I was so excited to read this and will definitely be buying myself a physical copy, because frankly, I just need that book cover in my life. This is perfect for fans of Sarah Waters or anyone who loves a good gothic mystery. Have already started to recommend this to my customers at work

A heartrending and gripping story with unexpected plot twists and a dark secret at its heart. You can smell the smoke from the fire, and feel Ivy's desperation as she tries to come to terms with the loss of her own child and that of the man she thinks she loves. But nothing is as it seems and nothing is as she believes. I couldn't put this book down!

A dual timeframe gothic mystery set in Cornwall. In 1888 seven year old William is found dead under a bed at Polneath as the result of a fire. In 1918 Ivy is mourning the death of her son, Tim, whilst at the same time being haunted by events of the past. Can she piece together and discover what really happened all those years ago?

This is an eerie and beautifully written story. It is something of a slow burner but I found it very compelling even so. It really draws you in to its murky depths! It’s quite a dark tale and very atmospheric with some sinister overtones. It has a good sense of time and place. There is a great cast of fascinating characters, not always particularly likeable. It reminded me a little of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca at times. Always a winner for me! An intriguing and absorbing mystery which had me gripped until the last page.

Set over two timelines of 1888 and 1918, The Key in the Lock is a story of grief, deceit and secrets. Beginning in 1918 following the death of Ivy Boscawen’s son Tim in the trenches, the story goes back and forth to when nineteen-year-old Ivy Cardew was assisting her father, a doctor struggling with his own health when they were called to a burning Polneath House – a fire which resulted in the death of a young boy. Fast forward 30 years and we catch up on the impact of that fire.

This is a haunting story of loss, tragedy and betrayal. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

3.5/5.

SPOILERS. Thank you to Net Galley for a free copy of The Key in the Lock. I enjoyed the book but found the time differences difficult to follow. There were a couple of twists towards the end of the book but nothing that blew me away. I found it very sad that the main character never truly appreciated her husband but was hankering for her first love who she didn’t know at all. She was in love with someone who didn’t exist. It wasn’t a happy ever after but definitely worth the read.

this was so good!! it reminded me so much of Rebecca (one of my favourite classics) in the gothic, historic & dark vibes it gave off. i was fully invested in the characters and the story, strongly rooting for some of them (no spoilers ofc) and i’m so glad my gut instinct proved me right on who to trust and who not. such a good historical fiction with added mystery and intrigue.

A good historical fiction with a strong gothic side. I was fascinated by this dual timeline story and loved the storytelling and the characters.
It's dark, gripping, and compelling.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

In 1918, Ivy Boscawen was struggling with the loss of her son Tim in the Great War. It turned out a few weeks after his death that ‘KILLED’ got her thinking about the manner of his death. She became uneasy and wanted to know the exact way he died. Just after Easter, an old friend of Tim’s came to visit, Theo Stainforth, knew how Tim died and told them. He had been there.

In 1888, father had been out to deliver a baby and had only just got back when the pounding on the door started. There was a fire at Polneath House. They were trying to contain it but a maid had landed in the pond. The fire was out when we arrived at the House. Unfortunately William Tremain was still missing. The maid was resting on the sofa, after coming round from the smelling salts, she said that William was in her room. Everyone raced to her room and, yes, we found him under the bed. He was dead but his eyes were open.

William Tremain died on 23rd December and an inquest had been called to determine how he had died, before or during the fire at Polneath House.

I really enjoyed this historical read although it’s not my usual genre of reading. There was an element of mystery thrown into the mix, like what happened to William? The plot was very well written and certainly kept me reading. I like books which go forward and backward in time like this, it sets the scene better, especially in this book. Well worth a read.

The Key In The Lock’ tells the story of Ivy Boscawen, well, 2 stories, set in 1918/19 Ivy and her and her husband are mourning the loss of their son, Tim, in the Great War. Wondering whether her son’s death is her comeuppance we are taken back 30 years to when Ivy was growing up wither her father investigating the tragic events of 1888 in The Great House and the Tremain family.

