super atmospheric locked room mystery with a touch of the creepy gothic style you would find in the old mystery classic. As well as the feeling that someone is watching you from the shadows. Or maybe it's all in your head .

I never turn down a Nalini Singh novel, so even though it’s not a Romance, I dove right in. It was marketed to me as Glass Onion meets New Zealand Noir, so how could I resist? This is a Gothic Thriller/Locked Room Mystery and it caught me right up in the story.

Quick spoiler-free summary: Luna is the first person pov narrator, and she and 6 friends who haven’t seen each other in a while are meeting up in the alpine region of New Zealand in an old mansion that’s haunted by worse than ghosts: old memories. The title alludes to the fact that instead of 7 of them meeting up, they’re missing one. There should have been 8 of them, but Bea is gone. Luna’s main purpose for going on this trip is closure. She wants to confront Bea’s sister and find out what actually happened.

Luna is also fighting her own issues. She’s slowly going blind. She’s completely freaked out, and hasn’t told anyone. Yet this meet up is supposed to be her final chance to gain information on Bea and to either reconnect with this friend group…or to leave them behind. Almost immediately weird things start happening. Little things that don’t make sense. So while the characters are trying to brush off these little happenings, Luna is taking them much more seriously. But she can’t trust her eyes, so those shadows she’s seeing, are they a person just out of her sight? A killer hiding in the huge mansion? Or like in any true Gothic novel, a glimpse of a ghost?

I have to admit that I do feel the main character, Luna, was an unreliable narrator. A lot of what she did bothered me, but I feel like that’s the point. We’re supposed to feel uncomfortable in some scenes. Her fixation on Bea never sat well with me, and because I didn’t necessarily trust her pov, I had a hard time seeing Bea as the perfect angel she was painted. But with all of the little things growing and becoming big things, it’s hard to tell who’s friend and who’s foe? Shouldn’t you trust your best friends?

This Gothic mystery was intense and surprising. My one caveat: do not expect a romance. This is straight Gothic Thriller. And in true Nalini Singh fashion, be prepared to fall directly into the story, with even the first line being strong. She’s a master of the craft.

***Review copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley

3.75stars—THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN EIGHT by Nalini Singh is a contemporary, adult stand alone, mystery thriller focusing on a tight knit group of friends (Darcie, Ash, Kaea, Phoenix, Vansi, Aaron and Luna) who have gathered together to remember someone they lost.

NOTE : Due to the nature of the story line premise including murder, talk of suicide, and miscarriage, there may be triggers for more sensitive readers.

Told from first person perspective Luna , THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN EIGHT follows Luna, and her group of friends as they venture together to the old manse owned by the Shepherd family. Approximately nine years earlier, Luna’s best friend, and Darcie’s younger sister Beatrice Shepherd committed suicide, something all of the friends struggle to accept. Fast forward to present day, wherein the surviving friends, plus Aaron’s new fiance Grace, have arranged a weekend together to address the proverbial elephant in the room but from the outset strange happenings, mysterious illnesses, death and poisonings threaten years of friendships when the group begins to point fingers at everyone present. As the friends begin to succumb to illness and possible murder, Luna struggles to accept that anything and everything has an intended victim, and the person(s) responsible maybe one of their own.

From the outset Luna drops hints as to the who, what and why. Luna herself is battling an hidden illness, one of which she has never revealed, but her suspicions will come to fruition when madness, jealousy, and a history of family troubles threaten to resurface as the storied past repeats itself, over and over, again.

We are introduced to a large ensemble cast of questionable and unlikeable secondary and supporting characters including Darcie and Ash, Kaea, Phoenix and Vansi, Aaron and his fiance Grace. As the madness begins to spiral out of control, Luna discovers that someone else has declared themself judge, jury and executioner.

THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN EIGHT is a story of secrets and lies, betrayal and vengeance, madness and jealousy, greed and retribution, family, friendships, relationships and love. The premise is intriguing and inviting; the characters are eclectic but often one dimensional. The person(s) responsible was easily deduced.



