day journalist Ava sets out to investigate a story surrounding the property whereby hundreds of dogs have leapt to their death from the bridge, with no reasoning ever being discovered. She finds herself increasingly attracted to the house and begins to investigate its past, to the detriment of her own relationship. Intertwined with Ava’a story are Marion and Constance’s. Marion moved from London to Overtoun after marrying the lord of the manor in 1929. Her expectations of a lavish new lifestyle were never met, her life plagued with tragedy, sadness and loneliness. Constance is introduced to us from 1949, a young sickly girl who also lives at Overtoun.

I found it hard to put this book down! I haven’t read anything by CD Major before and didn’t really know what it was going to be about. It was fast paced and had a gothic vibe that I loved. It was chilling and spooky; even more so once I found that the house and bridge really exist and that the bridge does have a reputation for dogs jumping from it into a gorge below. I found both Marion and Constance’s stories to be heartbreaking in completely different ways. I think Ava was just a good way for the author to be able to tell the reader Constance’s life before and after Overtoun. I would say that as the story is set in Scotland that I would have liked to have seen a little bit more in the way of Scottish dialect.

This book was perfect for winter’s nights, with its gothic atmosphere mixed in with the contemporary world. I couldn’t put it down, even though its content meant that it was hard to read in places. If you’re a sentimental dog-lover like me, be warned that it’s a difficult read, but well worth it for the gripping plot.

'Heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in think places that distance is even shorter.'

The Thin Place follows 3 women's stories across the span of decades and generations, yet somehow all connected to Overtoun House. Overtoun House is a real place in Scotland that has been described as a 'thin place'. A bridge exists there where numerous dogs willingly jump to their deaths; some survive only to go back up to the same spot and jump again. This piece of historical fiction is very eerie and left me feeling really unsettled throughout. I guessed one or two twists and yet the execution of them was still brilliant to read. I enjoyed that the chapters were snippets of each woman, quite fragmented rather than allowing the reader to see the full picture which definitely added to the mystery.

The Thin Place is released in April 2021 and it is now available for preorder!
Thank you to Amazon Publishing UK and NetGalley for my advanced copy.

A stunning novel that perfectly handles dark twists and turns. Despite it touching on difficult themes, they are all handled very sensitively. I was desperate to find out what secrets the house (and the bridge) held so I raced towards the satisfying end! Very excited to see what else this author has coming up next.

A well-written psychological thriller that I gulped down in a couple of sittings. CD Major captured an undercurrent of dread that gradually built and built with a satisfying and not at all saccharine ending. It was interesting to read in the notes at the end that the setting for the book at Overtoun House was a real one, which further provided intrigue for the book.

Compelling thriller with the backdrop of a creepy country estate? Whats not to like? Told from multiple perspectives I found myself more involved with the 'past' sections than the present day. They were genuinely uncomfortable to read at times, and I found the voices of Marion and Constance more convincing than that of modern day Ava - she's obsessed with the story of this whole house but her reasons for it don't really come across as such, and I found it hard to summon up any sympathy for her. But overall this was a great, atmospheric read. read

This was a slow book. I kept waiting for it to pick up pace during the first quarter. I felt that the multiple perspectives were a bit annoying and distracted from the flow of the story. However, it started to get gripping and I enjoyed the ending overall.

Fantastic read! The Thin Place was such a creepy, twisted, heartfelt read. I couldn't put it down. 5 stars.

CW: miscarriage, child abuse, animal abuse, animal death

"The Thin Place" is three interrelated stories occurring at different points in time, all entering around a house named Overtoun in Scotland. The main story is that of Ava in the present day, a television journalist in her late thirties. Ava’s pregnancy makes her worry about possible unknown genetic issues, as her mother was adopted and has always refused to speak about her past, her biological parents or her adoptive ones. Looking for a story to fill a gap on a slow news day, Ava suggests looking into the bridge at Overtoun, from where since the 1950s dogs have been known to leap to their deaths. On the bridge, Ava feels something that may be supernatural, and she becomes obsessed with finding out the truth about what happened at the house and the bridge, an obsession that strains her relationships with her mother and sister, the father of her child, and her capacity to do her job. The two other stories are that of Marion, a naive young woman who, in 1929, marries a handsome young man who takes her to live at his family’s crumbling estate, and that of Constance, a sick child who lives isolated in a small room of a big house, occasionally visited by her mother.

The title "The Thin Place" refers to a place where the veil that separates the world of the living from that of the dead is particularly thin.

Major weaves a tense, creepy atmosphere, with the large house looming over everything, creeping into Ava’s brain, its darkness infecting her apartment and her relationships. I was at once repulsed by some of the events in the book (see content warnings above), but I also couldn’t put it down. I could see the shape of the thing that would be revealed, but it was hazy enough that I had to keep reading to learn if the characters would get through it. The writing cleverly sticks very close to the characters’ point of view (Ava, Marion, and Constance) so that it is very difficult to decipher what is real from what could be their false interpretation of events and phenomenon. The chapters are short, which makes it even easier to just burn through the whole book by telling yourself “just one more chapter”.

Ava is not entirely likeable as a character for the greater part of the book. I think the greatest accomplishment of the writing is that the reader can see all the bad decisions she is making, but is so engrossed in the mystery that it is difficult to blame her for wanting to know the truth as much as we do (or as much as I did). For all the mystery, and ghostly atmosphere, and strange events, this is at heart a story about mothers and daughters, which makes it very relatable.