This story has a duel timeline as Ivy mourns the death of her son and tries to understand his death and what she is informed was a suicide, and 30 years earlier the fire in the Tremain house which led to the death of a child, William and the court case that follows. The events of 1818 cause Ivy much conflict and guilt and throughout the book you watch the story both unravel and connect, starting off vague and mysterious and ending in a great conclusion.
This book is a slow burner but a comfortable one, it’s easy to read so it’s not boring while you watch things develop, but the final ¼ really comes into it’s own and the pace really changes so I really recommend committing to this book.
Ivy is a complex character, she is tortured with loss (of both loved ones and love itself), guilt, resentment but throughout these feelings you get to experience with her, she is also curious and out actively seeking the truth, she is a very strong and engaging agency in this book, not always right, sometimes frustrating, but layered and she reads as very real.

I enjoyed this read, the writing style was easy to sink into, the atmosphere of the house is intimidating and tense, the atmosphere of Ivy’s marriage is strained and suffocating, you feel the tension on the page, the threat of the house and Ivy’s inner turmoil of guilt, mourning and longing as she tries to come to terms with her past and present.

Thank you NetGalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review

An interesting mystery filled with twists and turns. I wasn’t expecting the outcome and, much like the character, accepted the first answer. Very well done.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin publishing for the opportunity to review this book.
A story of lies, deception love and loss. A crime that has been hidden and the truth and shame is uncovered like layers of an onion.
A truly gothic and historical mystery. brilliantly told.

I am torn with this one as I found it an enjoyable and well written book but there was just something that wasn't quite there for me to push it from a good book into a great book. I really enjoyed the initial set up, learning about the two timelines in 1888 and 1918 and how the world had changed and adapted during the thirty intervening years. We open with the loss of he main character's son and how her grief and the ailing health of her husband causes her to reflect on the past and what was lost then also. The grief felt was handled beautifully and set the tone for the story as it continued.

Overall, I found that the book just fell a little flat as it continued. The pacing was incredibly slow and failed to drive any real tension, it was occasionally difficult to decipher between the 'present' and flashbacks with respect to the narrator character and I found the big twist underwhelming and predictable.

However, the prose itself and the characters kept me reading. I don't confess any love for the main character. I didn't particularly find her a likeable character and they way she treats he husband, who is misrepresented on several occasions is upsetting. I did find the flashbacks to Ivy's past much more intriguing. It was definitely the more atmospheric of the two timelines. The introduction of Agnus, who forms the main crux of the mystery really kept my interest and I found myself wanting to learn more about what happened to her over the story of the main character. However, the promised mystery is never really delivered and just somewhat trails off. It seems we become lost in two different stories both of which end in a rather placid manor and no real tension or twist is revealed. The story just became a little muddy and lost the emotional investment it cultivated at the beginning.

I can see people who prefer a more sedate manor and just a light mystery to a more emotionally driven historical fiction really enjoying this.

Dark an atmospheric as it may be, I found it interesting but a little too slow for my taste. It was quite obvious from the beginning that all characters had something to hide and although Ivy very bravely set out to find the truth, she's hindered by her own experiences and expectations.
The story shows how women were both powerful and powerless at the same time, more than a hundred years ago, although I know that in some places this didn't change much.
I liked it that the story is told alternating between 1888 and 1918. It is beautifully written with touching stories about WWI, which show how much the world has changed between 1888 and 1918.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin for this review copy.

The Key in the Lock is the newest release from Beth Underdown, author of The Witchfinder’s Sister. I absolutely loved The Witchfinder’s Sister so I was really intrigued to pick this one up. In the book, we follow Ivy Boscawen who is struggling with the grief of losing her son Tim in the war. Mourning the loss of his young life, she reflects on the death of another boy decades earlier – a mystery that still haunts her. Though there was a fire and a tragic death, Ivy knows that isn’t the whole truth. Ivy soon discovers if she is ever going to let that night go, she must find out what really happened.

The Key in the Lock is a slow burn mystery. It is atmospheric and Underdown feeds the reader little bits of information as the story progresses. It’s incredibly well-paced and throughout the tale, I was never quite sure who to trust. Each character has their own motivations and Underdown does a terrific job of bringing the characters to life. Ivy is a brilliant protagonist, determined to uncover the truth whilst still learning to cope with the loss of her son. She felt like such a realistic person – she’s flawed and makes mistakes but ultimately wants to do the right thing. The Key in the Lock is a beautifully told story and one that kept me reading for hours on end.