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Locked-room thriller fans, this one is for you! Eerie, unsettling, and atmospheric! An addictive mystery that builds, like the slow climb of a roller coaster….anticipation of what's coming. And then, once you crest the hill, everything speeds to a lighting conclusion with all the twists and turns you love!

I sort of suspected who inflicted chaos at the mansion. But I needed to add the *sort of* since all the red herrings made me constantly second-guess myself. Even the last page caused me to question what I thought to be true. One of the best unreliable narrator stories I've read in a while!

Other things I enjoyed:
✨New Zealand Alps setting + a snowstorm: perfect for a winter TBR book!
✨Large diverse cast but a single POV: easy to follow
✨Vivid Details: easily envision the eerie mansion with its secret rooms, hidden passages, and burnt building wings.
✨Narration: I toggled between the physical and audiobook. Saskia Maarleveld adds the right amount of tension, really highlighting the little cliffhangers at the end of each chapter and “forcing” me to read beyond my bedtime.

QUIET IN HER BONES is one of my favorite books, so I was thrilled for the opportunity to read Nalini’s latest. I love when a setting becomes a character. This story perfectly weaved in a decrepit house in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a snow storm, as the main character. Everything the other seven people did, revolved around the house and its spooky characteristics. In reading this story, I felt unease, like someone was watching me. The way she described the constant cold weather made me cold! The way she described cobwebs made me cringe!

There were seven characters and I felt like all of them had equal skin in the game. Sometimes when you read a story with multiple characters, someone gets lost in the shuffle, but I felt a connection to all of them. Highly recommend if you’re looking for a unique locked room thriller with multiple suspects and a twisty ending!

There Should Have Been Eight by Nalini Singh
Pub date: November 21, 2023

I’ve been reading Nalini Singh for years; I’ve always been a fan of the Guild Hunter series but I’m loving her foray into thrillers.

In her newest thriller, There Should Have Been Eight, she explores the intricate relationship between friends. The trust we put in those closest to us when our innocence is fresh and untouched and how that changes as we age and see the world through a different lens.

There’s something about friends who’ve distanced themselves due to tragedy and then are brought together in a remote setting that just calls to my thriller loving heart. I just know that the tea is going to be spilled – most likely with a little blood – literally and figuratively. There’s always someone to be blamed and in this case, the plot twists were extremely twisty and I was flummoxed! What! How could they! But everything pulls together beautifully in that aha moment with the perfect chef’s kiss of an ending.

Narration: Saskia Maarleveld does a spectacular job narrating, moving the chapters forward at an exciting pace with perfect elocution. Love listening to her. Bravo and well done!

My thanks to @BerkleyPub for this gifted DRC and to @PRHAudio for this gifted ALC

Thank you to PRH Audio for my review copy.

The audio and the narrator make or break the book, and for some reason something just didn’t work for me. One thing for sure there were a lot of characters and that is always trouble for me on audio. And second, the first half of the book was just a drag. I spaced out too much to follow all the little relationships and problems of each character, that when the reveals started to happen, I didn’t care.

It was just not for me, and I couldn’t tell what happened in most of the plot so that is that.

This is my first book by Nalini Singh and I've surely been missing out. This as a fantastic locked toom thriller. It is expertly crafted and starts as a slow burn thriller with excellent character development. It's a page turner and unputdownable.

While I liked the story, the pace was a bit too slow (especially the first half of the book) for the genre. There are a number of characters to track. Some of the backstory seems a bit unnecessary. The twist wasn't a huge surprise. It's not super dark, as some may assume based on other books by Singh. I would've preferred a bit more suspense, but this was an enjoyable read overall, particularly if you enjoy locked-room, slow-burn mysteries.

There Should Have Been Eight takes place in a secluded mountain valley, one that is cut off by heavy rains followed by a blizzard, leaving eight people, seven of whom have been friends for years trapped in a classic Mousetrap. The title There Should Have Been Eight is a bitter and grieving reminder that one of their friends, the sun they orbited, died nine years earlier. It doesn’t count Grace, the fiancée who is completely new to the group and its dynamics.