I dived right into this strange and spooky tale of three women whose tales will somehow intersect. I loved the use of a real haunted location and the twists and turns of the obsession. This tale of secrets and strange suicides will be highly recommended to my friends.

This story is about a foreboding Scottish home, Overtoun Estate, that holds an eerie power over its grounds and many of the people who cross its path. It starts with Ava, a journalist who becomes obsessed after doing a small news piece on the property after hearing about a particularly spooky bridge on the grounds. It's known as a 'thin place' in Celtic lore, where the line between this world and the next fades away. After feeling unexplainable energy and not trusting what she sees and hears, Ava begins to believe in the otherworldliness and almost immediately becomes obsessed with the estate. And I mean obsessed - her job suffers, her home life suffers, she doesn't even seem interested in her new pregnancy. She spends more time researching the estate than she does anything else and the point is driven home in page after page of her internal ramblings about her obsession. To me, the story would flow better with less.

We're also introduced to two other time periods and occupants of the house - Marion in the 1920s and Constance in the 1940s. Marion is a newlywed who is finding marriage to be lonelier than she expected when her husband is constantly away working. She's left with not much else to do but roam the grounds and long for a child to fill her life. Constance is a sickly young girl who is practically imprisoned in her small room by her mother, worried about her poor health. It soon becomes clear that Constance isn't the only sick one in the home.

Through her constant research, Ava begins to see connections between the generations of people who lived in this house. The question becomes whether her family and career will still be there for her once her obsession is brought to an end. I enjoyed this story, especially the eerie mystery surrounding the bridge - it's a real place, and quite fascinating. I would recommend further reading into that as well, just don't let it become an obsession!

Past And Present Collide...
The Overtoun Estate, a feared and perhaps fearful place? What deep mystery does the Overtoun Estate hold, if any? Journalist Ava Brent decides to investigate just that with little regard for her own safety. She soon becomes drawn into the house, the place, the mystery as well as the people when past and present collide. Compelling suspense with a well drawn and atmospheric plot.

Television reporter Ava Brent is pregnant with her first child, and while this should be a time filled with joy and happiness, she’s become obsessed with Overtoun House. The creepy old house has quite a history, complete with a ghostly white lady and a bridge that modern days dogs jump from to their deaths. Ava can’t stay away from the old estate, even though she feels in her bones that something very ugly happened there. Locals believe it to be one of the “thin places” a spot where the veil between the living and the dead is especially thin. This book was so good I didn’t want it to end, one of the best gothic novels I’ve ever read

A great slow-burner, The Thin Place is centred around the chilling mystery of the Overtoun estate as journalist Ava digs into its past, trying to uncover the secrets behind this 'thin place'.

Not only a thriller, this story gives a really interesting depiction of pregnancy and motherhood, periods that are 'supposed' to bring women great joy but in reality are often very challenging both physically and mentally. The interesting mix of diary-like and dialogue-driven writing made this a really enjoyable and exciting read for me, and I felt it worked really well with the story spanning from the past of 1929 to the present day.

Marion and Constance's stories are what made the book for me, and the author has done a fantastic job of showing Constance's journey from naivety to realisation. I wish we had more of Marion's life! I found her story the most compelling of the three, and I felt that more of her life could have been explored, but maybe C D Major wanted the reader to focus more on the present.

All in all a very enjoyable read, can't wait to get into more of C D Major's works!

This is a fast paced mysterious book written from 3 different view points, 2 in the past and one in the present.
In the present Ava is drawn to investigate overtoun house and the nearby bridge where many legends are told about numerous dogs leaping to their deaths.
In the past Marion and Constance lived in Overtoun house. Each character had an interesting all though depressing life in the past. As Ava investigates the history she seems to become more obsessed with the how and whys of the house with no regards to her own health (She is pregnant and has some high blood pressure)
Things come to a head as she receives threatening messages to discontinue her investigations and the ending was interesting and satisfying.

I love stories where houses take on an almost human-like quality. Given the description of The Thin Place and its atmospheric estate, I was prepared to be sucked into the book. Unfortunately, it just didn't click for me. The multiple perspectives felt more distracting than intriguing. By the time I was about 20% of the way through, I hoped to be into the plot, but there just wasn't enough buy-in to keep reading.

I really liked this one- just the right side of creepy and I couldn't put it down! Some of the twists were a bit predictable but added to the story well.
I liked the flashbacks that told more of the story and really added to the tension, and tied the story together.
I empathised much more with Constance than with the main character of Ava, and found the details of her life heart-breaking.
I found myself wanting to visit Overtoun to see if I could feel "it" too.

So, I have read The Other Girl from this author and I really liked it, so when I saw this ARC, I was super excited to get my hands on it.
This book didn't live up to my high expectations, although it wasn't a bad book at all. I love this author's writing and she can create a vivid book - almost movie-like - with her descriptions and realistic dialogue and I really like this.
However, I was way more invested in Marion and Constance's chapters than Ava's. I almost skim-read hers to get to the others and this didn't add anything to the story. I was honestly so captivated by the other two's voices that I forgot Ava was even investigating this at all. I think the book might have benefited from more of their chapters or maybe even told from Ava's mother's point of view.
However, the pacing for this story was great and I would honestly recommend this author.

I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.