I really enjoyed the way the story was told in two different timelines and the Cornwall setting really comes to life in Underdown’s prose. The Key in the Lock feels very well researched and I did not want this story to end. The Key in the Lock is a stunning historical fiction read and I am so excited to see what Beth Underdown does next.

A superb read. From the first word, the reader is drawn in to the world of Ivy and the secrets that hide behind closed - if not locked - doors. A lifetime in a small community where appearances are most important. Deceiving. Love, loss, compromises, treachery and betrayal. It's all there, concealed behind the doors, the facade of respectability.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free ARC of this book. I have chosen to write this honest review voluntarily.
The story is delivered along 2 timelines with the older tale focusing on a mysterious fire and the second a death during the first world war. A few of the characters are unpleasant, and I found Ivy's cruel behaviour ignoring the calls of her invalid husband because 'it was only a quarter to nine' appalling. The stories were narrated so slowly, I didn't feel the gothic vibe as with 'Rebecca'. I found the book boring and stopped reading at 30%.

The Key in The Lock starts with a strong riff on du Maurier's Rebecca, and in more ways than one dances with that classic Cornish mystery much loved by millions. Ivy Boscowen, coping with unresolved questions surrounding her only son's death in the trenches of World War One, is thrown back to other questions surrounding the death of the son of the handsome local landowner, and the investigation around it, which she became involved in as an assistant to her doctor father.

Ivy weaves between her present and her past, and the life she has had in between these two incidents as she tries to make sense of what she experienced, and sometimes finds even with the wisdom of age she is sometimes much closer to naivety than she maybe comfortable with. Despite Ivy's sheltered small and emotionally diluted life, she still is someone with whom one can sympathise. Struggling as she is to make sense of incidents where she was never seeing the full picture to begin with.

It is precisely Ivy's faults and flaws which elevate The Key in the Lock. Underdown has written not only a captivating mystery, but in Ivy has created a wholly believable character who can speak at once to a life of relative privilege compared to those around her, but also a life which still has a poverty of education, experience and joy. Ivy, is very much a woman of her time, and as culture is currently obsessed with rewriting every historical woman as a "badass," there is something refreshing in finding a woman who operates to actively find the answers she needs within her times restrictions rather than creating a fabulist narrative of the ease of societal change.

While perhaps not as exciting, the quiet and undramatic way Ivy uncovers a truth too long covered up, and with it her own flaws and inadequacies, feels like a powerful and authentic rendering. Ivy struggles to make sense of incidents where she was never given the full picture to begin with. Much as we might like the comfort of feeling that we are wise, all knowing, and exceptional judges of character, it is indeed part of the human condition to actually be foolish, and terribly blinkered to the reality of the situations we often find ourselves in. Ivy in experiencing these flaws in herself also helps us to move past bloated egoism, to a more humble place.

I was sent a copy of The Key in the Lock by Beth Underdown to read and review by NetGalley. I loved this novel, it had oodles of atmosphere and a great sense of time and place. I really came to like the characters and be invested in their stories, seeing how their lives were woven together. The story really brought home how times have changed so drastically since 1918 when the story is set, communication being a case in point. I recommend this book to anyone who likes a well written, evocative story with a good mix of mystery and family ‘saga’.

By day, Ivy Boscawen mourns the death of her son Tim in the Great War. But by night she mourns another boy – one whose murder decades ago haunts her still.

For Ivy is sure that there is more to what happened all those years ago: the fire at the Great House, and the terrible events that came after. A truth she must uncover, if she is ever to be free.

Ohh the storyline was fascinating, deep, intense, thrilling, and shocking! Honestly, as much as I needed to know how it ended-I didn’t want it to! I needed more!! Overall this was a fun, exciting book that gave me several hours of escapism and enjoyment.

A Gothic novel set in two time periods, following the life of one woman. Its perfectly paced and really pulls you into the time period and the settings with a undertone of creepiness that keeps you just wanting more.
Really great Historical novel and would recommend to anyone.