Darcie is Bea’s sister and the host for the gathering, inviting the friends to an ancestral manor house in the rugged New Zealand mountains. Luna, our narrator, resents Darcie and has harbored a nugget of anger for nine years. She has found it hard to find closure because Darcie had Bea cremated and scattered. The friends were unable to see Bea, to mourn her and were denied any resting place to visit her. The fact that Darcie married Bea’s lover adds to the sand that scrapes Luna’s soul.

Luna is dealing with a lot. She recently learned she will go blind, progressively losing her field of sight. She is a photographer. Sight is her primary tool in her life’s work.

As soon as the gathering kicks off, things begin to happen that suggest someone came with malignant intentions. Bea’s doll shows up where it shouldn’t be possible. It looks damaged. There seems to be some sabotage. Darcie disappears and is found unconscious in a secret passage. The house is riddled with secret passageways. There is also one wing destroyed by fire where Bea’s great-grandmother died along with two of her children in a fire. A fire Luna suspects was started by her other child, the only survivor of her generation.



There Should Have Been Eight was an absorbing and satisfying mystery. There was real jeopardy, from injury or death. The mystery was fair. We see critical moments that lead to the murderer’s actions. We also learn about past mysteries from generations before and from the current generation. There were seemingly valid reasons Darcie didn’t ship Bea’s body home. The denouement, though is a bit far-fetched, though I definitely identified with Luna’s desperate decision to drive across that flooded bridge. It was such a whatever decision to risk everything to save others.

I received an e-galley of There Should Have Been Eight from the publisher via NetGalley

There Should Have Been Eight at Berkley | Penguin Random House
Nalani Singh

Nalini Singh’s psychological thrillers are always a hit for me. Dark, gothic, atmospheric, and suspenseful—There Should Have Been Eight is a new and captivating nod to the closed circle mysteries made popular by Agatha Christie in And Then There Were None.

In There Should Have Been Eight, seven friends reunite at an aging estate in the New Zealand Southern Alps, but soon find their eight friend who died nine years earlier may only be the first death in the close-knit circle…

I love the slower pace of Australian and European psychological thrillers. They tend to be more character-driven than US thrillers and have twists that are elegant and finely woven compared to the mind-bending “WTF??” ones that we see in the US. As with the other psychological thrillers I’ve read by Nalini Singh (A Madness of Sunshine and Quiet in Her Bones), this is an atmospheric book that verges on gothic fiction. The characters are well-developed and multidimensional, and the story weaves together a past mystery with the present events.

The book is set in a single timeline occurring nine years after the death of Bea, one of eight close friends who have been a tight-knit group since they were teenagers. The group is reuniting (though all have been in one another’s’ lives to some extent in the intervening years) at Darcie’s family estate. The estate is grand but in some disrepair. However, the setting fits the mood as seven friends come together and truly feel the loss of Bea. Darcie and Bea are sisters, and Bea’s absence feels even more haunting at her family estate.

Bea’s death looms over the story. She died nine years earlier, though the circumstances of her death have always been vague. Luna, who is the main character and the sole POV for the story, was in love with Bea, though not sexually or romantically. Bea was a light who Luna describes as drawing everyone close to her. Throughout the book others mention the same thing, that though Darcie is aesthetically the more beautiful, intelligent, and successful of the two sisters, Bea had a magnetism that put her far ahead of her sister in every way.

Luna has also recently learned that she has a degenerative vision condition that will render her fully blind within the next year. Luna hasn’t told the others of her condition. Ironically, it is Luna’s gift with seeing what is right in front of her that helps her intuit what might truly be going on. Luna is a photographer and afraid of the dark, making her condition even more tragic and heartbreaking.

Luna often felt like an unreliable narrator, and I was never sure how much her perception of events was skewed by the loss of Bea. Though she was more intuitive than the others, her unshakable adoration for Bea feels like a pedestal that no real person could possibly live up to. Often, I questioned Luna’s take on the events, in part because Bea seems to be her blind spot. Having the book solely narrated from Luna’s perspective was very effective. Many locked room style mysteries alternate narrators, but here everything is told to the reader by Bea, and the reader is left parsing out what to believe and not believe.

Since Bea’s death, her sister Darcie has married their friend, Ash (though Luna suspects he always loved Bea more). Luna’s best friend Vansi has married her other close friend Phoenix. Kaea has continued to be a charming, handsome playboy, never settling with anyone. Aaron has met an equally kind soul in a person outside of their group, Grace. And Luna is still single, having never been able to get close to another person the way she did with Bea.

The first part of the book builds the characters, relationships, and context. We learn that Bea took her own life, but that Darcie has never shared the circumstance of her death. She also cremated her sister, which deeply upsets Luna who feels she wasn’t able to properly say goodbye. The family graveyard contains the gravestones for Darcie and Bea’s parents, but since Bea was cremated her body doesn’t rest there.

Strange events begin to happen. Darcie and Ash’s home was broken into shortly before the reunion. Multiple characters note an unexplained presence around the estate. A creepy doll that belonged to Bea appears in the house, though Darcie swore it was with Bea when she left for the last time. A storm hits during a hiking excursion and Kaea is injured in a strange accident after his shoes were deliberately damaged.

Luna finds a handwritten recipe book by Clara Shepard, one of Darcie and Bea’s ancestors who was married into the family and sent to live at the estate at nineteen years of age. The recipes are beautifully written and contain sketches, but on closer look they also contain hidden diary entries from Clara. Luna becomes entranced by Clara’s story, and tells no one about the book she has found.

Clara’s story, Bea’s death, and the strange occurrences all lead up to one of the characters meeting an untimely end after a storm has sealed them off from reaching town. Soon it becomes clear that this isn’t a ghost story—someone in their group is seeking revenge, and the only question is who and why?

Clara’s story was a great addition to this book. Between finding out how Clara’s story would end through her diary, Bea’s death, and the current events, I was engaged through the entire book start to finish. As with any good gothic novel, there is a haunted feel to the story and the setting that made it the perfect book to cozy up with on a cold winter evening. I loved the way everything ended and how Singh tied themes together through the different stories. This atmospheric book is a perfect book to curl up by the fireplace with!

Everyone has secrets, and this group more than most! A gripping and tense psychological thriller!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.

I LOVE a good friend group thriller and when it's a locked room mystery too, I am in heaven!

There Should Have Been Eight took a minute to get going as I had to get a handle on this group of friends and their relationships. But once it took off, it was twisty and suspenseful. The New Zealand setting was amazing.

This is my first Nalini Singh book and I will definitely be checking out more of her books!

4.5 stars, rounded up. This one was a slow burn for the first half, while still being really interesting and letting readers get to the meat of the characters and the backstory between them. I was on the edge of my seat with the back half of this one, though, and it gets pretty intense and hard to put down. Excellently done.

3.5 rounded up to 4

I am prefacing this review with the statement that Nalini Singh is one of my favorite authors. I feel I must now change that to one of my favorite paranormal authors. IMHO her mysteries do not deliver the same level of writing that her paranormal romance do. I cherish her world building and her character development. I did not find that in this novel. This novel seemed very small. The setting was small and the characters were small. I had no idea where they were or who they were, and nor did I really care.

This is in a sense a locked room mystery, or in this case a abandoned on an island mystery. New Zealand geography is amazing, yet there really was minimal description given of where they were. The best developed character was the creepy mansion they were trapped in. These 7 people were supposedly really good friends, yet, that never came across. I just really did not like any of these people.

The mystery itself, was pretty obvious. There were tidbits dropped throughout the story leading you to the conclusion. Truthfully there always seemed to be only one answer. While, the ending itself may have seemed to come out of thin air, it was referenced throughout the story.

Received as an ARC from Netgalley for an honest review.

Thank you @berkleypub and @prhaudio for my complimentary copies. My thoughts are my own.
#penguinrandomhousepartner

A reunion of friends at a creepy gothic mansion with secret rooms and hidden passages, a winter storm, flickering power, strange events, and a couple of murders…these elements include EVERYTHING I love in a thriller! This book starts out as a slow burn as the author takes time to develop the setting and the characters, including their histories and a past tragedy. The action definitely picks up during the second half as a suspicious death occurs and one of the group goes missing. The conclusion may have been a little unrealistic, but I definitely enjoyed the ride.

I checked out both the audio and print versions of this book and I enjoyed both. There are a lot of characters with (for me) unusual names. I had difficulty at first figuring out who was male/female and which characters were couples, but once I made a few notes to myself I was able to keep them straight! This is the first book I have read by Nalini Singh and now I definitely plan to check out her other books! Read this if you love gothic thrillers with lots of drama and atmosphere!

Massive thanks to NetGalley & Berkley Publishing for the gifted copy, which I voluntarily read & reviewed.

There Should’ve Been Eight by Nalini Singh is an ominous & perfectly captivating mystery novel about a group of friends reuniting years later in a remote mansion for one unforgettable weekend. This group of friends is bonded through the years of love & friendship from school & sadly still reeling from the loss of one of them from years prior. There’s marriage troubles, life-changing diagnosis, terrifying events & so much more coupled with the fact that they are gathering in a gigantic house in the middle of nowhere with quite a dark past. Cue the sinister soundtrack & buckle in for one haunting ride!

There Should’ve Been Eight is great for fans of…
🖤Twisted Mystery
🖤Isolated/Remote Location
🖤Haunted House
🖤Reunion of Group with Tragic Past
🖤Disability/Chronic Illness Rep.

If you’re stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a group of your oldest & dearest friends & horrific things keep happening, who do you question? What is happening? Who is the culprit? These are the thoughts that were constantly racing through my mind as I hurriedly flipped through this story having to know what happened next. The gothic house in the isolated location with rough weather set the perfect tone that had my stomach clenched with nerves as I read.

The beginning starts at a slower pace as there are more than a handful of friends & both their pasts & presents to establish. Once the story is set up, the mysterious events begin & I was beyond intrigued.

The main character telling the story has a recent life changing diagnosis & the chaotic feelings & anxiety from recent chronic illness felt so realistic. As a disabled person, I am always grateful to see representation.

If you are looking for a clever & secluded surprising mystery, There Should’ve Been Eight is a fantastic recommendation!

It took me a minute to figure out a rating for There Should Have Been Eight by Nalini Singh, and that may have just been me, but this is a hard one y'all! The overall pacing of this book is very slow, and it would be extremely easy to lose focus, especially if you are listening to a bad audiobook. Luckily for me, the audiobook for this was very good, and despite Saskia Maarleveld having a very odd mix of fast and slow narration (no idea what this is due to but not her fault), she 100% kept me glued to the story and on the edge of my seat. I did love the hidden passageways and the general eeriness of the atmosphere, it just took a little too long for the action to hit.

Around the 70% mark things do end up getting pretty wild, and I had to slow the audiobook down to make sure I didn't miss anything. Luna's vision problems started to make things pretty interesting, and it kept making me wonder if I was getting the full picture of what was going on. If you find yourself getting bogged down by the pacing of There Should Have Been Eight, I fully suggest you hang on because the end is definitely worth the wait! The twist was a jaw-dropper and added in with the secluded setting and the superb characterization made this slow burn still hit with a punch.

*4.5 Stars On My Instagram Account*

"We called ourselves friends but we were more ghosts of friends pasts."

Whew! There Should Have Been Eight by new favorite thriller author Nalini Singh took me on a twisty ride of red herrings, WTF just happened chapter endings, and reveals I never even thought of in my wildest imagination.

They have known each other since they were trouble making teens but have scattered over the last nine years since the untimely death of their friend Bea. Now the remaining seven are reuniting at Bea's family estate, high in the beautiful but often deadly Southern Alps of New Zealand, with her sister Darcie.

It's through Luna's eyes that this chilling tension filled thriller unfolds which is appropriate since no one knows she's slowly losing her eyesight from a genetic disease. Before she's blind she wants to look into the eyes of the remaining friends because something has never seemed right about Bea's death and her cremation with no funeral. None of them got to say goodbye.

To add to the gothic atmospheric mood of this creepy mansion with its hidden rooms and eerie paintings is the sudden freezing blizzard making them all trapped with their secrets, lies and after a fall (maybe push?) down the stairs, a dead body.

The writer sets us up during the first half explaining relationships, past loves, new lovers and revelations about Bea that are not just shocking to us but to Luna too.

Then in the second half the author blows it all up with turns that will give you whiplash of the brain. The last few chapters left me breathless and up until 3 am to finish it.

There Should Have Been Eight should be a limited series ready to be produced by Netflix. You should already be reading it.

I received a free copy of this book from Berkley Publishing via #NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

I adore 'locked room' mysteries. I think that author Nalini Singh does as well! Her new novel - There Should Have Been Eight - starts out with a get together of old friends - minus one.

What else does a locked room tale need? A 'been in the family for decades' old pile. Complete with hidden rooms. Oh, and it has a burned out wing. And....it's also way out on it's own, far from the village. Mobile signal? Good luck with that. A perfect setting. Loved it.

Our lead character is Luna. She her own issues, but isn't ready to share with the others just yet. She's also a photographer which works well for this character. I really liked her personally, her way of looking at things, her thoughts, and her decisions. The others are a mixed bag with many of them now coupled up. Lots of personalities.

Singh tells her book in a now and then timeline fashion. Again, a style I like and appreciate. Readers glean bits and bobs from the both time frames. Do they match? Do they remember it? Has someone got their own agenda? Who can we trust as readers? For me, they're all suspects. I started to narrow down my choice for 'whodunit' as the end drew near. I was (happily) surprised by a great gotcha.

Suspense is the name of the game in this book. It kept me interested and and invested from first page to last! I would happily pick up another book from Nalini Singh.

A spooky old house with a dark past isolated on the edge of the wilderness, eight guests who share a painful connection, and a storm closes them in right when the disturbing incidents appear to be more. Talk about the perfect set up for a modern gothic suspense, right?



Nalini Singh had the chills running up my spine and my undivided attention once things got rolling in her latest standalone thriller, There Should Have Been Eight.



Acclaimed photographer and slowly going blind, Lu, is the one narrating the story from the point she returns to New Zealand to join her six surviving besties and to meet one’s fiancée. The entire group, a diverse ethnic and socially, are conscious that they are missing one of their friend group- Beatrice. Bea was the lively member who held them all together and they split into their various careers and lives when she was gone. But, Bea’s older sister has opened up their old family home for the group to gather and events are set in motion. Lu is determined to use this trip back to get answers about the circumstances of Bea’s death.



There Should Have Been Eight starts slowly with a blend of present and past as the group of friends are introduced along with their connection to Bea. Meanwhile, they settle into the old rattling Victorian era house that was left empty for many years and is not modernized so generator power and fireplace heat. Lu is sensitive to the atmosphere of the place that is a photographer’s dream if one wants gothic. I liked how the disturbing incidents start as a trickle and then build so that they are all facing a drastic life and death situation, isolated and looking warily at each other.



I thought I was so clever to have figured out the who, but I only had the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, in that I got part of the truth, but there was a whole lot more that I didn’t get. I loved that feeling of not knowing who to trust and this made for a fantastic suspense. The denouement even had a couple extra twists just when I was starting to relax.



In summary, this was superb and my favorite of Singh’s thrillers so far. If you’re looking for an old-style spooky atmospheric slow-build suspense, look no further.